By the Caribbean Journal staff

It was a very strong May for JetBlue Airways, according to the carrier’s latest traffic report.

The New York City-based airline’s preliminary traffic results showed an 8.9 percent increase in traffic, on a capacity increase of 7.6 percent.

Overall, JetBlue reported 4.342 billion revenue passenger miles in May, up from 3.986 billion in the same month last year.

Load factor in May was 85.8 percent, an increase of 1.1 percentage points from May 2017, according to the company.

While JetBlue’s expansion pace seems to have slowed somewhat from what had been a breakneck pace in the Caribbean several years ago, it remains a major carrier to the region, particularly out of its Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood focus city.

JetBlue has been facing increasing competition to the Caribbean in Fort Lauderdale, however, as several carriers including Southwest and Spirit have begun ramping up their Caribbean flight networks out of that airport.