JetBlue & ATL
 

Just curious if JetBlue is trying to succeed in ATL? When they first announced they were coming to ATL I was excited but the approach has been odd to me. With this being a DL stronghold I figured they would try and poach DL customers and especially Medallion customers, but it seems like they are doing nothing.

When DL went to SEA and started to compete with Alaska they were offering benefits left and right for people to leave Alaska and come to DL, but when I reached out to JetBlue when they first started flying in ATL for a status match to Mosaic I was told flat out no.

I am just curious why they are not trying to get ATL flyers to concert to them?

Not looking for sarcasm or anything in replies I am just legitimately curious why they are not even trying? (it seems like they are spending $0 on marketing in ATL)

Right now JetBlue's focus at ATL (and MSP) is adding an option for its own hub customers who want to stay loyal or who have a corporate contract. DL's plan at SEA was to establish a hub(let). Very different approach for VERY different goals.

Fair enough but shouldnt they want customers in ATL too?

Sure, but they'll pick those up at the margins. Someone based in Atlanta is VERY unlikely to suddenly be all-in on JetBlue. The ATL folks picking JetBlue do it for product or price reasons, not the loyalty program.

ATL is a spoke for JetBlue. I think their immediate goal is to make those 4 routes as successful as possible. I can't see them adding beyond that, but who knows.

There are numerous B6 outstations where B6 presents very low utility to locally originating pax, and the service is mainly for loyalists starting in (or connecting through) JFK or BOS. ORD is another such case.

I've been on numerous flights from outstations over the past couple years where locally originating pax were traveling to JFK to connect to the Caribbean or upstate NY. I've been on 2 flights in the past month where connecting flight announcements were made as we approached JFK, the most recent one last weekend they announced at least 15 connecting flights. A lot of these outstations would require connections on Southwest or AA anyhow so to those locals, it's no different to fly JetBlue instead.

As is DEN. The only options out of DEN are to the east. I have pined for DEN-LGB for years, to no avail. I could probably switch all my flying to B6 if they just had reasonable lift to the West from Denver. Sigh.

And LAS. I'm fortunate to mostly need to go to BOS or NYC, which B6 serves, but for any other destination, it rarely makes sense to fly them. LAS connects to LGB, but that's next to useless since you're never _going_ there, and any place you can get to from LGB you could have just flown directly to from LAS.

Too bad they didn't win the bid for AS, that would have been an amazing west coast expansion for B6.