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JetBlue in Trouble?
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32tlo is also obviiously a Guard Nazi (121.5 Police). You must have the mic up by your mouth waiting to bark "on guard!!!!" to anyone who uses that frequency. Also, I guess everyone but you misses a radio call. Prob bc no one wants to talk to you in the cockpit bc all that ever comes from you is useless drivel like you post on here.
~~~^~~~
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- Dec 21, 2001
- Posts
- 6,137
Jet Blue's honeymoon period is nearing an end, but it does not mean the airline is doomed. They have a good product and very good people running the show. It is inevitable that some costs were artificially low. Maintenance, underwriting and crew costs are going to increase with longevity.
A new market entrant enjoys quite a few discounts. Even insurers are not immune to making some overly rosy predictions to secure a new major airline customer. As in all business - the chickens come home to roost eventually.
Fred Reid suggested that Jet Blue was the preferred brand in New York, which was part of the reason for "Song." If brand loyalty exists, Jet Blue might be able to pull a revenue premium. But, Jet Blue has to become a major. As a niche LCC operating out of a high cost hub with a very limited route network - well, it isn't going to be easy.
A new market entrant enjoys quite a few discounts. Even insurers are not immune to making some overly rosy predictions to secure a new major airline customer. As in all business - the chickens come home to roost eventually.
Fred Reid suggested that Jet Blue was the preferred brand in New York, which was part of the reason for "Song." If brand loyalty exists, Jet Blue might be able to pull a revenue premium. But, Jet Blue has to become a major. As a niche LCC operating out of a high cost hub with a very limited route network - well, it isn't going to be easy.
Last edited:
Aluminum Weiner
Active member
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2006
- Posts
- 32
Frank Lorenzo
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2006
- Posts
- 295
Dave Siegel said:
Well said Dave.
We need to get everybody down to a level that reflects the amount of work being done here. Face it, you throttle up, pull back on the side stick, and punch the auto pilot on. The plane flies itself. What monkey can't do that.
I'm liking those JBLU EMB pay rates. If management can't get those, I think they could settle for the wages Yonited is paying their whores. Look, guys like 32LT10 are willing to fly for peanuts with no pension. The days of pie in the sky wages like they are paying over there ar Air Tran are over.
I am a little disappointed though. These guys are becoming pushovers. I am waiting for the latest chest thumping from the NWA and Delta pilots. They will all settle for an additional 20% pay cut, not go on strike, then their unions will declare complete and total victory.
Where's the sport in destroying the unions these days? Where's the challenge? Where's the fun?
I'm bored.
You are a sick man FL. I think you would do the original FL proud, which, in the opinion of any HUMAN, is a sad, sad thing.
Run along now and see if your mom will let you out of the house today to go play with the normal children. And please stop torturing those lab rats your "father" gave you for Christmas.
Run along now and see if your mom will let you out of the house today to go play with the normal children. And please stop torturing those lab rats your "father" gave you for Christmas.
Bavarian Chef
Registered jetBluser
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2006
- Posts
- 1,743
~~~^~~~ said:
A major what? Last I checked jb was a major. And as for our limited route structure -- we did in 6 years what flyi did in one (and that didn't work that well for them, no offense to the flyi pilots out there). For our detractors out there -- which one is it? Are we growing too fast or not fast enough?
Look at our route map to see a large part of the country that ain't blue yet, but will be in the next 5 or so. As long as we stop landing with 1000lbs of lettuce. If we cannot keep the embarrassing incidents involving assorted vegetables and legumes under wraps, our goose is cooked.
jumppilot
Something in a box
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2002
- Posts
- 477
AV80R said:
I wasn't implying JetBlue is going out of Business, but rather the end of the jetBlue phenomena of discounters always winning. Everyone is being affected by fuel and it is interesting to see the discounters experiencing this.
And to the previous poster, I did not apply to jetBlue, nor do I have a desire to work for them. I think they will be out of business in 10 years (my OPINION only, don't blame me for flame!), as they are the flavor of the week ala Apple Air and People's Express.
Frank Lorenzo
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2006
- Posts
- 295
HighSpeedClimb
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2006
- Posts
- 464
This just in
March 1, 2006
JetBlue to Try New Route to Profitability: Higher Prices --NYT
JetBlue made its name in the airline business with low fares. But in the bruising battle for passengers and profitability, it is trying a new tack: raising prices.
A central testing ground for this approach is the heavily traveled New York-to-Florida corridor.
JetBlue Airways — at six years old too new to have built up excessive costs that can now be trimmed — is trying mightily to raise fares in a bid to restore profits after surging fuel prices caused it to lose $42.4 million during the fourth quarter.
Along the East Coast, JetBlue, which is based in New York, competes head to head against traditional carriers like Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines. JetBlue's low fares, matched by the competition, have stimulated a big increase in demand for travel in recent years.
