JetBlue Airways offers one-month pass costing just $599 for unlimited flying

In perhaps the first promotion of its kind, JetBlue Airways, the low-cost airline based in New York, the United States, is offering a pass costing just $599 in which passengers can book an unlimited amount of flights within a period of one month. The cost of the pass includes fees for domestic flights. However, taxes for Puerto Rico as well as for international flights are not included in the pass.

Those holding the ‘all-you-can-fly’ pass are allowed to fly to any of the 56 destinations of JetBlue Airways between September 8, 2009, and October 8, 2009, with no limitations on seats or blackout dates, the carrier said in a press release.

Passengers can book flights up to three days before they wish to travel. If a passenger cancels or changes his reservations less than three days before the flight, he is subject to a fee of $100, according to JetBlue Airways.

In order to buy the pass, passengers have to enroll in TrueBlue, the loyalty programme of JetBlue Airways.

JetBlue Airways said passengers must buy the $599-pass by August 21, 2009, and that the offer “might end earlier, at the airline’s discretion.” The passes are to be bought over the phone.

Traffic data given out recently by JetBlue Airways – which operates services in the United States, South America and the Caribbean – shows that the airline’s load actor (a measure of how full an aircraft is) dropped by 0.5% in July 2009.

Aviation analysts see the unusual $599-pass as a part of the efforts by JetBlue Airways to get more people flying once the peak summer travel season in the United States ends and also at a time when the passenger-airline sector worldwide is suffering from decreased demand for air travel on account of the economic recession.

The website bloomberg.com quoted Bob McAdoo, an airline equities analyst at the United States-based investment banking firm Avondale Partners, as commenting that he “has never seen a promotion by an airline like this before.”

“This is a way to get people to pay attention,” Bob McAdoo added, “with publicity that does not cost JetBlue Airways much,” and the company is “doing this at a time when there are probably lots of seats available anyway.”

Incidentally, Air Canada, the flag-carrier of Canada and the country’s biggest airline, had launched a similar promotion in 2007, by offering an unlimited flight pass starting at $1,657 a month.