Does Jet Blue have to get bigger?
 

Or can it continue as a niche player?

Jetblue growth
 

INMO I think that Jetblue will always be a niche player but they have to continue to grow in order to become more profitable. (Ask their stockholders) :) Don't think they have any desire to be a legacy carrier. It just doesn't fit with the company values.

Meaning what?

No multi-cabin? Oops...EML already does that.
No international service? Again, been doing that a while.
Refundable fares? Got that, too.
Public GDS Data? Interline agreements?

What is it that B6 would need to avoid doing to remain a "niche" carrier.

Grow smartly
 

They should try to find some opportunities while the other carries (WN/Airtran) & (CO/UA) are busy with the merging process.

The jumpseat talk is we should buy VX. Thoughts :D?

Could purchase VX or maybe NK??

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9630/5.0.0.591 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

VX is a very different product and a very different target market. On the other hand, they have a decent west coast operation and a mostly compatible fleet.

In either case it would only make sense if the desire was to buy the target airline's route map. And I'm not really sure that B6 needs to. Yes, they are smaller than UA/DL/WN/US but after that they start to hold their own quite nicely in the market. The similarities to AS are uncanny and probably provide some idea as to how the carrier could survive and thrive without having to grow tremendously quickly.

Its a highly leveraged paper airline...why on earth?

Crazy. VX's value is tied up in the Virgin brand. Merge it into JetBlue and it's automatically pointless.

Not worth it just to knock VX off the chessboard, either, because VX will never approach B6 fleet size, number of stations served, or challenge it for NYC O/D market share. VX will remain a boutique operation skimming a little traffic off a few major city pairs. VX will never show up in AUS, PIT, BUF, etc.

In answer to the OP's question: growth is overrated. A profitable AS proves giantism and success aren't automatically linked.

How is having EML like having a 2-cabin plane?

Does UA have a 3-cabin plane, domestically? (1st, E+, E-?)

Because there are 2 different sections of the plane with different seating arrangements and other benefits. ;)

I'm not sure that calling E+ (or EML) a true "cabin" really makes sense. Still, the EML product does offer a different product with a different set of benefits than the LOL seats, just like F9 or NK or FL or even the legacies offer. No extra width, but that isn't always what folks are buying F for anyways.

VX doesn't offer big benefits to JetBlue- the overlapping transcon routes would remain very competitively served & priced even without VX flying them, and VX doesn't have enviable slots in NY that JetBlue lacks, ala ATA & Southwest a few years ago.

It's close enough to 2 cabin, for sure. The revenue is captured per-flight rather than based on elite passenger spending over time: from the looks of most of the legacy flights I've been on lately, good percentage of domestic F is filled with upgraded elites.

B6's Barger tells employees he's sticking to organic growth, not M&A strategy:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100928/bs_nm/us_jetblue

Probably the best thing really.

Absolutely not! They won't even do that to merge VX & B6 isn't on the list.

Seems that for now, at least, organic growth has been and will be the way to go for the company. Some interesting chatter from Dave on the topic...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68R3XB20100928

http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/p...eeded/125837/1