jetBlue airlines of US is not a low cost carrier. Why we
have made it a point to say so that despite being a full service carrier, it is
still not flying on European routes even after being established 20 years ago.
The reasons are not far to seek.
It wanted to capitalize on the US market in
particular and the Americas routes to begin with. Once this has been achieved
to a good extent, and the people have begun to be loyal to its product, it
believes that the time is approaching fast that it takes the transatlantic route.
Many of the existing customers of the airline do fly to
destinations beyond its routes on regular basis. From Boston, one of its focus
cities, the airline already serves 39 of the top 50 destinations. And, out of
the remaining top destinations which it does not serve, four are in Europe.
These four destinations are London, Paris, Reykjavic and Dublin. The airline
believes that once it begins operations from Boston to these four European
cities, its existing passengers would prefer to do jetblue air ticket reservations rather than on other airlines.
Market analysts point to the fact that European carriers
such as Norwegian have added to fare competition in this market which makes the
non-peak season fares quite low. Now, the business class travelers do not get
the flat-bed seats for their transatlantic journey and this is a gap at the
upper end of market which jetBlue can consider to bridge.
It can draw parallels
from its flat-bed Mint premium service which it introduced on transcontinental
domestic service with much success.
These analysts also point to the fact that US to London
routes in the flat-bed seating class are dominated by alliances such as
American Airlines-British Airways and Delta Airlines-Virgin Atlantic.
The other
two competitors are United Airlines and Norwegian airlines. From Boston, there
are 8 daily flights- 4 by British Airways and 3 by Delta-Virgin Atlantic
alliance and 1 by Norwegian. However, Norwegian does not have a flat-bed
seating. This makes the business class cabin tickets quite expensive. jetBlue can
fill in this gap very well.
It will need to modify its A321 to enable it to carry more
fuel and also to add the premium cabin class seating.
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