Originally Posted by
jetsetter
But again, is JetBlue targeting the shuttle commuter? Sure, they are happy to take our money, but they don't appear to have developed procedures to particularly accommodate this kind of customer as DL and US have because those two have been in this shuttle game for so long; dating back to the Eastern and Trump Shuttle and the Pan Am Shuttle.
One good thing is that on B6 BOS to DCA they now serve a full beverage service. At one point, they were experimenting seemingly randomly with express beverage. I am not sure if BOS JFK is still express beverage, but again on the legacy shuttles, all pax still get free beer and wine! When they did express beverage it was i.e. water or OJ...ha and it was random. But now I would say 99.99% of B6 flights its a full beverage service which is good!
A relatively simply way to attract FFs on this route would be to charge extra for say, rows 2 to 4 or 2 to 5, or block them off for Mosaics on the E190s. US Air reserves the front of A319s for PLTs and above at time of booking and every-one else pays a fee to reserve at time of booking. With B6, when you're booking at the last minute, row 1 is usually already booked on the E190s and the only benefit is the ability to de-plane quickly. Otherwise, more likely than not, you're in the back of the bus. I don't see this scheme happening, which leads me to believe that B6 is unwilling to enhance service features to make it more attractive to shuttle flyers.
Regarding the beverage service, yes, this has gotten a lot better. However, if you want a beer/wine/spirits, just ask
If Express Service is announced and I'd like to have a glass of wine, I just ask and usually they'll accommodate the request. I've noticed plenty of others doing the same. As you noted though, fortunately, this is getting better.