Cali is now a nonstop hop from South Florida. JetBlue began daily Fort Lauderdale–Cali service on October 15, giving travellers a direct line into the Colombian city famous worldwide for salsa — and marking the airline's fourth destination in Colombia.

The new route arrives just two weeks after JetBlue started flying to Barranquilla on October 1, so the airline has added two Colombian cities in a single month. Cali now sits alongside Cartagena, Medellín and Barranquilla in its Colombian network. The two October additions cover very different sides of the country: Barranquilla is on the Caribbean coast, while Cali is a commercial and cultural hub in the southwest, where music and dance shape the whole identity of the city.

The schedule works well for a short break. The southbound flight leaves Fort Lauderdale at 10:05 a.m. and lands in Cali at 12:52 p.m. — early enough to check in and head out for an evening of dancing. The return leg departs Cali at 2:10 p.m. and reaches Fort Lauderdale at 7 p.m., leaving time for onward connections if you're heading elsewhere in the US. JetBlue flies the route with Airbus A320 aircraft, with complimentary snacks and drinks, seatback entertainment and free high-speed Fly-Fi on board (coverage permitting).

Why Cali rather than another beach town? The city's claim as the "Salsa Capital of the World" is the headline draw — this is a place built around dance schools, salsa clubs and a year-round soundtrack, not a sun-and-sand resort. JetBlue says the route also targets business travellers and people visiting friends and relatives, and daily frequency means you can pick any day of the week to go.

The launch fits into a much bigger build-out at Fort Lauderdale, JetBlue's first-ever destination and a key focus city. Since December 2025 the airline has added 12 new nonstop destinations from the airport, and daily departures are up more than 75 percent year on year, following a July expansion that introduced eight routes in one week. More are coming in November — Columbus, Indianapolis and San Diego — and during the peak winter season JetBlue expects to run more than 150 daily departures from Fort Lauderdale, its biggest schedule there yet. Latin America and the Caribbean already account for roughly a third of the airline's total capacity.

For travellers, the practical takeaway is simple: getting to southwestern Colombia no longer requires a connection through Bogotá or Miami. If your idea of a city break involves learning salsa steps rather than lying on a beach, Cali just became a lot easier to reach — and Fort Lauderdale keeps consolidating its role as the main US gateway to Colombia and the wider region.