Archive for the 'JetBlue' Category
May 13 2008
Something about this is extremely fishy:
A man is suing JetBlue because, he says, he was forced to spend most of a flight from San Diego to JFK sitting on a toilet. The passenger wanted to get on the flight but was told that there were no seats available. He says a flight attendant offered to allow him to sit in her jump seat (huh? you can’t do that), which he agreed to. After an hour and a half of flying, though, he was told the flight attendant wanted the jump seat back and that he would have to hang out in the bathroom. I know, something doesn’t sound right, does it? In any case, he’s suing for $2 million.
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May 06 2008
Fuel cost have caused Oakland and LAX to lose existing and planned service: American is pulling out of Oakland after serving the city for more than 60 years. Oakland has also lost service from ATA, Aloha and Skybus in the past month or so.
JetBlue said that it will not launch planned service between LAX and NY/Boston. Passengers who have booked those flights will have the option of flying out of Long Beach. That sigh of relief you heard was Virgin America.
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March 20 2008
One small additional piece of info about JetBlue’s new added-legroom seats: although they’re likely meant to attract business travelers, the seats are not available for sale through travel agents (which is, of course, where many business travelers must purchase their tickets). This is not the fault of JetBlue (it’s the fault of the GDSs, the tools travel agencies use to book tickets); the GDSs are based on antiquated technology that does not allow (for the most part) for airlines to sell added services such as premium seats. Air Canada is (was?) in a pissing match with the GDSs over this very issue — the ability for airlines to sell add-ons through the travel agency channel. In this miserable economic environment a couple of airlines have introduced innovative ways to attract more revenue, and their main technology partner (the GDSs) can’t help them actually sell the new product. But the GDSs have little reason to innovate, as they’ve locked the airlines into long-term distribution deals and the switching costs for travel agencies are very high. Hence, the situation we have now where airlines have saved a bit of money on GDS costs while hindering their ability to generate more revenue.
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March 19 2008
JetBlue confirmed that later this year it will begin to charge extra for seats with additional legroom. Planes will not be reconfigured — the airline will now charge more for the first rows on the aircraft and for exit rows. While this is annoying news for people who have enjoyed business class-like legroom for no added cost, it will benefit business travelers, who have found that those rows are always filled up when they book with little advanced purchase. The carrier hasn’t announced pricing yet, but it’s certainly worth $25 for the extra space.
(Thanks to reader and storyteller extraordinaire Joey-Z for the head’s up.)
UPDATE: JetBlue has announced the details on this: Rows 2-5 and the exit rows on their A320s will cost $10 for short-haul and $20 for long-haul flights. All other rows will have a still generous 34″ of pitch. The exit row on the E190s will also cost $10. $20 for 38″ of pitch (roughly what you get in business class on Continental) is a great deal when flying cross country. The interesting part to me is that their main competitive advantage over Virgin America was that they offered 8 rows where you got 4 more inches of pitch than on VA. Now that advantage is mostly gone (you get an extra 2″ of legroom now). Even so, I’m certain people will gladly pay $20 for the extra room long haul.
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February 29 2008
A Texas man was sentenced to 10 months in prison after a drunken incident on a JetBlue flight from Houston to JFK. Jose Roman, Jr, got drunk and was refused additional drinks when he asked flight attendants for them. So far, so good. He then got rather belligerent, freaked out on the flight attendants, and, in a drunken rage, made death threats.
Airlines generally don’t look too fondly on that type of behavior, so flight was diverted to Buffalo (Buffalo? Is that on the way from Houston to New York? I’m sure there’s a story there…) and he was arrested. The moral? When you get really drunk on a plane and freak out on the flight attendants, don’t threaten to kill them.
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February 13 2008
JetBlue’s CEO said in a recent interview that it plans to offer an “enhanced cabin” aimed at business travelers when it receives new A320s next month. The cabin at the front of the plane will offer additional legroom for a higher price (I believe we used to call this “first class.”) Business passengers make up about 10-20% of JetBlue’s travelers, and the carrier is hoping to increase average fares by offering a product that would appeal more to them. Though the current 36″ of legroom is only slightly less than you’d find on domestic first class on other carriers, so I’m not quite sure what the issue is (and on transcons, JetBlue’s new service won’t come near United’s PS, so they won’t be competing there either.)
In other news, they also announced that they’ll launch flights from LAX to New York and Boston.
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January 30 2008
I forgot to mention this 2 days ago: JetBlue has rolled out fully refundable fares (previously, their fares required a change fee, albeit a small one). New York to Florida is about $399 each way, while transcons are about $549. In many cases that is more than double the lowest available fare, so you may be better off buying the cheap ticket and changing it if you only anticipate changing the ticket once. Even so, this change will certainly appeal to business travelers looking for some flexibility (and free TV).
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December 14 2007
You’ll certainly see this elsewhere, but Lufthansa has purchased a 19% stake in JetBlue for $300 million. Depending on whom you believe, the Lufthansa either made the investment because it saw a good deal with the weak dollar and JetBlue at a low point, or because JetBlue has major debt obligations and won’t have the cash to pay them and continue growing their operations. The investment is purely financial and will not result in code shares (at least not yet).
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December 07 2007
JetBlue announced that it has partnered with Yahoo! and Blackberry maker RIM to offer free wi-fi on planes that will allow you to access Yahoo email, Yahoo instant messenger, and your blackberry emails. The first plane to be outfitted with take off on December 11th from JFK to SFO, and could show up anywhere after that. Sweet.
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November 27 2007
JetBlue has a pretty good sale to St. Maarten and Puerto Plata for travel in the new year. Seats are available for just $99 when you fly between January 8th and February 13th.
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Man Sues JetBlue Because He Had to Sit in Bathroom (He Says)