Airline Stocks – JetBlue new nonstop service from Sacramento to Cancun begins

JetBlue will begin service to Cancun from the capital city beginning Thursday with three weekly flights from Sacramento International Airport, the carrier announced as part of its push to the Caribbean.

The low-fare carrier has nonstop service to Cancun from Sacramento International as low as $159 one-way, its website showed Wednesday afternoon, for dates in March, April and beyond. Tickets are available on the airline’s site.

The new flights to the Mexican resort city will operate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, Sacramento International Airport officials said in a statement announcing the new service.

Sacramento’s Jet Blue service joins Mexico-based Volaris with flights south of the border. Volaris announced its nonstop service from Sacramento to Mexico City last fall. American Airlines also launched seasonal service between Sacramento and Cabo San Lucas over the winter holidays, joining Alaska and Southwest airlines.

“We’re excited to see our airline partners expanding their schedules and routes, giving our passengers a growing number of options for great destinations in Mexico, California and throughout the west,” Cindy Nichol, Sacramento County Department of Airports director, said in the statement.

Travel industry website Caribbean Journal in December pointed to the Mexican Caribbean’s reopening last June and what a resort destination that’s open for business will mean for a struggling airline industry crushed by the coronavirus pandemic.

“No destination in the wider Caribbean is seeing more interest from airlines right now than Cancun,” the travel journal wrote in December.

Indeed, United, which also flies out of Sacramento, broadened its service to the Yucatan resort area from San Francisco and Los Angeles international airports.

The pandemic pushed JetBlue “to find new ways of operating our business and we’ve adapted at a pace we’ve never seen before, pivoting our network in response to changing customer demand,” Scott Laurence, JetBlue’s head of revenue and planning, told Caribbean Journal.