USA: JetBlue Starts Flights From Fort Lauderdale To Quito, Ecuador

As previously announced, JetBlue is starting today its service from Fort Lauderdale to Quito, Ecuador. The South American country becomes the 22nd country served by the airline. The service comes to compete with Ecuadorean carrier Tame, which already offers flights between both cities.

“Quito is one of the fastest growing destinations in Latin America and a world-class tourism destination. We are thrilled to bring our award-winning service and low fares to this underserved market,” said Dave Clark, vice president network planning at JetBlue.

Flights from Ft. Lauderdale will depart at 19:00 local, with arrival to Quito at 22:30. Departures from Quito will be at midnight and an early arrival to Ft. Lauderdale at 05:17, all local times. Although the flight will primarily serve an ever growing O&D traffic between South America and Florida, the schedule is flexible enough to allow connection to JetBlue’s network. JetBlue will operate the route using its 150-seat Airbus A320s.

“JetBlue will soon offer more than 100 daily flights to destinations across our network. Whether travelers are coming from South Florida, the northeast or the west coast, it’s never been easier to visit Ecuador’s historic capital city” Clark said.

From Fort Lauderdale, JetBlue also offers direct services to Bogotá, Cartagena and Medellin in Colombia, and to Lima in Peru. Last year, JetBlue added Mexico City as well. Quito is the fifth Latin American destination of the New-York based low-cost carrier.

“The arrival of JetBlue will have a positive impact on the development of tourism from and to the United States and it will offer Ecuadorian passengers greater connectivity from Fort Lauderdale” said said Andrew O’Brian, president and CEO of Corporación Quiport, the concessionaire of Quito’s Mariscal Sucre International Airport. Since its inauguration in 2013, the new Quito International Airport serves more than five million passengers per year.