sbm12

Earlier this week JetBlue announced it is upping frequencies on the Mint routes and that at least a few of the seven A321s being delivered this year into Mint aircraft. SFO will increase to 6x daily and LAX will get to 10x daily by February, coming close to the 13x AA offers.

http://otp.investis.com/clients/us/j...1&newsid=29726
http://blog.wandr.me/2015/06/jetblue...campaign=15737


n.b. A link above is to my blog or to one which I am a regular contributor. FT rules require that I disclose that in the post.

airplanegod

Yep, I believe this is in response to United leaving JFK.

bennos

Hopefully this will help maintain downward pressure on prices in spite of UAs capacity leaving JFK (and eventually leaving EWR as well, probably).

Interestingly, for my last TCON purchase B6 had pretty much no $599 MINT availability on the days I needed to travel, with few if any seats booked two months out. In comparison, DL offered $1200 r/t fares (but not $600 o/w) on almost half their schedule and AA offered $1200 r/t availability on pretty much every flight. (VX is still absurdly at $2000 r/t for their inferior product. But hey, if they can get people to pay it...)

Fun times for premium TCON pricing.

sbm12

[QUOTE=bennos;25002052] (and eventually leaving EWR as well, probably).]/quote]Uhh....not likely anytime soon.

bennos

I meant the additional TCON frequencies that are moving from JFK to EWR will likely disappear, and possibly even the entire p.s. service. (ie: the capacity that moves from JFK to EWR will itself also disappear from EWR.) Obviously UA isn't leaving EWR as a whole any time soon.

sfozrhfco

The NYC-SFO market will see a big drop in the number of flights. UA is even cutting frequency on their Newark flights.

*UA SFO-EWR SEP 14>13 OCT 14>11 DEC 14>13 JAN 11>10 FEB 14>13
*UA SFO-JFK OCT 7>6 NOV 7>0 DEC 7>0 JAN 8>0 FEB 8>0


B6 has been steadily raising prices on the Mint flights and close in prices are now usually $1099 in the SFO market unless there are several seats left. They have repeatedly said that their biggest complaint about the Mint product is that there are so many flights that are sold out that it is difficult to find a seat. I imagine prices will have to go up a bit to keep some seats available for last minute purchases that want to fly in a premium seat.

sbm12

I figured that's what you meant. I still disagree with the assertion. The planes aren't likely to be reconfigured anytime soon.
Full UA schedule is expected to be 17 daily to SFO and 15 to LAX. Schedules are still being updated. Combine that with JetBlue's growing frequencies and DL up-gauging some to 767s the capacity isn't dropping much, if at all.

bennos

Well, we could debate this endlessly, but perhaps we can just leave it to the UA forum to do so.

As I said, I'm happy to see B6 increasing capacity. It's not clear to me that DL is really upgauging, though. LAX has already dropped from 4 daily 763 to 2 daily on the days I checked (though frequency remains the same or increased, using the 75S). I suspect the SFO 763 will come at the expense of a frequency (perhaps to feed LAX a 75S so they can get to an hourly schedule), meaning basically no change in J capacity.

I do wonder if B6 is indeed selling out MINT on a regular basis then a better strategy might be to reconfigure the A321s with an additional row or more of J. This would avoid dumping more Y capacity just to add premium seats. AA is running 10F/20J/36Y+/36Y. In comparison, B6 runs 4J+/12J/41Y+/102Y. Something like 4J+/16J/41Y+/84Y perhaps.

sbm12

That wouldn't fit in the plane, really. Putting an extra Mint cabin behind the 2nd set of doors would be all sorts of a strange layout.

sfozrhfco

UA has stated only UP TO those numbers but the schedules have been loaded through February and they have as few as 6 flights per day in January for EWR-SFO on Saturdays. I can see UA offering the full schedule in the summer but I doubt they are going to run 17 flights a day every day of the year.

DL/B6 will not make up for the loss of UA from JFK any time soon.

sbm12

Just like they and everyone else flies fewer daily frequencies on Saturdays today. Peak daily and average daily are not the same as the off peak days. And the airlines are much, much more aggressive about that sort of thing these days.

bennos

No different than the mini J cabin behind the 2L/2R doors on a DL 332 or 772/77L, or on an AA 772 or 788, or a UA 772 or 788/789, or a BA 772 or 778, or a VA 773, or numerous other examples.

The only thing different about B6 is they'd basically be limited to odd numbers of additional rows. So 1 row for 4J or 3 rows for 4J+/8J. And I suppose they'd have to decide what to do with the 2L lav and self service bar, but that doesn't seem insurmountable.

Carfield

I think Mint is a great product, but honestly I can only afford it if it remains at the $599 level.

It is understandable that JetBlue has a difficult task of balancing the amount of $599 and $1099 seats. Honestly many people choose JetBlue because of its affordable price tag and despite the great inflight service, the ground service is really limited compared to AA and DL. Priority tags don't even work that consistently now. Rebooking during irregular op is still not that easy. Mint at Boston will make its deficient ground service even more obvious, as they don't even have a paid lounge at Boston (and San Francisco as of now). Unlike SFO brand new International terminal, Boston terminal is a bit more crowded with low ceiling and there are limited things that jetBlue can do. I hope they can find a lounge contractor like Eclipse to open up a paid lounge at Boston's JetBlue terminal.

BTW just read from usadtoday, jetBlue will introduce Mint on the Boston to SFO flight beginnig in March 2016, and then BOS-LA in fall of 2016.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayi...ston/29139903/

sbm12

Sure, but it is easier to amortize that extra space on a wide-body. I think they'd lose too much in the Y cabin to make it worthwhile.
Me, too, but I know I'm not the target customer. And the prices are still well below what the competition was charging pre-Mint so I think they'll do just fine overall.