JetBlue Airways plans to announce two new destination cities shortly as it seeks to focus on less competitive routes where it can charge more for tickets, its chief executive said.
JetBlue has warned it faces a second-straight yearly loss in 2006 and its shares have dropped 35 percent so far this year amid concern that it failed to plan on fuel prices in the range of USD$60 a barrel.
"We're going to diversify the route system into a lot of new routes," David Neeleman told an investor conference. "We feel really good about what we're doing going forward."
In addition to the two destinations, which spokeswoman Jenny Dervin confirmed will be announced on Friday, the airline will open 7 new gates at its base airport, New York's JFK International, by June 1.
That will bring its total gates at JFK to 21 and allow the airline to boost its flights, potentially serving more short-to-medium haul routes which have less competition.
Neeleman said the airline could add as many as six additional destinations this year.
Some of JetBlue's most recent routes go from New York to Richmond, Virginia; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Maine. They are a departure from the competitive routes on which the airline had focused between Florida and the northeastern US, and between California and the US East Coast, where it struggled to raise fares.
Dervin declined to identify the destination cities to be named on Friday.
