First In Blue, JetBlue Part A

By Shihal Sapry

JetBlue is a Low Cost Carrier(LCC) headquartered in Queens, New York. Their primary hub is at New York's JFK airport and they utilise Airbus A320 family and Embraer E190 aircraft exclusively. JetBlue was the first US airline to operate A320 aircraft, when the airline commenced scheduled operations in 2000. JetBlue has made quite a name for itself and has made waves across the US Transcontinental market.

This is not a paid promotion with JetBlue and all information is taken from press releases, airline websites and reputable aviation sources. All information is correct at time of publishing.

JetBlue has ordered the A321NEO and their modification of the order is interesting. They converted some of their orders to the A321NEO LR. We know that the LR is touted by Airbus as a 757-200 replacement. More importantly, JetBlue hinted at the possibility of launching transatlantic operations with the type.

In Part A of this series, we will introduce JetBlue and their fleet. We will not discuss in great detail these topics. In Part B, we will discuss JetBlue in the US Transcontinental market more rigorously and as this series of analysis continues, we will ultimately attempt to ascertain additional information on possible A321NEO LR Transatlantic flights with JetBlue. It is important that we proceed at an optimal pace, as these markets are far more complicated than our previous analysis. A step by step methodology with knowledgeable introductions is vital.

JetBlue operates 130 Airbus A320-200 aircraft, with 25 A320-200NEO's on order. They have 53 A321-200 aircraft in service with 10 on order. In 2016, they placed an order for 60 A321-200NEO's and they have the option of converting a part of this order to the A321NEO LR. JetBlue is the largest operator of Embraer E190 aircraft with 60 in service and 24 on order.

JetBlue is a unique carrier. They are based at JFK airport in New York. An airport that possibly has a stronger relationship with premium traffic. More importantly, we can consider JetBlue to be a hybrid or premium LCC in the following ways:

• They offer a 33" seat pitch for economy class where full service legacy carriers offer a 31" seat pitch. By using A320 equipment, JetBlue is able to offer 18" wide economy class seats. We must stress that manufacturers and airlines do not use the same standard of measurements and these measurements can sometimes be biased. Cumulatively, the means that JetBlue offers some of the most spacious economy class seats in the US. We will discuss their cabin retrofit and its implications for this.

• They offer free snacks and beverages onboard. Some of the legacy carriers have only recently reintroduced this. JetBlue charges for alcoholic beverages and sandwiches though.

• They offer complimentary Direct TV and movies onboard. As with snacks and beverages, the legacy carriers have just recently made IFE complimentary.

• They offer extra legroom economy class with up to 38" of seat pitch, priority security lines and boarding. The seat pitch is greater than what is offered by other US carriers in this class of service.

• Free onboard wifi

• They introduced JetBlue Mint which is their equivalent of Business Class.

This means that they compete with true LCC's like Southwest, Frontier, Spirit and Allegiant but also with legacy carriers. This places them in a unique or more appropriately, a "middle of the market" position. It is also believed that the JetBlue service is superior to other carriers. However since this is not a trip report, we will not discuss certain aspects pertaining to the flight experience.

JetBlue began operations with the Airbus A320 which were originally configured with 42 extra legroom and 108 standard economy class seats. Extra legroom seats on JetBlue, refer to regular economy class with additional seat pitch. JetBlue is currently retrofitting their A320 with 2 additional rows of economy class seats to allow for 120 economy class seats. While this retrofit reduces seat pitch, JetBlue still claims they have the largest seat pitch in economy class in the US of 32 inches. It is impressive that they operated at a 34 inch seat pitch.

The airline also operates the A321. Once again, JetBlue claims that they still have the largest seat pitch in the US, even though they reduced seat pitch in this retrofit.

There are 32 A321's in the fleet, that have a Mint Cabin at year end 2017. JetBlue Mint is JetBlue's lie-flat business class product. Mint was launched in 2013 and debuted on flights between New York JFK and Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Mint cabin consists of 16 lie flat seats in a staggered layout such that there are alternating rows of 4 and 2 seats per row. Thus, there are 4 enclosed suites and 12 ordinary lie flat seats. Other than JetBlue, it is only American Airlines that offers a 2 a breast Premium product on the US Transcontinental market.

