{"id":192023,"date":"2025-09-09T21:45:03","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T21:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/09\/jetblue-officially-retires-its-smallest-most-dated-plane-the-points-guy\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T21:45:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T21:45:03","slug":"jetblue-officially-retires-its-smallest-most-dated-plane-the-points-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/09\/jetblue-officially-retires-its-smallest-most-dated-plane-the-points-guy\/","title":{"rendered":"JetBlue officially retires its smallest, most dated plane – The Points Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"


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JetBlue customers can rejoice \u2014 maybe with a dash of nostalgia. The airline just bid farewell to its smallest, most outdated fleet of planes.<\/p>\n

With a short flight on Tuesday from New York to Boston, the carrier officially marked the retirement of its Embraer 190, the 100-seat regional jet that had been a staple of its East Coast service for two decades.<\/p>\n

It’s the first aircraft JetBlue has fully phased out in its quarter-century of flying.<\/p>\n

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JetBlue Embraer 190 following its retirement flight. SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was also a time machine, of sorts. Passengers who boarded got an instant throwback to the 2000s, with legacy screens at every seat. Onboard Tuesday’s flight to document the aircraft’s retirement, I could almost hear the early-century ESPN theme music that would’ve been blaring through my headphones during any JetBlue flight of the late 2000s.<\/p>\n

But in 2025, the E190 cabin no longer evoked the “cheap chic” vibe that defined JetBlue’s rise<\/a> at the turn of the century \u2014 or the modern aesthetic found on board its newer planes.<\/p>\n

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Seatback screen on a JetBlue Embraer 190. SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A 20-year run for JetBlue’s smallest aircraft<\/h2>\n

JetBlue launched service on the E190 20 years ago, becoming the first airline to fly the Brazilian planemaker’s then-new aircraft and, in the process, debuting perhaps the best economy experience offered by any U.S. airline on a regional jet.<\/p>\n

The aircraft also became a linchpin of JetBlue’s network.<\/p>\n

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A JetBlue Embraer 190 in January 2020. NICOLAS ECONOMOU\/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Six years ago, the carrier operated more than 120,000 flights with the jet, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium \u2014 even as JetBlue received newer, far more modern planes with touchscreens and lie-flat seats.<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, JetBlue executives confirmed the summer 2025 would mark the end of the E190’s run.<\/a><\/p>\n

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And the official end came on Tuesday \u2014 but not without a little sentimentality.<\/p>\n

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SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Crewmembers from the flight deck and cabin signed a banner commemorating the end of a plane that carried millions of passengers over nearly two decades \u2014 especially in and out of JetBlue’s Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) hub, where leaders say it was integral to unlocking new destinations for the airline.<\/p>\n

“The E190 gave us something incredible: the ability to grow with flexibility and fresh destinations,” CEO Joanna Geraghty said, speaking Tuesday in New York. “It gave us Boston.”<\/p>\n

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JetBlue CEO Joanna Geraghty. SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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JetBlue E190 retirement flight<\/h2>\n

Boston, therefore, marked a fitting final destination for the plane, which filled up with JetBlue dignitaries for the final, aptly-numbered Flight 190 from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK).<\/p>\n

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SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“A really special flight,” said Capt. Warren Christie, JetBlue’s chief operating officer, who piloted Tuesday’s flight \u2014 celebrating both the retirement of both the aircraft and his own flying career.<\/p>\n

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JetBlue captain and chief operating officer Warren Christie (left) flew Tuesday’s retirement flight, his last as a commercial pilot. SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Flight B6 190 offered plenty of reminders of why JetBlue is moving on from this jet, from the aging entertainment systems to past-their-prime seats and on-board Wi-Fi that didn’t work during the flight.<\/p>\n

There’s also a matter of the overhead bins, too small for many travelers’ bags in 2025: “We’re going to have a lot of gate checks,” I heard one agent say with practice (and, I detected, a hint of nostalgia).<\/p>\n

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SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Still, it was a historcal moment. And JetBlue celebrated with commemorative tokens at every seat. Passengers responded in kind with applause \u2014 both at takeoff and at landing, which came after just over a half-hour of flying time on a blue-sky day.<\/p>\n

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SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

On the ground in New England, JetBlue staffers and many passenger (this one included) had the chance to step outside the aircraft, pick up a permanent marker and sign the aircraft fuselage.<\/p>\n

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TPG senior aviation reporter Sean Cudahy signs JetBlue’s final Embraer 190. SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looming in the background, one gate over: a JetBlue Airbus A220, the far more modern and fuel efficient 140-seat aircraft that the carrier sees as the E190’s worthy successor.<\/p>\n

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A JetBlue Airbus A220 at Boston Logan International Airport (BOS). SEAN CUDAHY\/THE POINTS GUY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“It is such a better customer experience than the 190,” JetBlue President Marty St. George said of the A220 at Logan Tuesday. “Not that the 190 was bad. We went from good to really, really, really good. So it’s only going to be better for our customers.”<\/p>\n

JetBlue will continue to complement its A220 with its larger A320 and A321 variant planes, including its long haul-capable aircraft that are equipped with the airline’s latest-generation Mint Suites up front.<\/a><\/p>\n

Planes that don’t have Mint today will soon be in line to get outfitted with the carrier’s all-new domestic first-class recliners<\/a> starting in 2026.<\/p>\n

This E190, meanwhile, will be headed to the desert of Arizona on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Related reading:<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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JetBlue customers can rejoice \u2014 maybe with a dash of nostalgia. The airline just bid farewell to its smallest, most outdated fleet of planes. With a short flight on Tuesday from New York to Boston, the carrier officially marked the retirement of its Embraer 190, the 100-seat regional jet that had been a staple of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":192024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-192023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-travel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}