JetBlue's Awful Financial Results: This Can't Be Good

JetBlue has simply been making a string of ridiculous financial decisions over the years, and their mistakes are finally catching up with them. Why would you launch flights to Europe in the most competitive market in the world or acquire an airline with a different business model when you can’t even reliably operate domestic flights from your hubs? Hope they can get back on track soon. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a leadership shakeup in the coming months.

I used to fly B6 twice a week for years and accumulated a large stash of Jet Blue points. Then they stopped flying my routes and i have not been on them in years. their reliability is so bad I can't fly on them even if they have a flight that works. Now what to do with my jetBlue points?

“Why would you launch flights to Europe in the most competitive market in the world or acquire an airline with a different business model when you can’t even reliably operate domestic flights from your hubs?”

Honestly, prestige and arrogance/ zealotry/ hubris are the only things that come to mind for your two questions.

These results are shockingly bad given the strong leisure demand in the market and the results of Southwest, Delta, etc. It's bizarre that they think they can "grow" their way to profitability by acquiring Spirit and changing their profitable business model to JetBlue's less/not profitable one.

@Lucky - Unrelated, did you see the AA Stand Up to Cancer donation email today. Good way to acquire miles while supporting a good cause.

No, the spirit model doesn’t work if jetblue adopts it. ULCC’s work best at smaller size airlines and the geography of where jetblue has a large presence would drive many of its customers to delta or united. You think of ny and Boston, they would go in droves to thier competitors. Also lax and south Florida, they need the size and depth. Overtime it will work out, look at history, the growth and building up an airline is costly, but they have to invest in future. London is doing great, they increased market share in high yeilding markets like nyc/Boston/la basin, but the road will be bumpy. Unfortunately articles like these just report on numbers now and don’t look deeply into historical data and understanding of differ is yes markets. Sadly this type of journalism is more common these days and it’s very lazy reporting.
Also they posted a profit for June and plan on reporting a profit for Q3 and beyond, so in all they had 2 less months of profit vs their competitors.

The only other airline to lose money in the period is Spirit so combining these 2 airlines doesn't equate to profits. Particularly when you think about combining these 2 different airlines. Jetblue's issues in part due are to a heavy concentration in the clogged East Coast and being somewhere between a LCC and legacy carrier. Spirit has some of the same East Coast issues but I have to wonder what's in store for the future of an ULCC. At some point with maturing planes and workforce their costs are going to rise, not to mention what's happen with fuel, and can they continue to fly people around for bargain basement fares? And make money?

Dear jetblue, this is not arwu rankings, your results don't look good after you merge with another company which have equally bad results.

Convinced they are fully planning on hurtling towards Chapter 11, where they can off load their debts from the Spirit deal and renegotiate staff contracts. Whether or not they can ever get back to what they were is debatable.

I think he blew his whole annual points purchasing budget when he bought 7 million AA miles

And not writing about it probably means he's bitter than he didn't get CK like Gary.

The only problem is intentionally running your company into Chapter 11 doesn't benefit anyone. Not the management, not the shareholders, not even debtors or creditors.

There’s only one thing that can save JetBlue. Johanna Garretty’s exit. She is the reason and the sole reason there is no operational directive. She’s the worst. She’s a female Jeff Smisek just working at JetBlue to destroy the operation. Whether she’s trying to or not she is proving an attorney can’t run an airline. Let’s hope for JetBlue’s sake she finds herself another home fast because the world is way too woke to fire her.

I wonder if having personal tv's, on domestic routes, is actually a hindrance to an airline. It seems like those units, added up across an A320, probably add a significant amount of weight. Not saying that this is the sole reason for bad results, it's definitely more nuanced than anyone on this site will admit or realize. However, it seems like the legacy carriers might have been onto something by removing the devices and forcing passengers to use the devices that they already have with them.

Every and all Delta flights - more than 20 - I took this year had seat back TV screens. Delta is a legacy carrier.

A terrible use of points would be to burn them on Hawaiian Airlines, but at least it's an option if you don't want to fly B6. A not-as-awful way to burn points would be on Mint flights as part of a big vacation. Also, if you have immediate family member/extremely close friend who could use the miles, create a point pool with them--giving them access to use your miles as needed.

Theoretically you should be able to redeem TrueBlue points for AA flights "sometime soon." Not clear what the redemption rates will be, though.

In a merger, the target company's operations are typically grafted onto the acquiring company's financial model. And, roughly 75 percent of M&A deals do not meet projected financial objectives. Time will tell.

Big acquisitions have wrecked much better run companies than Jet Blue.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this…

Reminds me of when Pan Am bought National as a growth strategy - it didn’t go well..

Durrrr anecdotal evidence proves correlation durrr

Delta doesn't have to deal with union wages which equate to higher costs and lower margins

Is B6 headed down the path of CP, AN and EY(v1.0): GREAT airlines; terrible businesses?

Also contemplate how much worse these results will be when debt service on the $3.8B they are going to pay to buy NK is factored in.

Airline synergies are invented in the minds of the C suite to hoodwink investors. I remember how the AC/CP merger was supposed to reap synergies of $1.2B+. What a load of old cobblers as the Brits would say.

B6 truly needs to get their house in order - as other posters have commented often mergers do not turn out as well as projected and do not deliver the promised financial results.

My last flight on B6 in June was not pleasant. E190 was hot as hell, an hour late and at 3pm they had no beer/wine on board. Crew said they had not been catered all day - yet the flight arrived into DCA from BOS. Crew was pretty lackluster - so this may have been something the crew came up with.

