Pitting Southwest vs. JetBlue
By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY
They're the USA's two most-talked-about discount airlines.
Low-cost airlines now account for about 20-25% of the market.
Joe Raedle, Getty Images
Veteran Southwest built its reputation on 33 years of stake-your-claim seating, wisecracking flight attendants and plentiful peanuts. Upstart JetBlue emerged from nowhere four years ago with new planes, free seatback boob tubes and baskets of junk food.
They're two very different creations, especially when it comes to size. Southwest flew seven times as many passengers as JetBlue last year. Even today, it serves twice as many cities and has more than 10 times the number of daily flights.
Yet both have been islands of relative financial health in an airline industry sea of gloom.
To delve more deeply into how these two airline success stories compare, a USA TODAY business travel reporter nitpicked his way across the country. Here's how it went from Los Angeles to Baltimore aboard Southwest Flight 2211, and back from Washington Dulles to Long Beach on JetBlue Flight 306:
•Web sites. Both airlines' sites were easy to use. Drop-down boxes made it simple to pick origination and destination cities.
Southwest shows all the fares available for each destination, not just the lowest. Customers can readily choose between fully refundable fares or simply the cheapest.
On JetBlue, only the lowest price is shown for each available flight. Since all tickets are non-refundable, there's no need to show other fares. One nice feature: a printable guide to the seatback television showing only programs that will appear during a particular flight.
• Frequent-flier plan. Neither airline counts miles, but rather flight credits. Those who accumulate enough credits over any 12-month period get a free flight.
Southwest fliers get the same flight credit no matter what the distance of the flight. JetBlue fliers get more credits for a long flight than for a short one. As a result, Southwest passengers can get a frequent-flier ticket after six round-trip flights booked on the Internet. JetBlue fliers receive a ticket after five transcontinental round trips or 13 of the shortest round trips.
How the discount airline rivals stack upSouthwestJetBlueNumber of paying passengers in 2003 (in millions)
Southwest lets its fliers earn flight credits through affiliations with a credit card, hotel and rental car chains, and in other ways. On JetBlue, passengers are pretty much limited to earning miles through the flights themselves.
Frequent-flier guru Randy Petersen, publisher of InsideFlyer, prefers Southwest's program to JetBlue's. He says he likes Southwest because the frequent-flier program is simple and free seats can be claimed any time.
•Airport convenience. Both Southwest and JetBlue serve a mix of big and small airports in metropolitan areas. Southwest serves giant Los Angeles International and Philadelphia International. Yet it flies from Dallas at Love Field and from Chicago at Midway, both smaller airports. JetBlue is taking the same approach. Its East Coast base is at sprawling New York Kennedy, but its West Coast base is the Los Angeles suburb of Long Beach at a cozy 1940s-style airport where passengers board planes by walking up stairs.
• Ticket counter and gate. Southwest has installed enough self-serve check-in machines at Los Angeles International to hold down the wait time in the ticket counter line. The ticket counter is usually well staffed, so lines move quickly. On a Monday morning, the wait was 11 minutes.
The gate agent greeted me personally when he looked at my name on my driver's license.
On the return trip from Washington Dulles, it was surprising to see no wait at the JetBlue ticket counter during what would normally be the Friday afternoon rush. It took three minutes to check my bag.
The gate agents boarding the JetBlue flight were just as perky as they had been on Southwest. One of them wished passengers happy travels in French.
• Boarding. Southwest's open-seating policy encourages passengers to get aboard faster to claim an aisle or window. I was assigned to boarding group B, usually a safe bet. Not this time. Flight 2211 was mostly filled by the time I boarded because of passengers continuing on from a previous stop in Sacramento. I pounced on an empty middle seat in the back of the 137-seat Boeing 737.
JetBlue has bigger planes, 156-seat Airbus A-320s, but they are often boarded from both ends. Passengers get aboard faster. The seats are assigned. Again, I had a middle seat in the back.
• Cleanliness. Both airlines have leather seats. The Southwest jet had the older brown interior, which is being replaced by new blue interiors on the entire fleet. There were ink scribbles on the headrest in front of my seat. The JetBlue interior was spotless.
The average age of a JetBlue plane is 20 months. Southwest's average fleet age is about 8 years.
