JetBlue A321 Economy JFK-LAX Review: Is This The Best US Transcon Deal?

Rating: 5/5 (Good as it gets for transcontinental economy)

Route: JFK-LAX (depart 8:00PM arrive 11:10AM)

Price: $274 paid for with my Amex Platinum (pricey for a one-way transcon but I booked this last minute, so not a surprise. This flight earned me 1,370 Amex MR points, worth about $23 to me (at ~1.7 cents per point each)

Introduction

As I detail in this post, I originally had a week off where I was going to go to South America, but that ended up being cancelled last minute. So, with a bunch of newfound free time, my plan was now to head out to Singapore (for the second time this year) from NYC. The only problem was that there weren’t any good flights out of NYC to Singapore last minute, so the first part of my trip was a “positioning” flight to LA. I put “positioning” in quotations because LA is a nice destination in and of itself, plus I got to stay with friends for a few days while out there.

In this post, you’ll find:

The first leg of my trip was this positioning flight on Jetblue economy, which I booked fairly last minute via cash. I could’ve used points, but in general I like to preserve my points for aspirational award redemptions.

Jetblue, and this flight specifically, is my favorite way to get from coast to coast. Service is almost always friendlier (at least in economy) than mainline US carriers. Additionally, the IFE and seats on their transcon fleet is as good as it gets. This flight time specifically is my favorite to fly (mid morning Westbound) because it allows you to get an actual night’s sleep on the east coast, and then you still have a full day to enjoy once on the west coast since you’re flying backwards in time.

Ground Experience at JFK

Jetblue flies out of Terminal 5 at JFK. As far as JFK goes, terminal 5 is pretty decent. It’s entirely catered to Jetblue, which makes navigating around super easy if flying them. There are no lounges in T5, so it’s never worth arriving early if flying out of here. I didn’t mind, since my flight was departing at 8am, and I wanted to get as much sleep as possible ahead of flying one lap around the planet in a week.

I Ubered to JFK this morning, which was not too busy:

Security with TSA precheck was super quick, and within 5 minutes I was airside and heading to my gate for today’s flight.

My flight to LAX was at the very far end of the terminal this morning (gate 514). The seating area was not busy at all, which was expected given this was a fairly empty narrowbody flight this morning.

Boarding began promptly starting with Jetblue Mint, then everyone else. Given the light load today, the flight was pretty much fully boarded within 10 minutes.

Jetblue’s A321s are primarily used on high-yield transcon routes (i.e JFK to LAX/SFO, BOS to LAX/SFO, etc). This aircraft features 182 seats, in the following configuration:

16 x Thompson Aero Vantage seats in a 2-2, 1-1 configuration

41 x Collins Pinnacle “Even More Space” Seats

121 x Collins Pinnacle “Core” Economy Seats

Today, I was all the way back in economy core, which still has great legroom at 32″ of pitch. This is as good as it gets for economy in general nowadays.

Jetblue’s A321 also has good tech – good mood lighting, and really good IFE screens at each seat. I hate when some planes nowadays cheap out on IFE screens, especially on flights over a few hours.

After a quick taxi, we were airborne and en route to LAX. I watched Hacks for most of the flight.

One of my favorite things about Jetblue is the fact that they have an open pantry for economy passengers throughout the flight, with grab and go snacks and drinks. This is unique for any US airline in economy. Probably among the many reasons why Jetblue isn’t in the greatest financial shape right now, but hey it’s a consumer surplus business … as long as it lasts.

Conclusion

All in all, Jetblue is my favorite way to cross the US. Service is always pretty good, they have complimentary snack / food options, and good IFE. Most importantly, they have some of the best legroom in main economy out there. Barring any crazy price differences, they are my favorite way to fly transcon on a budget. Next stop – hanging out in LA for a few days, then lounge hopping at LAX, and then off to Asia.