

JetBlue (Nasdaq:JBLU), New York´s Hometown Airline®, has announced the development of a Caribbean consortium with The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), the company said.
Aligned with other like-minded partners across multiple disciplines, this effort will address conservation and commerce in the Caribbean. The Consortium will start with a “Spotlight on Cuba” and will focus on other Caribbean destinations in the future. In 2016, JetBlue became the first US airline to bring affordable and convenient commercial air travel to Cuba after more than 50 years.
During year one, this group will make recommendations on development and environmental issues, to help ensure that Cuba´s natural habitat is protected for future generations. With support from members including JetBlue, The New York Botanical Garden will build upon past findings on Cuba and the Caribbean at large through four key components of conservation action — capacity-building, influencing public policy, knowledge-sharing and increasing access to resources.
Under the direction of Dr. Brian Boom, Vice President for Conservation Strategy, who leads NYBG´s Cuba initiative, the NYBG Caribbean Consortium will bring together a cross-section of key stakeholders from business, academia, and NGOs.
The partnership will also include opportunities for JetBlue customers and crewmembers, New York-area residents, and visitors to The New York Botanical Garden to learn more about the Caribbean including Cuba and its biodiversity.
This partnership is an extension of JetBlue´s conservation efforts in the Caribbean outlined in EcoEarnings: A Shore Thing. This report highlights the connection between ecosystems and revenue. Travel to the Caribbean is a key pillar of JetBlue´s business model. Large-scale environmental degradation in the Caribbean is a risk to demand for air travel to the area, impacting airlines and tourism companies like JetBlue. This study starts to link the importance of clean, intact, and healthy beaches and shorelines to tourism´s profitability in the Caribbean, with a focus on JetBlue and industry revenue per available seat mile (RASM).
JetBlue is New York´s Hometown Airline®, and a carrier in Boston, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, Los Angeles (Long Beach), Orlando, and San Juan. JetBlue carries more than 38 million customers a year to 101 cities in the US, Caribbean, and Latin America with an average of 1,000 daily flights. For more information visit jetblue.com.
The New York Botanical Garden is a museum of plants, an educational institution, and a scientific research organization. Founded in 1891, the Botanical Garden is one of the world´s preeminent centers for studying plants at all levels, from the whole organism down to its DNA. Garden scientists conduct fundamental research on plants and fungi globally, as well as on the many relationships between plants and people. A National Historic Landmark, the Garden´s 250-acre site is one of the greatest botanical gardens in the world and the largest in any city in the United States, distinguished by the beauty of its diverse landscape and extensive collections and gardens, as well as by the scope and excellence of its programs in horticulture, education, and plant research and conservation. Learn more: nybg.org