Other than the rare mint flight, I avoid Jetblue like the plague.

You surely don’t know what you are talking about. Delta pays the same amount of money in wages as the legacies because they got to shut up and quash the union movement at Delta.

The JFK-LHR route is a huge profit engine. British Airways alone netted over $1B in earnings on this route in 2019. If B6 can offer more frequency, it will help its bottom line. A handful of flights a day wont get that done though.

B6 has some of the most valuable slots at JFK and some at LGA/EWR. There is little reason this airline should be so poorly functioning compared to its peers. It reminds me of investing in ATT. Some companies just cant sort themselves out and their board wont change the leadership.

I wonder if the merger of B6/Spirit is similar to Penn/NY Central Railroad merger that sunk both companies.

JetBlue is the only USA airline I fly these days. I'm glad I started flying them instead of dealing with the lies and uncertainty of the others. I flew on JetBlue Economy in April and May of this year and had good experiences.

Where is that B6 investor fanboy TPHuang was his handle? Convinced B6 would disrupt UNITED at EWR

My understanding is that they can't operate flights reliably because they do not have the crews and planes. Acquiring spirit does allow them to beef up on both those areas pretty quickly...

It’s the Penn-Central Merger of 1968 all over again. Read up on what happened. History DOES
A repeat itself.

Man if you’re going to write something, get your facts straight. Inflight did not get any pay raises, as a matter of fact their pay has been stagnant and is on the low spectrum. Flight crews aka Pilots got an increase and a huge bonus.

no, British Airways didn't generate $1 billion in earnings on JFK-LHR. They carried $1 billion in revenue on that route.

what is not known if if the DOJ will require JetBlue to divest itself of the Spirit flight access at EWR. JetBlue is already there so, on a combined basis, B6 could still end up as the 2nd largest airline at EWR.

It's worth noting that Delta has returned to the position of being the most profitable global airline in the world and second only to Southwest in the most recent quarter. Since Delta and Southwest have completely opposite approaches to onboard amenities, the absence or presence of seatback TVs isn't the reason for B6' failures or DL or WN's success.
Delta is the largest airline at JFK and has passed JetBlue at Boston based on seat miles and local market revenue because of DL's major international expansion - and that is probably the biggest reason why B6 can't find a niche. DL flies just about everywhere B6 does, has a stronger presence to many markets than B6 and still manages to deliver higher profits.

B6 needs its merger because it can't figure out how to succeed with its present business model or even the Northeast Alliance w/ AA

Hopefully this helps kill the merger. Does anybody outside of the industry (other than perhaps some major JetBlue fans) actually want this to happen?

Better yet, this reminds me of the PAN AM and National merger of 1980. The ensuing recession of 1980-81 forced PAN AM into a fire sale of key assets (Euro hotels) and routes (Pacific). It all fizzled away by the 1991 bankruptcy.

I used to love JetBlue. I used to go out of my way to fly JetBlue. That ended when they started charging for carry-on bags. It started out as $30 and, now, I think it's up to $65. For a carry-on bag. Nope. These days, I go out of my way to NOT fly JetBlue. They chose to screw over passengers who fly economy. I imagine there are hundreds of thousands of people like me who simply fly other airlines, now.

What? JetBlue doesn’t charge for carrry-on bags. You’re obviously confusing it with some other airline, possibly Spirit, which it just acquired.
It’s extremely easy to check this stuff before you post incorrect info like you just did.

I used to love JetBlue, and flew them almost exclusively (if possible). Now, I won't even dream of flying them. Forty-five minutes to get luggage at JFK? Cancellations and delays galore? And a charge for carryons? REALLY??

Delta has come up in the world, and is much more reliable than JetBlue for me. And it manages to get luggage out at JFK in less than 15 minutes. Carryons are free, and the flight personnel are friendly.

When an airline holds its passengers in almost-total contempt, the end is near.

Many of those EWR routes are northeast / AA alliance routes….. I see AA taking them back if a meter occurs.

Lost it's spark when it comes to customer service? Wait until they fold Ghetto Air into the route map!

Starts at the top leadership and lack of it. Operational goals and initiatives are pathetic and at a bare min good enough to manage a 7-11.

And you're both right and wrong. Your bag fees (if any) are based on the price of your ticket and your FF status. Cheaper the ticket the more the bag fee (including carry-on). The more expensive the ticket, the higher your status, free bags.

Agree, when searching for fares between JB and Delta, JB always gets the "nickel and dime" award and Delta has been having lower fares when comparing fares that include the same things.

Another delay - Google: "jetBlue 151". My flight was delayed for six hours. Instead of arriving at my destination - Orlando - on Friday 8/5/22 at 9:41pm. I arrived on Saturday 8/6/22 at 3:37am. This was only a three hour non-stop flight. Well, at least I got there.

That plane has left the airport, jetBlue attempting to buy NK & copy the ULCC model. They should have done that day one. Their on the Titanic now, & they’ve said they’ll be ripping out seats on NK planes & integrating Spirit into their biz. model, which will raise B6’s costs exponentially. Which in turn sux on all fronts. Primarily, & most importantly their bottom line. But also more so to pax., as potentially there’s one less ULCC carrier to choose from. And NK employees, who’ll be bounced out of employment should the DOJ approve this merger. I personally don’t think it’s going to pass muster. Either way it plays out, it’s a bad place to be for blue.