JetBlue spurns Long Beach to grow at LAX in West Coast shift

JetBlue Airways will make Los Angeles International its primary base in Southern California, abandoning Long Beach Airport after years of tension. Daily flights will double to 70 by 2025 as part of a five-year expansion plan at Los Angeles International, or LAX, the airline said in a statement Thursday. The carrier will add domestic and international flights as it competes for a bigger share of the busy Los Angeles market. JetBlue will be expanding in a highly competitive airport, where each of the four largest US carriers holds at least a 15% share of passengers. The airline will leave behind a troubled relationship with Long Beach, where city officials blocked the carrier’s plans to add international flights in 2018 and imposed fines for flights that violated a local 10 p.m. noise curfew. Contentious talks between the two sides delayed construction of a $45m terminal. “The transition to LAX, serving as the anchor of our focus city strategy on the West Coast, sets JetBlue up for success in Southern California,” Scott Laurence, head of revenue and planning, said in the statement. “We continue to seize on opportunities to emerge from this pandemic a stronger competitive force in the industry.”<br/>