Tag Archives for jetblue.
JetBlue’s seat back entertainment map now displays the Palestinian territory, and it does so in “significantly larger text” than Israel “to the point where it is overlaid on the entire state of Israel.”
JetBlue is struggling. They’ve turned themselves into a smaller version of a fee-based legacy airline, and given up much of their competitive difference. Now they aren’t making money, and they’re trying to fend off activist investor Carl Icahn.
The airline’s turnaround plan involves shrinking to profitability.
JetBlue is struggling and trying to execute a turnaround. They earned just $25 million in the second quarter. It should be their strongest quarter. They have underperformed for 15 years. Their CEO is gone, and they’ve been bringing back some veteran talent. Right now JetBlue is offering to match status of competitor airline customers and you can even keep the status by spending on their credit card.
Pilots have been seeing record wages in new deals at the major carriers, in the face of paying too many to retire at the depths of Covid while not adding more to the pipeline, a recovery in air travel, and the time and cost to introduce new pilots as a result of government regulation lobbied for by the big pilot union ALPA. The tide may be about to turn.
JetBlue stock plunged over 20% on Monday, as it worked to raise $3 billion in fresh capital. $2.75 billion will be backed by its TrueBlue program – which largely means the expected future earnings from its credit card partnership.
It’s no secret that JetBlue has struggled with its transatlantic flights. Right now that’s to our benefit because they’re making business class award space widely available across a number of their flights, in some cases between now and end of spring, and for at least two and sometimes more passengers at a time.
JetBlue has been trying to retool its business, which has underperformed for 15 years but finally cost its Chief Executive his job. Now they’ve been looking for revenue anywhere they can find it (such as continuing to lead the industry in checked bag fee increases) while dropping unprofitable routes out of places like Los Angeles and scaling back loss-making adventures in Europe.
The big reveal was that they will be reducing plans to buy planes, deferring orders past 2030. And without new A321XLRs coming this decade that means a lot less Europe ahead than in earlier plans and a longer way to a fleet refresh.
One Mile at a Time says ‘pulling strings’ to do this is ‘creepy’. But would he even have needed to ‘pull strings’ with a connection as the son of the airline’s by then deposed founder, in order to do this?
The JetBlue flight attendants union let crewmembers know on Thursday that the airline was planning to need fewer flight attendants starting in September as a result of schedule reducations, and that this would last at least through the winter season. Specifically they estimated that 39,000 flight attendant hours would be dropped from the schedule. As a result they’re offering leaves of absence of up to six months.
Domestic first class will reportedly be called “Mini Mint” and be introduced in 2026. It’s currently expected that they will use the Collins Aerospace MiQ seat. They won’t reduce total seats on planes, so they’ll squeeze legroom from coach to make room for first class.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