JetBlue says it needs a $10 increase on one-way tickets, which averaged $110 last year. If the carriers can pull off a major price increase without scaring off a lot of those price-sensitive passengers, it would be an encouraging sign for the health of the industry.
It would also help JetBlue continue its rapid growth. It plans to add 35 planes this year and 35 next year, and to take on billions of dollars in debt in the hope of becoming one of the country's biggest and most successful airlines.
Domestic fares on an industrywide basis are already up by about 8 percent compared with a year ago. Much of that increase, however, is because of reduced fleets at some major carriers, which has cut the supply of airline seats at a time when demand has remained strong.
As Delta and Northwest Airlines move through bankruptcy proceedings, the fleet reductions will probably come to an end and the supply of seats will rise, making price increases harder to push through.
During the last six years, when traditional airlines were piling up more than $40 billion in losses, JetBlue grew to $1.7 billion in annual revenue and became increasingly popular with travelers. Its planes feature leather seats and individual television screens with lots of channels. New planes and new, nonunion workers gave it unusually low costs.
But now that fuel prices have pushed up expenses for all airlines, and older carriers have sharply cut their own labor costs, the advantage JetBlue enjoyed as a start-up is greatly reduced.
"Many JetBlue investors we speak with are under the impression there's something patently different about its model, some core über-profitability that's waiting to be tapped," Jamie Baker, an analyst at J. P. Morgan Securities said in a report last month. "We doubt it."
JetBlue's biggest obstacle has been Delta. "We've had a competitor that's been willing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars," said David G. Neeleman, founder and chief executive of JetBlue.
"JetBlue is charging a premium to Delta and they're getting better load factors," said Michael Allen, a managing director at Back Aviation. "The indication would be they have a preferred product."
Last October, the news that Delta would close Song, the low-price airline it started to compete with JetBlue, was greeted with relief at JetBlue headquarters. Finally, Mr. Neeleman and others hoped, the costly price war up and down the East Coast would subside.
But more than three months later, JetBlue is still waiting to find out how substantially Delta will scale back the number of seats it offers on those routes. "We are waiting to see what Delta does," said Tim Claydon, senior vice president of sales and marketing at JetBlue.
Delta, while saying it will substitute smaller planes on some New York-to-Florida routes beginning in May, is in no hurry to offer comfort to JetBlue by disclosing its plans. "We ain't pulling out," Chris Kelly, a Delta spokeswoman, said. "Much to their dismay, I'm sure."
Delta plans to withdraw some of the Boeing 757's that were operated as Song planes, seating 199 passengers, and replace them with Boeing 737's or MD-80's, which seat about 150 and 142, respectively, said Bob Cortelyou, vice president of network planning at Delta.
Mr. Baker of J. P. Morgan estimated that Delta was reducing seats between the Northeast and Florida by about 15 percent from a year ago. He said that should be enough to allow JetBlue to raise fares and report a small profit for 2006.
As of last week, one-way tickets from New York to Fort Lauderdale, purchased three weeks in advance, were $69, before taxes, on both airlines. But those prices might not last. Consumers can expect to see somewhat higher prices for tickets purchased far in advance and somewhat fewer of those tickets available. JetBlue hopes to sell more tickets closer to travel time, when consumers are accustomed to paying more.
According to Mr. Baker, Mr. Neeleman told an investor conference last week that JetBlue had set prices too high on top-end fares, failing to sell some seats, and too low on some bottom-end fares, selling out but at too low a price.
JetBlue, with all the planes it is buying, not only needs to raise fares but also must find new markets it can serve profitably.
But Southwest Airlines is growing rapidly, too, and looking for new routes. And even Continental is expanding, adding planes and increasing its New York-to-Florida capacity by 30 percent since last winter. Continental, said David Messing, a spokesman, will match JetBlue "dollar for dollar, every flight."
In that competitive environment, JetBlue has begun efforts to sharpen its operations. Until recently, for example, the workers who set ticket prices and choose the routes that JetBlue planes fly were allowed to work away from company headquarters, an arrangement that is now ending. Operating separately slowed decision-making and information-sharing, said Mr. Claydon, the JetBlue executive.
JetBlue also missed a big opportunity. Unlike most big airlines, it had a strong enough balance sheet in recent years to hedge its fuel costs, essentially buying insurance against very high oil prices. Southwest hedged and thus remains highly profitable. JetBlue did not, in part owing to Mr. Neeleman's belief that oil prices would not skyrocket, and now the company is losing money.
"We had the wherewithal to do it," Mr. Neeleman said. "We just missed it."
