Cruising Altitude is a weekly column about air travel. Have a suggestion for a future topic? Fill out the form or email me at the address at the bottom of this page.
IN THE AIR FROM NEW YORK TO BOSTON ― JetBlue flew its last revenue flight with an Embraer E190 on Tuesday. Most casual travelers have probably never even heard of the plane, but according to the airline’s CEO Joanna Geraghty, the retirement marks the end of an era at JetBlue.
“These are our first aircraft that we’ve ever retired, so that has a little bit of emotion in it,” Geraghty told me before Flight 190 took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York one last time. “We were the launch customer for it, so we actually brought it online. That comes with a lot of challenges and a lot of very new learnings for everybody, and I’m really proud of what we were able to do with the 190.”
JetBlue was the first airline in the world to bring E190s into its fleet in 2005.
As an airline reporter, I’ve now gotten to cover three airline fleet retirements in my career so far, each of which was special in its own way.
