Originally Posted by
synzero
Fair enough. Personally, I don't fault JetBlue for introducing Basic Economy. However, as I was saying before, price is not cost. If all you are focused on is cutting costs but you're not looking at the value you get for whatever you were spending money on, that's not great management. If you "save" $1 but it costs you $2, that isn't smart management, it's short-term thinking.
My beef with B6 isn't cost cutting, it's making cuts that will in the long run hurt their brand. It doesn't cost huge sums, for instance, to care about food quality in T5 or to respond to a legitimate customer complaint in a reasonable way, and NOT doing this is going to cost you more than the tiny amount you save. So I understand your desire to try to reward the underdog to preserve competition, but I'm more interested in rewarding management practices I think are good for the customer, good for employees, and good for long-term viability of the company.
Think of it this way: Delta has not always been in this position. Delta had some pretty tough years after the financial crash. Yet -- they managed to maintain strong customer service ratings and high employee satisfaction. They didn't let a blip in profit position panic them. I don't see the same resilience at B6.
However, I respect your perspective -- chacun a son gout.
They are not in the same position as DL. If their stock performance get any lower, they are probably the most visible takeover target of one of AA/UA/WN. A lot of DL's "customer friendly" moves have only been made after their merger with NW was fully complete. When you only 2 or 3 major hubs that are really profitable and then the most profitable one sees 25% additional capacity in a short period of time, it's hard not to suffer. That's the case with both B6 and AS. Both have had to make tough rough decisions in their network. And both have had to cut its cost anyway they can. Hard to growth revenue when all the market you are in have more competition.
On the food front, I think this is just a temporary situation.
Last fall, they announced 7 new restaurants that they were planning to open up in T5
JetBlue | JetBlue Adds More Bites from the Big Apple to the T5 Menu in First Major Restaurant Update at its Home Terminal at JFK Airport
which included Shake Shack, the melt shop along with some other eateries that New Yorkers would know pretty well. Looks ilke they are really behind schedule in their construction, since none of these places seem to have opened based on what people are saying. JetBlue never seems to be able to do anything on time. But they probably had to close some of the existing restaurants while this is going on, so the food options aren't going to be great while this is going on.
Aside from that, I think it's an easy case to make that they are continuing to improve the product in many ways.
JetBlue | JetBlue Expands Its Lineup of Free Entertainment with Launch of New Onboard Content Partners
They also added showtime amongst other things to their IFE recently.
This is on top of the improved IFE you will now see on A320 phase 2 reconfig along with A220 and A321NEO.
And of course, terminal 5 is getting extended to 6/7 in the coming years.
JetBlue | JetBlue and JFK Millennium Partners Select New York-based Private Equity Investor ? American Triple I as a Minority Owned Business Enterprise (MBE) Financing Partner for Terminals 6 and 7 Redevelopment Project at New York?s JFK Internationa
as usual with JetBlue, I fully expect them to be behind schedule.
"
JetBlue, New York’s Hometown Airline®
with a significant presence at JFK, was designated by the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey
to build a 1.2 million square foot terminal featuring up to 12 international gates, approximately 74,000 square feet of commercial dining and retail amenities, including lounges and recreational space."