• Cabin crew. Southwest's flight attendants are usually fun. They also know when to turn off the jokes, such as on early-morning flights. On the day I flew, humor was in short supply. When a passenger asked for second pillow, the flight attendant replied, "You only get one. That's it." They came by for two beverage runs and a snack-box run.
On JetBlue, pillows were plentiful. The pilot stood at the front of the cabin greeting arriving passengers. The flight attendants came by once to offer beverages and again to deliver snacks. They showed up twice more to hand out bottled water.
• Food. Southwest's snack box had graham crackers, shortbread cookies and crackers spread with peanut butter. The airline's signature packs of peanuts came with the second beverage service.
JetBlue's snack box included two Oreo cookies, two crackers, cheese spread and hard candies. In addition, JetBlue offers an assortment of packaged animal crackers, blue potato chips and other items from a basket. The airline has since added low-carb almonds. No limit.
• Entertainment. Southwest has an in-flight magazine. There are also a few big-name magazines on board to flip through, including BusinessWeek, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and Family Circle.
Except for a few magazines left behind by past passengers that flight attendants had stashed away, JetBlue wasn't for readers. It has 24-channel live DirecTV and free headsets. An additional 12 channels and pay-per-view will be added by the end of the year.
"Everyone loves the TVs," said Jason Manning, 27, a graduate student from Washington, D.C., a passenger on the flight.
On-time performance and baggage. JetBlue ranked first among 19 U.S. airlines in on-time performance for the 12-month period ended in April, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Southwest was third.
JetBlue had the best record of any airline for not losing bags in April. Southwest was fourth.
Which airline is best?
Earlier this year, an annual airline quality survey rated JetBlue and Southwest first and third, respectively.
The survey by the University of Nebraska-Omaha and Wichita State University and based on performance data filed with the government rated Alaska Airlines second.
For Southwest and JetBlue, the real contest will begin as both grow and begin to compete head-to-head on more routes.
By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY
They're the USA's two most-talked-about discount airlines.
Veteran Southwest built its reputation on 33 years of stake-your-claim seating, wisecracking flight attendants and plentiful peanuts. Upstart JetBlue emerged from nowhere four years ago with new planes, free seatback boob tubes and baskets of junk food.
They're two very different creations, especially when it comes to size. Southwest flew seven times as many passengers as JetBlue last year. Even today, it serves twice as many cities and has more than 10 times the number of daily flights.
Yet both have been islands of relative financial health in an airline industry sea of gloom.
To delve more deeply into how these two airline success stories compare, a USA TODAY business travel reporter nitpicked his way across the country. Here's how it went from Los Angeles to Baltimore aboard Southwest Flight 2211, and back from Washington Dulles to Long Beach on JetBlue Flight 306:
•Web sites. Both airlines' sites were easy to use. Drop-down boxes made it simple to pick origination and destination cities.
Southwest shows all the fares available for each destination, not just the lowest. Customers can readily choose between fully refundable fares or simply the cheapest.
On JetBlue, only the lowest price is shown for each available flight. Since all tickets are non-refundable, there's no need to show other fares. One nice feature: a printable guide to the seatback television showing only programs that will appear during a particular flight.
• Frequent-flier plan. Neither airline counts miles, but rather flight credits. Those who accumulate enough credits over any 12-month period get a free flight.
Southwest fliers get the same flight credit no matter what the distance of the flight. JetBlue fliers get more credits for a long flight than for a short one. As a result, Southwest passengers can get a frequent-flier ticket after six round-trip flights booked on the Internet. JetBlue fliers receive a ticket after five transcontinental round trips or 13 of the shortest round trips.
How the discount airline rivals stack upSouthwestJetBlueNumber of paying passengers in 2003 (in millions)
65.7
9.0
Cities served59
27
Daily flights2,800
252
Year flights began1971
2000
Seat width17.25 inches
17.75 inches
Seat pitch32-33 inches
32-34 inches
Seat recline3 inches
2.5 inches
Number/weight of checked bags allowed at no extra cost3 bags up to 70 lbs.