Rapid growth, meanwhile, is hard to manage. A year ago, JetBlue claimed it had the best on-time performance among major airlines. As it has grown, however, and it has run more flights from its home base, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, its performance has declined. In December, it was last among 20 carriers tracked by the Transportation Department, with just 64 percent of its flights arriving on time.
Jenny Dervin, a spokeswoman, said JetBlue was trying to shift landings away from the busiest periods at Kennedy and to speed plane cleaning so that planes landing late could still take off again on time.
JetBlue's startling success, until recently, gave Mr. Neeleman, its 46-year-old chief executive, a soap box to discuss the industry's failings and his company's alternative approach to the business. An outspoken Mormon who says he has attention deficit disorder, he can seem alternately arrogant and humble. Mr. Neeleman expresses contempt, for example, for the industry's labor practices.
"Some companies deserve unions," he said in an interview.
His combined salary and bonus, less than $300,000 a year, is very low for a chief executive. But the JetBlue stock he paid little for in the start-up is now valued at about $70 million. And he was wealthy before JetBlue.
He helped build a small Salt Lake City carrier, Morris Air, which was bought by Southwest Airlines in 1993 for $129 million. Mr. Neeleman, who held a large minority stake in Morris Air, was fired months later by Southwest's founder, Herbert D. Kelleher.
" 'You're driving everyone around here crazy,' " Mr. Kelleher told him, according to Mr. Neeleman, who added: "There were a lot of things I thought they could do better. I think that offended them."
Mr. Kelleher insisted that Mr. Neeleman honor a five-year noncompete agreement. That gave him time to build and sell a second company, a technology firm, pocketing a second fortune, and to refine the Southwest business model for New York. "Herb did me a huge favor," he said.
Mr. Neeleman encourages and seems to enjoy the comparisons to Southwest and to Mr. Kelleher, of whom he said, "He's an attorney, smokes three packs a day, drinks a quart of Wild Turkey. I'm a Mormon. Other than that, we're a lot alike."
A Southwest spokeswoman, Beth Harbin, accustomed to answering questions about Mr. Neeleman's comments on Mr. Kelleher, said of the description: "I'm sure he's done it, but not on a daily basis."
March 1, 2006
JetBlue to Try New Route to Profitability: Higher Prices --NYT
JetBlue made its name in the airline business with low fares. But in the bruising battle for passengers and profitability, it is trying a new tack: raising prices.
A central testing ground for this approach is the heavily traveled New York-to-Florida corridor.
JetBlue Airways — at six years old too new to have built up excessive costs that can now be trimmed — is trying mightily to raise fares in a bid to restore profits after surging fuel prices caused it to lose $42.4 million during the fourth quarter.
Along the East Coast, JetBlue, which is based in New York, competes head to head against traditional carriers like Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines. JetBlue's low fares, matched by the competition, have stimulated a big increase in demand for travel in recent years.
JetBlue says it needs a $10 increase on one-way tickets, which averaged $110 last year. If the carriers can pull off a major price increase without scaring off a lot of those price-sensitive passengers, it would be an encouraging sign for the health of the industry.
It would also help JetBlue continue its rapid growth. It plans to add 35 planes this year and 35 next year, and to take on billions of dollars in debt in the hope of becoming one of the country's biggest and most successful airlines.
Domestic fares on an industrywide basis are already up by about 8 percent compared with a year ago. Much of that increase, however, is because of reduced fleets at some major carriers, which has cut the supply of airline seats at a time when demand has remained strong.
As Delta and Northwest Airlines move through bankruptcy proceedings, the fleet reductions will probably come to an end and the supply of seats will rise, making price increases harder to push through.
During the last six years, when traditional airlines were piling up more than $40 billion in losses, JetBlue grew to $1.7 billion in annual revenue and became increasingly popular with travelers. Its planes feature leather seats and individual television screens with lots of channels. New planes and new, nonunion workers gave it unusually low costs.
But now that fuel prices have pushed up expenses for all airlines, and older carriers have sharply cut their own labor costs, the advantage JetBlue enjoyed as a start-up is greatly reduced.
"Many JetBlue investors we speak with are under the impression there's something patently different about its model, some core über-profitability that's waiting to be tapped," Jamie Baker, an analyst at J. P. Morgan Securities said in a report last month. "We doubt it."
JetBlue's biggest obstacle has been Delta. "We've had a competitor that's been willing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars," said David G. Neeleman, founder and chief executive of JetBlue.
"JetBlue is charging a premium to Delta and they're getting better load factors," said Michael Allen, a managing director at Back Aviation. "The indication would be they have a preferred product."
Last October, the news that Delta would close Song, the low-price airline it started to compete with JetBlue, was greeted with relief at JetBlue headquarters. Finally, Mr. Neeleman and others hoped, the costly price war up and down the East Coast would subside.
