“The cycling community is anything but stationary, and in honor of their much-loved sport we are proud to waive all bike fees for traveling fans this July.”
— Sam Kline, JetBlue
JetBlue announced today that bike fees — usually $50 — will be waived on all flights during the month of July.
A company statement says the promotion is in celebration of the Tour de France, which begins Saturday. In addition to zero baggage fees for bikes, JetBlue will also show live coverage of the Tour on all of their seatback televisions (which they’ve done for several years now).
“The cycling community is anything but stationary,” said JetBlue rep Sam Kline, “and in honor of their much-loved sport we are proud to waive all bike fees for traveling fans this July.”
While JetBlue’s move is a nod to cycling “sports fans” their official statement also notes that they have operations in in “some of the biggest cycling cities in the country” including Austin, Chicago, Denver, Portland, San Diego and Seattle (they’re based in New York City).
We wonder if JetBlue’s bike baggage bungle back in January 2009 had anything to do with their awareness of this issue. In that case, they charged a Portland flyer $50 for a folded bike that was no larger than a standard piece of baggage. After the story spread around the web, JetBlue changed their policy for folding bikes the next day.
JetBlue’s move comes as several other major airlines have run similar promotions in recent months. Both Alaska and Southwest ran a local promotion at Portland International Airport (PDX), letting bikes fly free out of Portland during the month of June. Back in April Frontier Airlines waived their flat fee for bikes altogether.
It’s great to see all these airlines re-evaluate their baggage policies and make traveling by bike more welcoming. As more of them do special promotions, it seems only a matter of time before ‘bikes fly free’ policies are the norm.
For more on this topic, read these previous stories on BikePortland:
- – Would a bikes fly free policy fly at Portland International Airport?
– Traveling for the holidays? Here’s how to take your bike along