JetBlue became the second commercial airline to bring regular passenger service to Vero Beach on Thursday when its first jets landed from – and then departed to – John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and Logan Airport in Boston, both more or less on time.
JetBlue’s now daily Flight 1715 from JFK landed about 20 minutes late at about 12:10 p.m. because it left New York slightly behind schedule, and then the 87 inbound passengers had to wait on the tarmac for another 25 minutes while a new untrained ground crew had several attempts at lining up the mobile jetway to the plane’s door so they could get off the plane.
The passengers didn’t seem to mind. JetBlue had made a celebration out of the inaugural flight, raffling off free tickets on future flights during the trip and announcing a promotion of $69 tickets on JetBlue to and from Vero Beach for the next two days.
The second daily JetBlue flight from and to Boston arrived about 15 minutes early and left on time – with just enough time left to avoid congestion with the next flight from Breeze, the airline that has been providing passenger service to and from Vero Beach since 2023. A Breeze flight had left for Providence, RI, just before the first JetBlue flight landed from JFK, and just after the second JetBlue flight had departed back to Boston, Breeze was servicing its next flight to Washington-Dulles.
JetBlue said it was happy with the response to its inaugural flights. The JFK flight had 87 incoming passengers and 92 outbound, while the Boston flight had 79 incoming and 85 outbound passengers. Both planes, Airbus 320s, were about 75% full. “We’re off to a good start,” one local JetBlue manager said.
Next February, the Vero Beach Regional Airport will get a third airline when American Eagle, a regional feeder airline for American Airlines, starts flying twice a week to Charlotte, NC.
“The first arrival may not have gone quite as smoothly as we had wished,” Vero Beach Airport Director Todd Scher said at a brief ceremony for the inaugural flight, “but this is a milestone event in the history of our airport and our city, providing unprecedented access from Vero Beach to the major hubs in the Northeast.”
Scher, Vero Beach Mayor John Cotugno, city councilmen Aaron Vos and John Carroll, Indian River County Commissioner Laura Moss and Jeffrey Goodell, JetBlue’s vice president for government and airport affairs, participated in a symbolic ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Goodell said he was pleased that JetBlue would now bring new people to Vero Beach to experience its “exceptional quality of life.”
