JetBlue has secured London Heathrow slots and introduced its new business class product on board the Airbus A321LR aircraft it will use for transatlantic missions.
Now they’ve announced details of their coach product. It took significant effort but I managed to scour through the word salad of JetBlue’s release to learn the major elements of JetBlue’s “whole new level of service and comfort” –
- 32 inches of pitch in regular coach, with a 10.1 inch seat back screen as well as live TV and free internet and AC and USB-C seat power.
- The ability to mix and match entrees and side dishes. Customers will place meal orders for choice of entree and two out of three appetizers on their seat back screen.
Known for its vegetable-forward options, the Dig menu will feature a seasonal selection of proteins, vegetables and grains mindfully sourced in part from minority and women-run farms, as well as Dig’s own farm, Dig Acres.
A321LR Interior, Credit: JetBlue
And while you’re expanding your carbon footprint with the flight, take comfort knowing your meals will be served “in reusable containers…with cutlery made from a natural polymer.” And you can relax knowing your seat’s head rest is vegan “premium Ultraleather®.”
I’d absolutely fly JetBlue’s Collins Meridian seat with 32 inch pitch over a 30″ slimline on some competitors. And I appreciate that they’re trying to signal a thoughtfulness in their approach to food by letting you choose which appetizer you do not want, while at the same time preparing only 3 appetizers in total to accompany 3 different entrees (rather than having different appetizers for each). At the end of the day it’s still coach, but I’ll take the extra inch or two.
I truly wish JetBlue had more of a presence in PHX & keep hoping that, like DL, they will expand here to give AA more of a run for its money. Would love to be able to fly JetBlue more but it just doesn’t work for me in/out of PHX.
Vegan “leather” equals polyurethane. Petrochemical product with a hefty “carbon footprint”. But the verbiage makes for great signalling.
What’s up with the male discrimination with food sourcing?
Is this a new trend?
I may bypass using my flight benes for this.
@Roger
Looks like its an old trend of pro-male discrimination ending.
Works for me.
Don’t forget!
18.4” wide seats, too!
Fortunately for United, its “High J” Boeing 767s already has even wider Economy class seats at 18.5” to keep up with JetBlue’s flights to/from London – but otherwise, NONE of the other airlines’ “densified” ten-abreast Boeing 777s & the equally horrid, nine-abreast 787s with their puny 17.2” wide seats (most at 31” pitch for main cabin rows), or even those with Airbus A330s/A350s (BA, Delta & Virgin Atlantic) come close to JetBlue’s comfy 18.4” wide “Core” (aka main cabin/Economy class) seats spaced at 32” pitch & 35” pitch in the four Even More Space (extra legroom) rows.
Delta’s now retired mini-fleet of 9-abreast Boeing 777s, which had updated interiors featuring Delta One suites, Premium Select (aka real Premium Economy), along with 18.5” wide, nine-abreast seats/34” pitch in Comfort+ & 31” pitch Main Cabin rows would’ve made for a perfect competitive answer to JetBlue’s decidedly low density, 138 passengers (24 Mint; 114 Economy) narrowbody Airbus A321LRs – but, of course, DL’s 777s are gone for good.
Oh, well!
At least Delta’s recently refurbed Boeing 767-400ERs have modern interiors including 18-18.1” wide C+/Main Cabin seats in the passenger preferred 2-3-2 layout.
But, will any of the legacy airlines even bother attempting to match JetBlue’s complimentary, “mix ‘n match” meal service from Dig, which includes free booze, too?!?!
We shall see…
Needless to say, it’s doubtful AA, BA or UA would restore any of their nasty & atrocious ten-abreast, densified, flying abominations/sadist sardine cans otherwise known as Boeing 777s to their originally intended nine-abreast Main Cabin configurations – which is what they’d have to do to actually be competitive with JetBlue’s 18.4” wide Main Cabin seat widths for the 7-8 hours hops across the pond! 😉
But, see, here’s a PERFECT EXAMPLE illustrating why vigorous/robust **COMPETITION** is absolutely indispensable as JetBlue’s attempt to crack the cozy oligopoly of just AA/BA & DL/Virgin Atlantic (all of whom enjoying the riches afforded by their respective anti-trust immunized alliances on the world’s most lucrative route: Heathrow-JFK), with United (and its High J, premium 767s) predominant Heathrow-Newark, divvying up the spoils of their largely impenetrable NYC-Heathrow fortress that emerged in recent years (pre-pandemic, of course) possibly could be the best news for flyers – especially those NOT in the pointy end of the aircraft – since, well, those hideously anti-consumer, anti-competitive, monopolistic Goliaths with their hilariously not exactly competitive, anti-trust immunized joint-venture alliances saw at least five airlines with daily flights between JFK-Heathrow competing against each other reduced to just TWO “metal neutral” anti-trust immunized joint venture alliances (oneworld + Delta/Virgin Atlantic) hoarding everything (passengers, slots, gates, shuttle-like frequencies, etc.) for themselves over the past decade or so on what was the world’s ONLY $1 BILLION route before the pandemic struck last year.
Yeah, for sure this desperately non-competive route is long overdue for some competition – if the slot overlords at Heathrow offer JetBlue a sufficient number of *PERMANENT* slots, that is.
Wouldn’t that be nice for a refreshing change?!?!