But more than three months later, JetBlue is still waiting to find out how substantially Delta will scale back the number of seats it offers on those routes. "We are waiting to see what Delta does," said Tim Claydon, senior vice president of sales and marketing at JetBlue.
Delta, while saying it will substitute smaller planes on some New York-to-Florida routes beginning in May, is in no hurry to offer comfort to JetBlue by disclosing its plans. "We ain't pulling out," Chris Kelly, a Delta spokeswoman, said. "Much to their dismay, I'm sure."
Delta plans to withdraw some of the Boeing 757's that were operated as Song planes, seating 199 passengers, and replace them with Boeing 737's or MD-80's, which seat about 150 and 142, respectively, said Bob Cortelyou, vice president of network planning at Delta.
Mr. Baker of J. P. Morgan estimated that Delta was reducing seats between the Northeast and Florida by about 15 percent from a year ago. He said that should be enough to allow JetBlue to raise fares and report a small profit for 2006.
As of last week, one-way tickets from New York to Fort Lauderdale, purchased three weeks in advance, were $69, before taxes, on both airlines. But those prices might not last. Consumers can expect to see somewhat higher prices for tickets purchased far in advance and somewhat fewer of those tickets available. JetBlue hopes to sell more tickets closer to travel time, when consumers are accustomed to paying more.
According to Mr. Baker, Mr. Neeleman told an investor conference last week that JetBlue had set prices too high on top-end fares, failing to sell some seats, and too low on some bottom-end fares, selling out but at too low a price.
JetBlue, with all the planes it is buying, not only needs to raise fares but also must find new markets it can serve profitably.
But Southwest Airlines is growing rapidly, too, and looking for new routes. And even Continental is expanding, adding planes and increasing its New York-to-Florida capacity by 30 percent since last winter. Continental, said David Messing, a spokesman, will match JetBlue "dollar for dollar, every flight."
In that competitive environment, JetBlue has begun efforts to sharpen its operations. Until recently, for example, the workers who set ticket prices and choose the routes that JetBlue planes fly were allowed to work away from company headquarters, an arrangement that is now ending. Operating separately slowed decision-making and information-sharing, said Mr. Claydon, the JetBlue executive.
JetBlue also missed a big opportunity. Unlike most big airlines, it had a strong enough balance sheet in recent years to hedge its fuel costs, essentially buying insurance against very high oil prices. Southwest hedged and thus remains highly profitable. JetBlue did not, in part owing to Mr. Neeleman's belief that oil prices would not skyrocket, and now the company is losing money.
"We had the wherewithal to do it," Mr. Neeleman said. "We just missed it."
Rapid growth, meanwhile, is hard to manage. A year ago, JetBlue claimed it had the best on-time performance among major airlines. As it has grown, however, and it has run more flights from its home base, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, its performance has declined. In December, it was last among 20 carriers tracked by the Transportation Department, with just 64 percent of its flights arriving on time.
Jenny Dervin, a spokeswoman, said JetBlue was trying to shift landings away from the busiest periods at Kennedy and to speed plane cleaning so that planes landing late could still take off again on time.
JetBlue's startling success, until recently, gave Mr. Neeleman, its 46-year-old chief executive, a soap box to discuss the industry's failings and his company's alternative approach to the business. An outspoken Mormon who says he has attention deficit disorder, he can seem alternately arrogant and humble. Mr. Neeleman expresses contempt, for example, for the industry's labor practices.
"Some companies deserve unions," he said in an interview.
His combined salary and bonus, less than $300,000 a year, is very low for a chief executive. But the JetBlue stock he paid little for in the start-up is now valued at about $70 million. And he was wealthy before JetBlue.
He helped build a small Salt Lake City carrier, Morris Air, which was bought by Southwest Airlines in 1993 for $129 million. Mr. Neeleman, who held a large minority stake in Morris Air, was fired months later by Southwest's founder, Herbert D. Kelleher.
" 'You're driving everyone around here crazy,' " Mr. Kelleher told him, according to Mr. Neeleman, who added: "There were a lot of things I thought they could do better. I think that offended them."
Mr. Kelleher insisted that Mr. Neeleman honor a five-year noncompete agreement. That gave him time to build and sell a second company, a technology firm, pocketing a second fortune, and to refine the Southwest business model for New York. "Herb did me a huge favor," he said.
Mr. Neeleman encourages and seems to enjoy the comparisons to Southwest and to Mr. Kelleher, of whom he said, "He's an attorney, smokes three packs a day, drinks a quart of Wild Turkey. I'm a Mormon. Other than that, we're a lot alike."
A Southwest spokeswoman, Beth Harbin, accustomed to answering questions about Mr. Neeleman's comments on Mr. Kelleher, said of the description: "I'm sure he's done it, but not on a daily basis."
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