DLSuites

I'll keep it short and sweet and to the point. With B6 needing a west coast city to call a hub and UA being as weak as they are, B6 should make a major push into SFO. With whatever gate space they can get their hands on, they should wage an all out assault on SFO. Now is the time. I don't necessarily know if battling the US3 on the east coast is really the way to go. Focus on UA at SFO. In my opinion, they would be successful.

writerguyfl

I can't imagine any smart leader would think that making a drastic change during a global pandemic in an industry that required government money just to stay aloft would be a good idea. And I'm guessing all the JetBlue employees who took voluntary leave to avoid furloughs wouldn't be keen on seeing the company spend money "assaulting" a competitor right now, either.

garykung

That would be stupid and unwise to do so, especially now.

UA's position at SFO is not domestic, but international, i.e. the gateway to Asia. Unless B6 intends to buy plenty of widebodies and applies for Asian routes, nothing is going to impact UA's SFO position. (Note - IIRC, B6 previously mentioned about a proposed London route. Where is it now anyway?)

Also - even without UA, you still have AS, which inherited SFO as a hub from VA.

So in the unlikely event that B6 want to expand massively at SFO, B6 will have to spend a lot of resources that is not guarantee to win. Then why not betting at OAK and/or SJC instead?

hi55us

Jet Blue has many better options for a west coast hub than SFO. Look at LGB. They have very little competition, 56% market share and an established presence. Yet you see Jet Blue pulling back there. You would need to see LGB really ramp up before Jet Blue considers adding a 2nd west coast hub.

sfozrhfco

LGB is completely irrelevant at this point. B6 will grow LAX and SFO--first as they are doing now by expanding transcons and eventually to connect the dots. AS is relatively weak from both LAX and SFO going East and UA is a much less formidable competitor. It may be risky to take charge in the midst of a pandemic but if it works, it could very well be a lot less costly than doing it in boom times. Certainly better than wasting billions for VX. Timing is everything in the airline business and you have to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves when it fits within the long term strategic plan. There are opportunities to be had--but it will mostly be moving people East. It will likely be slow and steady in the West as many intra-West routes from LAX/SFO already have a lot of competition and are not ripe for disruption.

ItsAnAdam

This. Unless they plan to expand SFO to the size of JFK or BOS, they will still be as irrelevant as ever at SFO (currently they are basically the least relevant airline on the west coast, aside from maybe sun country, because of an entirely east-bound network with direct service to only a few hub cities). Any west-coast route they could possibly launch would certainly face steep competition from United, Alaska, and Southwest (out of SJC/OAK), and unless they are willing to lose money hand over fist on every single route, Southwest and/or Alaska will likely beat them on price, and UA will def beat them on frequency. Even if they match UA's eastbound-network from SFO, they likely won't get much traffic--UA will keep all the lucrative business contracts, so the best they can realistically hope for is competing in the leisure market against AS and WN (and that's an uphill battle).

bgasser

Airline traffic is only 25% of 2019 levels and WN and AA have flooded the market with capacity. The name of the game right now is preserving liquidity and trying to achieve close to a zero cash burn as possible by year end. Expansion when yields have collapsed does not make sense. Every plane B6 (and every other airline) puts in the air, costs the airline money. DAL and UAL strategy of waiting out the storm seems better.