While the biggest airport serving the nation’s capital is Washington Dulles International (IAD), those looking to avoid an hourlong drive through Virginia traffic can also use the smaller Washington Reagan (DCA).
The airport is right in DC proper and, because of its proximity to the White House and the Pentagon, is subject to a number of additional safety rules around how and which airlines can use it.
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JetBlue Airways (JBLU) , which uses both Dulles and Washington Reagan for flights from different parts of the U.S., has been significantly scaling back its presence from the latter.
These JetBlue routes are being either axed or significantly scaled down
First observed by some aviation fans on social media platforms like X and reported by website Simple Flying, the airline is fully cutting its service between DCA and Fort Myers, Fla. and bringing down how often it runs routes from Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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Between Oct. 2024 and March 2025, JetBlue will cut down the number of weekly flights it runs into and out of DCA from 27 to 20. An internal memo shared by @JonNYC on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, reads that the airline is “announcing adjustments to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport for this upcoming winter travel season” while also not resuming the JFK-DCA flight it had cut earlier this year and initially planned to bring back.
Since a federal judge blocked JetBlue’s plan to acquire low-cost competitor Spirit Airlines (SAVE) back in February, the airline has taken major steps to rework its flight network and axe any routes not bringing in necessary traffic (and thereby profits.)
At the start of March, it exited the markets of Kansas City and Newburgh, N.Y. entirely while also doing a similar cut of service from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) — from a peak of 34 flights a day to 24.
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Two months later in May, JetBlue also announced that it will axe all winter flights to London’s Gatwick Airport (LGW) and reduce its flight between JFK and Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG) to just once per day instead of the previous two. Instead, the airline plans to reroute its focus on markets such as Puerto Rico and the Bahamas in advance of the holiday sun-seeker period.
“These moves will allow us to redeploy our fleet to increase frequencies on well-performing routes from JetBlue's focus cities while continuing to increase crucial ground time for our aircraft, reducing the chance of delays for our customers," JetBlue's VP of Network Planning and Airline Partnerships David Jehn wrote in an internal memo at the time.
All of that comes as the airline has to restructure its growth plan now that its former plans to expand through acquiring JetBlue have been sacked.
Meanwhile Spirit, which has been reporting a series of losses in each quarter, has become the subject of swirling bankruptcy rumors as its Hail Mary of being rescued by JetBlue is no longer on the table while its past strategies to bring in profit are yet to materialize.
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