Only the single seats have the door.

And, yes, it is a staggered layout similar to LX, SN, DL and many others. Not identical but similar.

From what I have seen about the Vantage Suite on other airlines, one concern for these suites will be limited space for feet. For those who are tall or have large feet, this can make sleeping quite uncomfortable.

Have you looked at fares recently? Business class on JFK-LAX/SFO is now in the $4k range r/t (a tad less for VX, a tad more for the others). :eek:

Unless you own a hedge fund or have a great corporate discount, it's ridiculous. (Though there are $1k r/t's if you make a stop, but then you only get regular first class).

I would think there definitely has to be a market for an "affordable" nonstop transcon fare. While B6 did say in the WSJ article they'd offer this at a "significant" discount to current market prices, I do have to wonder how they can afford to do that with a lie-flat product (as opposed to a 2x2 recliner that had been discussed in the other thread). Obviously their margins will be lower than the competition. Although, I would guess that the B6 net price (after corporate discount) wouldn't be at *that* much of a discount to the negotiated fares on the legacies.

Yes. Advance purchase for random dates and itineraries this fall come out around $2500 (on DL). That said, I think we still agree on the general point...

I think this is what it all boils down to. JetBlue is looking at the market and knows that virtually no one actually pays the listed rates for the premium cabins. If they can price their product to the public at something similar to what the big companies are paying via contracted rates anyways they can probably do just fine in terms of making money.

Corporate discounts for everyone! :cool:
I think this will be somewhat offset by the rather longer bed length.

+1

In addition, I just don't think that many folks will use this for lie-flat sleeping, except for red-eyes, at least compared to international flights. I suspect most will just use the business seats and suites for lounging, dozing, work, IFE, etc. If that's the case, the number of passengers who'll actually be aware of any constrained foot space and will also be bothered by it could be pretty limited.

Yes it is. Good to hear. And maybe with the thinner seats, the loss of a small amount of pitch is essentially negligible.

JFK-SFO in J on AA can go as low as about $2,200 (F on the 763, too). It used to be that sometimes a $1,100 P fare would show up on the 763, but that appears to be no more. And then of course there is EWR-LAX, which still typically comes in around $1k, but as you so aptly pointed out, it's just regular first class.

... but still lower than the 34" regular and 38" (on the A320) that the EML product provides today. ;) ;)

the idea of thinner seats actually scare me: it reminds me to lufthansa´s NEK - in my opinion one of the worst economy seats the industry offers.

i had my first flights on jetblue this year. i was amazed - i really enjoyed the comfortable seats, and i would decide in favor of jetblue any time, ignoring status benefits that other airlines would offer to me. but if the comfort should change to "lufthansa NEK standard", i would reconsider that. i don´t care about 32 ", 33" or 34", but the comfort of the seat.

but different people, different opinions ;)

the premium seats look nice though. on a red eye with "sufficient flight time" they seem to be a nice idea.

The new seats/suites are intriguing. I don't fly Jetblue on transcons due to the lack of a premium product and the lack of a hot meal.

They've addressed the former. I hope they will address the latter.

I imagine if they are trying to compete for the AA, DL and UA premium customers that they are going to have to provide something more than blue chips and cookies.

That's an excerpt with the bolding put in to reference dining on the 321

Barger is on CNBC right now. He mentioned that he hopes the product will be successful enough to work in Boston to SoCal and NoCal and possible even in to Colombia or other LatAm areas.

That should be interesting to see.

Redeye flights are a major factor for west to east transcons. You can't get to the east coast from LAX or SFO in the morning without taking a redeye given the time change and the flight length. If you don't want to go the day before and have another night in a hotel, being able to sleep on the flight is a very important factor.

I've just started to fly the transcon red eye flights out of Boston and I was amazed at how many people actually slept on the flight. I saw very few people actually up and watching TV during my walk through so I'm certain that we will get a few business travelers that will take advantage of a lie flat product to enhance their quality of sleep.

I really hope we can capture some of the business traveler market to make this successful. We have some well established competition on the route and they have the cabins and products to battle our new venture into the market. I'm glad we are taking this step and not shying away from the competition. I hope we make it work and I can't wait to see and maybe work these flights