JetBlue, Aer Lingus bring Ireland into JFK’s T5

Aer Lingus and JetBlue have announced that the Irish carrier will be moving its operations at JFK into T5, JetBlue’s flagship terminal. The move will happen in Q1 2013 at which point the minimum connection time for interline passengers will drop to as short as 40 minutes. The move will also offer better in-terminal facilities for the Aer Lingus customers versus the current operations in T4.

This move comes a few years before completion of the planned international arrivals facility, T5i, which is planned to open in 2015. Thanks to the pre-clearance screening of inbound passengers from Ireland, however, this will not be an issue for Aer Lingus as flights into the US operate as “domestic” arrivals.

Aer Lingus is the second partner carrier to move in to T5; Hawaiian Airlines launched their JFK-HNL service from the terminal five weeks ago. With the Aer Lingus operations there will be only 24 weekly partner frequencies at T5. That’s not too many and shouldn’t limit JetBlue’s ability to grow while waiting for the T5i facility to be built.

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