By Steve Griswold, Sandals & Beaches Chairman’s Royal Club Platinum Elite advisor at Pixie Vacations. Published October 27, 2026.
JetBlue’s $2 billion of bonds traded at 42 cents on the dollar on Thursday, October 22, a group of its lenders hired restructuring advisers, and on Monday, October 26, the airline reported a $257 million third-quarter loss. If you are holding a JetBlue ticket to the Caribbean this winter, you have probably seen the headlines with “JetBlue bankruptcy” in them and wondered what to do. Here is what the news does and does not mean for your trip, with the numbers.
- JetBlue is still flying a full schedule and says it has $2.2 billion of liquidity, enough for “at least the next 12 months.” Nothing has been filed. Keep your ticket.
- JetBlue serves 18 Caribbean countries and territories, including every island with a Sandals or Beaches resort, and runs more than 40 daily departures from San Juan.
- If you have not bought yet: pay with a credit card, and if you want financial-default insurance, you must buy it within 10 to 21 days of your first trip payment.
- If an airline ever does stop flying, Spirit’s May 2, 2026 shutdown is the playbook: refunds to the card, and a 60-day dispute window from your statement.
JetBlue bankruptcy fears: what actually happened this week
On October 23, Bloomberg reported that holders of JetBlue’s $2 billion of notes due 2031 and a $742 million first-lien loan had organized as a group and hired PJT Partners and the law firm Akin Gump. The bonds, which were near 80 cents on the dollar earlier in October, fell to 42 cents.
Three days later JetBlue released its third-quarter numbers. Revenue was $2.8 billion, up 21.1 percent, and the airline said demand is “resilient.” But jet fuel averaged $3.91 a gallon, 57 percent higher than a year ago, and the quarter ended with a $257 million net loss. Cash fell to $1.26 billion from $1.66 billion on June 30; total debt is $8.39 billion. The stock closed down nearly 10 percent on Monday and is off 48 percent this year.
What JetBlue did not say matters just as much. It did not announce a filing, a route cut or a schedule change. It said its $2.2 billion of liquidity (including a $600 million credit line it has not touched) covers “at least the next 12 months,” it expects another $250 million of aircraft-backed financing to fund this quarter, and it is still targeting an operating profit in 2027.
Why Caribbean travelers should pay attention
Because JetBlue is, for a lot of you, the airline to the islands. It flies to 18 Caribbean countries and territories: Antigua, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Curaçao, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Turks and Caicos and the U.S. Virgin Islands, plus Bermuda. It is the largest airline in Puerto Rico, with more than 40 daily departures from San Juan to 22 nonstop destinations, and it is planning more than 150 peak daily departures from Fort Lauderdale this winter.
Every island that has a Sandals or a Beaches resort is on that list. Here is how the two line up, with the other U.S. airlines that also fly nonstop to each one (check your own home airport; not every carrier flies from every city).
| Island | Sandals / Beaches there | Other U.S. airlines with nonstops |
|---|---|---|
| Jamaica (Montego Bay) | 7 Sandals (3 of them reopening Nov 18 and Dec 18, 2026) + Beaches Jamaica Negril | American, Delta, United, Southwest, Frontier |
| Turks and Caicos | Beaches Turks and Caicos | American, Delta, United |
| St. Lucia | 3 Sandals | American, Delta, United |
| Barbados | 2 Sandals | American, Delta, United (seasonal) |
| Antigua | 1 Sandals | American, Delta, United |
| Grenada, St. Vincent, Curaçao | 1 Sandals each | American (Miami); fewer alternatives |
| Bahamas (Nassau) | 1 Sandals | American, Delta, United, Southwest |
The three things that can happen, and what each does to your ticket
| Scenario | What happens to a booked ticket | How likely, based on the record |
|---|---|---|
| JetBlue keeps flying as is | Nothing. You fly. | This is the company’s own position: 12 months of liquidity, no filing. |
| A Chapter 11 restructuring | Flights keep operating; tickets and points are honored; some routes may be trimmed over time. | United, Delta and American all flew through Chapter 11 in the 2000s and 2010s. Spirit filed in November 2024 and kept flying for about 18 months. |
| A shutdown | Flights cancelled; refund to your card, then rebook on another airline at whatever fare exists that day. | Spirit, May 2, 2026. Refunds for direct bookings were processed automatically; agency bookings went through the agent. |
How to protect a Caribbean trip you have already booked, or are about to
Pay with a credit card, every time. When Spirit stopped flying, the fastest money back was a card dispute. The protection generally applies within 60 days of the statement the charge appears on, so if a flight is ever cancelled, file the same week, not after the trip date passes.
Know what travel insurance will and will not do. Standard trip-cancellation benefits, including the ones on premium credit cards, typically exclude an airline that stops flying altogether. The benefit that covers it is called financial default, and it has two catches: you must buy the policy within 10 to 21 days of your first trip payment (airfare, deposit or hotel, whichever came first), and there is a 10 to 21 day waiting period after purchase. It pays only if the airline actually ceases operations, not for a Chapter 11 filing where flights continue. If you put a deposit on a February Sandals trip last week, this is the week to decide.
Let airfare help pick the island. This is something I tell every big family group anyway: part of the vacation is getting there, so the island with the most flights is the island with the most fallbacks. Jamaica has the most airlift and the cheapest fares in the Sandals and Beaches system. Turks and Caicos is boutique-expensive to reach, and the three one-Sandals islands (Grenada, St. Vincent, Curaçao) have the fewest nonstops. None of that changes where I would send a honeymoon couple. It does change how I would book the air.
Book the air where someone will rebook it for you. If your flights are part of a package we built, the day anything changes, we are the ones on the phone. That is not a scare line, it is the practical difference between booking a four-night resort stay yourself and booking it with an advisor whose planning is free.
What this means if you’re booking
- Already ticketed on JetBlue: do nothing except confirm the charge is on a credit card and note the statement date. Fly.
- Booking in the next 30 days: JetBlue’s winter fares are real and its schedule is intact; buy the fare, buy it on a card, and decide on a financial-default policy inside the 10-to-21-day window.
- Booking for spring break or summer 2027: watch the next two quarterly reports (late January and late April 2027). The airline’s own target is an operating profit in 2027; the creditors’ next move will show up there first.
Want us to check it for your dates?
Planning with Pixie Vacations is free, no fees, and we’ve stayed at every Sandals and Beaches resort, including a few that have since come and gone. Call 678-815-1584 or send your dates and we’ll price the resort and the air together.
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Related on CaribbeanMag: JetBlue’s Fort Lauderdale to Aruba and St. Maarten daily flights · American Airlines reaches 100 Caribbean and Latin America destinations · Every new Sandals resort name.
Have a fantastic vacation.