3 bags up to 70 lbs
1 — armrest to armrest; 2 — distance between same point on two seats; 3 — Two bags on Caribbean flights. Source: USA TODAY researchSouthwest lets its fliers earn flight credits through affiliations with a credit card, hotel and rental car chains, and in other ways. On JetBlue, passengers are pretty much limited to earning miles through the flights themselves.
Frequent-flier guru Randy Petersen, publisher of InsideFlyer, prefers Southwest's program to JetBlue's. He says he likes Southwest because the frequent-flier program is simple and free seats can be claimed any time.
•Airport convenience. Both Southwest and JetBlue serve a mix of big and small airports in metropolitan areas. Southwest serves giant Los Angeles International and Philadelphia International. Yet it flies from Dallas at Love Field and from Chicago at Midway, both smaller airports. JetBlue is taking the same approach. Its East Coast base is at sprawling New York Kennedy, but its West Coast base is the Los Angeles suburb of Long Beach at a cozy 1940s-style airport where passengers board planes by walking up stairs.
• Ticket counter and gate. Southwest has installed enough self-serve check-in machines at Los Angeles International to hold down the wait time in the ticket counter line. The ticket counter is usually well staffed, so lines move quickly. On a Monday morning, the wait was 11 minutes.
The gate agent greeted me personally when he looked at my name on my driver's license.
On the return trip from Washington Dulles, it was surprising to see no wait at the JetBlue ticket counter during what would normally be the Friday afternoon rush. It took three minutes to check my bag.
The gate agents boarding the JetBlue flight were just as perky as they had been on Southwest. One of them wished passengers happy travels in French.
• Boarding. Southwest's open-seating policy encourages passengers to get aboard faster to claim an aisle or window. I was assigned to boarding group B, usually a safe bet. Not this time. Flight 2211 was mostly filled by the time I boarded because of passengers continuing on from a previous stop in Sacramento. I pounced on an empty middle seat in the back of the 137-seat Boeing 737.
JetBlue has bigger planes, 156-seat Airbus A-320s, but they are often boarded from both ends. Passengers get aboard faster. The seats are assigned. Again, I had a middle seat in the back.
• Cleanliness. Both airlines have leather seats. The Southwest jet had the older brown interior, which is being replaced by new blue interiors on the entire fleet. There were ink scribbles on the headrest in front of my seat. The JetBlue interior was spotless.
The average age of a JetBlue plane is 20 months. Southwest's average fleet age is about 8 years.
• Cabin crew. Southwest's flight attendants are usually fun. They also know when to turn off the jokes, such as on early-morning flights. On the day I flew, humor was in short supply. When a passenger asked for second pillow, the flight attendant replied, "You only get one. That's it." They came by for two beverage runs and a snack-box run.
On JetBlue, pillows were plentiful. The pilot stood at the front of the cabin greeting arriving passengers. The flight attendants came by once to offer beverages and again to deliver snacks. They showed up twice more to hand out bottled water.
• Food. Southwest's snack box had graham crackers, shortbread cookies and crackers spread with peanut butter. The airline's signature packs of peanuts came with the second beverage service.
JetBlue's snack box included two Oreo cookies, two crackers, cheese spread and hard candies. In addition, JetBlue offers an assortment of packaged animal crackers, blue potato chips and other items from a basket. The airline has since added low-carb almonds. No limit.
• Entertainment. Southwest has an in-flight magazine. There are also a few big-name magazines on board to flip through, including BusinessWeek, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and Family Circle.
Except for a few magazines left behind by past passengers that flight attendants had stashed away, JetBlue wasn't for readers. It has 24-channel live DirecTV and free headsets. An additional 12 channels and pay-per-view will be added by the end of the year.
"Everyone loves the TVs," said Jason Manning, 27, a graduate student from Washington, D.C., a passenger on the flight.
On-time performance and baggage. JetBlue ranked first among 19 U.S. airlines in on-time performance for the 12-month period ended in April, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Southwest was third.
JetBlue had the best record of any airline for not losing bags in April. Southwest was fourth.
Which airline is best?
Earlier this year, an annual airline quality survey rated JetBlue and Southwest first and third, respectively.
The survey by the University of Nebraska-Omaha and Wichita State University and based on performance data filed with the government rated Alaska Airlines second.
For Southwest and JetBlue, the real contest will begin as both grow and begin to compete head-to-head on more routes.
