JetBlue will start direct daily service from Norfolk to Boston beginning April 30, the company announced Wednesday morning.
The flights will run through Oct. 30 but JetBlue could expand its schedule. The budget airline is the ninth carrier to fly in and out of Norfolk’s airport.
"I’m excited to soon become a ‘Blue City’ and am confident this long-awaited partnership will be well-received by travelers here, as well as among New Englanders seeking to spend time in Coastal Virginia and the Outer Banks beginning later this year," Norfolk International Airport CEO Mark Perryman said in a press release.
The announcement comes on the heels of another record year of traffic.
A record 4.86 million passengers traveled from Norfolk International in 2024, breaking its record for the third year in a row. It was a nearly 7% increase over 2023’s total.
The greatest growth was in budget airlines Spirit and Breeze, each of which grew by more than 40% year-over-year.
American and Delta remain the carriers with the most passengers at Norfolk International, ferrying 1.4 million and 1.2 million people respectively.
Perryman told Norfolk’s City Council Tuesday afternoon that he expects the number of passengers to continue to grow in 2025 and for several years to come.
He also confirmed long-teased direct international flights are finally coming to the airport.
“We can get us to the Caribbean, that’s not an issue, and I think we’re going to be announcing that later this year,” Perryman told the council.
Courting European carriers for direct trans-Atlantic flights, however, is a bigger ask. Perryman told Council it will likely require financial incentives the airport is legally forbidden from providing.
“We’re competing with Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City and those people, they're throwing money at this,” Perryman said.
He’s pitching the region’s cities and the state to pool money in a fund administered by a third party like a Chamber of Commerce, the Hampton Roads Alliance or another public business group.
“Incentives mitigate the risk for the airlines,” he said. “This doesn’t mean we’re writing them a blank check.”
He pointed to Indianapolis, which recently committed $19 million over two years to land international flights to Ireland via carrier Aer Lingus. The incentive is meant to give time to build the passenger base and cover revenue shortfalls for the first couple of years.
“If you can’t show you have the market within two years, you never will,” Perryman told the council. He said Norfolk is also pursuing service with Aer Lingus and would love to be able to bring local business folks along to meetings to show there is financial backing waiting for the airline here.
The airport is currently building a new U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, which would process future international arrivals at the airport.
Perryman told WHRO in December Norfolk handles charter and the occasional diversion flights right now.
The airport also broke ground on a three-gate expansion and has already completed a handful of smaller elements of its $1 billion “Transform ORF” expansion and improvement plan.
Last year, it wrapped renovations to one of its runways and some of its restrooms, opened a children’s play area and a new park and wait lot for those picking up travelers.
A Courtyard by Marriott hotel there will break ground later this year, and more renovations and expansions across the airport are in the plan, set to begin in the next year or two.
