We're glad JetBlue is staying in NYC, and keeping up its service for JFK.
We encourage JetBlue's 900 employees to celebrate by putting on some
JFK t-shirts.
New York Times
March 22, 2010
JetBlue to Move West Within Queens, Not South to Orlando
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
If running JetBlue Airways does not work out, perhaps David Barger could try his hand at professional poker.
Mr. Barger and his executive team kept city and state officials in New York and Florida guessing past dawn on Monday before announcing that they had decided to keep the airline’s headquarters in Queens rather than decamping for Orlando. Word of the official decision drew a pack of New York politicians, including Gov. David A. Paterson, to a celebration at City Hall but left people in Central Florida deflated.
JetBlue’s choice brought relief to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his staff, who had spent months pulling together a set of incentives to keep Mr. Barger’s team from moving nearly 900 jobs out of the city and leaving New York without a locally based major airline.
Since it started as a low-fare carrier at Kennedy International Airport a decade ago, JetBlue has called itself “New York’s hometown airline.”
Still, it took a package of tax breaks, investments and marketing programs with an estimated value of more than $30 million to persuade JetBlue to stay, according to city officials. They said the competing offer from Orlando, which offered to build a headquarters from scratch, appeared to be worth significantly more, possibly twice as much.
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