Cannot wait. I’ll forego using my precious FF miles for the across the pond flights and instead, fly TA-coach on the new Jet Blue product, saving my miles for longer-haul flights on airlines that haven’t devaluated flights to mere crumbs.
So glad to see this.
31” seat pitch seems to be the norm across the pond. Given that JetBlue made its name by offering substantially more legroom I was admittedly hoping for more.
This is the right way to go! How come a so called low cost carrier provide much better seat, better service than those traditional big three? I don’t get it.
Missing in the recap is the fact that Dig makes genuinely tasty food.
@Max – agreed! Dig (formerly Dig Inn) food is delicious! I used to get them once a week when I was working in the office. During lunch time there is always a line out the door!
My favorite is still charred chicken with farro, grilled broccoli and carrots with a side of sriracha.
@howard Miller – Something tell me you are overweight if so focused on seat width. Lose a little weight and it won’t matter! I’m an average sized guy (definitely not skinny) but never looked so to seat width and also next had a problem easily fitting in the seat!
@AC – I’m 6’4″ and have wide shoulders so seat width and pitch matter a lot to me. I also weigh a lot but that doesn’t affect my liking wider seats, which keep me from being shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow passengers.
What about farms owned by trans people? We’re humans too!
I’m just disappointed. We finally got over Trump, and now Jet Blue’s cis-normative, trans-exclusionary food sourcing brings it all back.
Shame.
This sounds nice but the NYC to London red eye means the meal service is going to eat up a lot of time on meal service. I guess it is ok in economy where people aren’t paying to sleep but it does block up the aisles for flight attendants to be running back and forth with meal service.
What I hope happens with Jetblue is they are successful with their mint product and put in mint only flights. It has never worked before (campagnie is too new) but jetblue can succeed if its pricing will be competitive and less than the legacy carriers.
@AC,
I’ll refrain from using the 2-words you deserve to hear that are NOT “Happy Birthday”.
And although like many, I’ve put on more than a few pounds over the past year, I just so happen to still manage to fit into W33 L32 Levi’s jeans (was W32 pre pandemic), and actually look pretty good for a 5’8” adult male.
The reason 17.2” wide seats are too small/narrow has NOTHING to do with my waistline as the portion of my body where my tummy and posterior are is NOT why I find the puny seats aboard ten-abreast 777s or nine-abreast 787s wholly unacceptable for flights longer than two,
maybe three at most, hours.
The reason I find those waaaay too small/narrow seats inappropriate for anything but short flights is that the width of my is nearly 20” and find forced body contact for three, four and more hours with a total stranger waaaay too “Mad Men” era.
Perhaps that’s your idea of fun and entertainment while flying, but it’s NOT mine – and likely a great many others, especially with the average size of adults in many countries considerably greater than the 1950’s when Boeing designed its legendary 707 with its six-abreast, 3-3 configurations using ~17” seat widths for Economy cabins that some bean counting imbecile hoping to ingratiate themself with a greedy, d-bag jerk (whom, of course, nearly always flies in comfort upfront or in their own private jet and is never discomforted with the indignities they impose/foist on commoners!) seems to have said something like “well, if teeny, tiny, waaay too narrow Economy class seats worked on a 707 and the even narrower by an inch DC-8 fuselage back in the day, why not stuff an extra seat per row on planes like the 777 or 787 (which, btw, originally were marketed as offering state of the art long haul comfort featuring 18-18.5” wide seats per row, since of course, these planes are intended for long haul missions [or in the case of the 787, ULTRA-long haul, hub bypassing flights, too], or perhaps also because Airbus’s widebodies [A300/310/330/340] of the respective eras when the 777 and 787 were being designed had wider/comfier seats in their 2-4-2 eight-abreast Economy cabins…but ah, I digress!) by using the same 17.2” wide garbage seats we still use on our 1950s designed, 1960s vintage narrowbody fuselages like those found aboard our long ago obsolete 737s (which of course, is a SHORT HAUL, puddle jumper plane originally designed with a maximum still air range of 1,720nm – or LESS than 2,000 statute miles) on a 777 and 787?!?!
But, the fact is, both the 777 and 787 were designed to feature 18-18.5” wide Economy class seats that most passengers STILL prefer for flights longer than two or three hours like those found on the Boeing 767 – or of course, Airbus’s Belle of the Ball, A220s (originally Bombardier’s C-Series) that have been widely praised for their spacious, five abreast Economy class cabins featuring ~18.5” wide seats.
I mean the original design for the 707’s fuselage was, like the A220 of now, five-abreast cabins – but Boeing was about to lose orders to Douglas’ DC-8, which would’ve had 3” wider fuselage and six seats abreast, so Boeing widened the 707’s fuselage by a whopping FOUR – yep, just 4! – inches to offer the same six abreast cabins as the DC-8, but at an inch wider!
So, let’s do the math:
Prototype 707 with five seats abreast is widened by FOUR (4) inches to squeeze in an extra sixth seat per row.
Hmmmm. Any guesses where the remaining 13” inches of the typical 17.2” wide seats for Boeing’s narrowbodies came from?!?!
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
So, why are we STILL using seat widths from what basically is the functional equivalent of the Stone Age (1950s) for passenger aircraft when of course, the average adult is much taller and wider than we were 65 or so years ago?
Just sayin’
Have a nice day!
That’s width of my shoulders are 20” in the above!