JetBlue Founder Backing New U.S. Airline
by Barbara Peterson /
According to news reports, David Neeleman, the founder of JetBlue and now de facto chief of Portuguese flag carrier TAP Air Portugal, is backing a possible new entrant in the U.S.
The proposed airline, dubbed Moxy, envisages using a fleet of up to 60 Bombardier C-Series jets, with capacity for 120-145 seats, and deploying them at mid-size and smaller airports like Providence, Newburgh, N.Y. and Ontario in California. Moxy is in its early stages, and seeking to raise $100 million before launching sometime in 2020. Based on a presentation to potential investors, it does not appear Neeleman would be actively running the airline.
Rather, Neeleman is actively involved in both Azul, often described as the JetBlue of Brazil, as well as TAP – and new aircraft types are a key feature of their growth plans. During appearances in New York last week, Neeleman noted that TAP is the launch customer for the Airbus A330 Neo, a new, highly efficient version of the aircraft, and that it’s expected to take delivery of 18 of the jets over the next 15 months, with seven expected to arrive in the fall of this year.
The airline now plans to double its North American gateways from five to ten and to launch nonstop flights to the West Coast.
TAP is also eyeing new nonstop flights between Lisbon and both San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as to other cities such as Chicago and Washington. “San Francisco is very important to TAP,” Neeleman said during a speech to the U.S.-Portugal Chamber of Commerce, adding that “there’s the tech sector, and a very large Portuguese community there.”
Aside from Lisbon, it is expanding service between the U.S and other points in Portugal such as Porto—which will soon have daily flights to New York and Boston—and the Azores. And it plans to take delivery of single aisle jets like the Airbus A321, which have the range to operate transatlantic flights to smaller U.S. cities, such as Hartford, CT.
During a day-long Portugal blitz in New York last week - which featured, among other things, the country’s Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, honoring two surfers who rode the world’s “biggest wave” off Nazare -- officials from the airline and the tourism departments said the U.S. market is booming. According to Luis Araujo, president of Portugal's tourism board, travel from the U.S. to Portugal has quadrupled in the last decade, and TAP’s stopover program, which offers a layover of up to three days in Portugal at no additional cost, brought in an additional 150,000 customers last year.
“A few years ago no one I knew had ever been to Portugal,” Neeleman cracked, “and now everyone is going there.”