Aside from capacity and obvious unique features, we will not delve into specifics related to the Mint product as this is not a trip report.

Currently, JetBlue, currently does not market these enclosed suites at a higher price over their standard lie flat seats. It is possible that JetBlue can market these seats as a more premium lie flat seat. A densification programme may allow for the single suites to be replaced by two regular Mint seats. There are extra legroom economy and economy class seats onboard the Mint A321's as well. The image below of the Mint A321 offers additional insight.

(Image taken from JetBlue website as a seatmap for the Mint A321. Purpose of the image is educational purposes.)

While JetBlue operates the Embraer E190 series, we will not focus on this type. We will note that JetBlue has 16 extra legroom economy seats and 84 economy class seats, for a total of 100 seats. JetBlue is reviewing their E190 fleet.

We will not discuss the fleet in too much detail now as we will discuss more deeply in Part B, where we compare with other carriers. We must include a table, which provides additional insight into the JetBlue fleet. "A320 1" refers to the original A320 configuration with "A320 2" indicating the retrofitted cabin. The "A321 M" refers to the Mint configuration. We cannot discuss mean and standard deviations as this is not our aim. Furthermore, the variance in number of seats across the fleet will skew the statistics.

Table 1: JetBlue Fleet

The image below is the one that sparked interest with JetBlue and the A321NEO LR. We can see the arrow pointing in the direction of continential Europe with "New possibilities with A321LR option". This is our end goal, to offer additional insight on this topic. We will slowly ease our way forward by attempting to analyse the JetBlue approach. Furthermore, this image is regarding Mint only, which allows us to conclude that IF JetBlue were to fly Transatlantic, it will be with a Mint cabin. We must mention that JetBlue stated in a press releases that US Transcontinental fares are indeed too high with poor service.

(This image is from a JetBlue press release as per their website and is correct at time of publishing).

JetBlue has stated that Mint was introduced to help recover revenue lost due to its all economy class layouts on their A320/A321 fleet. This was most pronounced on premium transcontinental routes between JFK and Los Angeles/San Francisco. We can see that JetBlue has taken a prudent approach by first introducing the product from JFK. JFK is definitely more premium traveller biased especially on flights to/from Los Angeles and San Francisco. American Airlines has a specifically configured, very premium dense A321 that flies these routes.

JetBlue began to introduce Mint on additional markets from JFK. Additional cities began to receive Mint service, including Las Vegas and San Diego. JetBlue appears to deploy their Mint product on routes from JFK first before introducing it from their other hubs. The image below offers additional insight on the Mint routes.

(This image is from JetBlue's website and is correct at time of publishing. The press release image is of a far poorer quality and cannot be used. )

JetBlue certainly has a presence at Boston Logan, with up to 24% of capacity at the airport. It is logical that Boston would be a the next hub city to receive Mint service. Furthermore, JetBlue has built up a client base in Boston that allows for additional Mint service. The Fort Lauderdale hub in Florida, also receives Mint service. Fort Lauderdale is less premium biased as leisure traffic is more prevalent. Nonethess, it is a JetBlue hub. In a press release, JetBlue stated they will deploy their Mint product to Seattle from New York JFK and Boston in 2018. At the time of publishing, Mint service from Boston to Seattle has already commenced.

What is interesting to note is that Mint flights are largely Transcontinental. This indicates that there is increased premium demand on these longer flights as opposed to shorter hops between, say New York and Washington DC. JetBlue has deployed Mint on seasonal routes to the Caribbean, with only Barbados receiving year round service. This is a robust approach as a Mint aircraft can be deployed, thereby allowing maximum profitability during high season. In the low season, an A320 or non-Mint A321 can be deployed in order to optimise revenue.

Part A is more of an introduction, just to introduce you to the airline and provide a brief description of the scope of its Mint product. In Part B, we will continue our discussion of Mint, on the US Transcontinental market more rigorously, as well as the offerings of competitors, in terms of capacity. There will no doubt, be a fair amount of statistics used, in order to ascertain logical and truthful conclusions. It is therefore important that we move optimally as the US Transcontinental market is complicated with many variables.

We have used images from JetBlue's website and press releases. Their use is for educational purpose.

Part B is now live.