JetBlue's big European announcement!

UPDATE: they've officially announced the A321-LR with London as the destination starting in 2021!

As I expected, details are scant. Seth Miller has a live Twitter feed with lots of good images and quotes.

All the travel blogosphere has been waiting for JetBlue's "big announcement" today. While there was no official word from JetBlue about the topic of the announcement, they cheekily included a London Underground seat fabric pattern in the background to drive heaps of speculation that it's about new transatlantic service. They've been teasing this for years, and this really does seem like the "put up or shut up" moment for it. While the announcement won't happen for a few more hours, their cakemaker's Instagram post seems to indicate London and Paris are the first destinations.

While a lot of folks have dreamed of having a new and exciting (and hopefully more valuable) way to redeem their fixed-value TrueBlue points, JetBlue silently devalued their points for Mint redemptions, making them worth only 1¢ each. I pointed this out last summer, and the mainstream blogs finally noticed this last month, too. While a 1.4¢ to 1.0¢ devaluation doesn't sound like much, it means your points are now worth 30% less when you use them to fly in their Mint Business Class cabin. The puts a big damper on any excitement I might have about burning our points for an impulse flight to London to, say, look for a door knob.

JetBlue's current Mint seat

Everyone seems to be assuming that any transatlantic flight would have Mint, but no one is sure if it's going to be their current setup, or something new entirely. Australian Business Traveler is predicting a move to the Vantage Solo seat (an updated version of their current seat), but we're not even 100% sure of which aircraft they'd be using.

The A318 we took from JFK to London City

The assumption is they'd use an extended-range A321 given that their entire Mint fleet is A321s, but there's also a chance they could launch with the new Airbus A220. The A220 is smaller than the A321, but can still fly transatlantic. JetBlue already has A220s on order, and their executives have talked about creating a "Junior Mint" Business Class cabin for it. For now, all jetBlue is saying is that they're "developing a reimagined, transatlantic version of its premium Mint product which will feature more lie-flat seats than currently offered on the airline’s existing A321 aircraft" and that they'll "create an intimate and exclusive travel experience".

Personally, I'd have loved it if they'd chosen the A220 and flown to London City, but now that we know they're launching with the A321LR, London City is out of the picture, as the 321 is too large to land there. Since most of the pundits are saying that JetBlue paying the sky-high price for a Heathrow slot is a long shot, I'd say Gatwick is probably the next-best due to the good train connection, then Stansted, and Luton (tied).

On the other end, I don't want to just assume the flight will be out of NYC. Given that Boston is a big hub for them, I could also see them launching service from Boston.