sulsk
Mar 16, 06, 11:11 pm
JetBlue's new business troubles might not enjoy such a soft landing. The airline recently announced that it bled $42 million in the fourth quarter of 2005 — its first-ever losing quarter — and expects to remain in the red throughout 2006.
Much like the traditional airlines it has heretofore outshined, JetBlue is struggling to meet higher fuel costs, operate efficiently and stave off aggressive competition.
JetBlue's performance has begun to wobble. In January, its flights arrived late an awful 29.4% of the time, giving it the worst on-time performance in the industry, according to the Department of Transportation. Late arrivals are poison for low-cost carriers, which need to keep their planes in the sky to keep expenses down.
JetBlue blames its woes on stratospheric jet fuel prices, which have more than tripled over the last five years. But Wall Street rightly blames over-exuberance. After all, JetBlue is beginning to look uncomfortably similar to People Express, the low-cost airline that grew from a bare-bones operator based in Newark, N.J., to a major carrier in less than five years during the 1980s. People Express got too big too soon, flying 747s to London when it should have paid more attention to its original niche market — the folks who needed a cheap way to fly to places like Buffalo and Columbus, Ohio. It went belly-up in 1987.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-ed-jetblue16mar16,1,351028.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california
very interesting piece about B6's future.
Much like the traditional airlines it has heretofore outshined, JetBlue is struggling to meet higher fuel costs, operate efficiently and stave off aggressive competition.
JetBlue's performance has begun to wobble. In January, its flights arrived late an awful 29.4% of the time, giving it the worst on-time performance in the industry, according to the Department of Transportation. Late arrivals are poison for low-cost carriers, which need to keep their planes in the sky to keep expenses down.
JetBlue blames its woes on stratospheric jet fuel prices, which have more than tripled over the last five years. But Wall Street rightly blames over-exuberance. After all, JetBlue is beginning to look uncomfortably similar to People Express, the low-cost airline that grew from a bare-bones operator based in Newark, N.J., to a major carrier in less than five years during the 1980s. People Express got too big too soon, flying 747s to London when it should have paid more attention to its original niche market — the folks who needed a cheap way to fly to places like Buffalo and Columbus, Ohio. It went belly-up in 1987.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-ed-jetblue16mar16,1,351028.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california
very interesting piece about B6's future.