London fares and how they're looking...
 

Been looking at using Jet Blue to London in the fall... Don't know if anyone has started to explore these routes, but pricing is pretty non competitive. I get that all carriers are looking to optimize cash flow and top line revenue in this sucky unpredictable environment.

But for Jet Blue, as a new carrier that we were all hoping would help put pressure on the old school network carriers Over-the-Atlantic pricing, it doesn't appear to be happening. I guess they don't have to try too hard, as capacity is still pretty constricted, but in general, I was pretty surprised that they generally seem to be the high cost producer on most dates.

I guess this in line with Jet Blue pricing and packaging in general, as their most recent changes have really almost completely eradicated ALL their competitive advantage with pricing, carry ons, etc. Short of seat pitch and wifi, they now look absolutely the same as United on almost every flight on every route. Bummer, used to love Jet Blue

Are you referring to Y or J prices?

They had some pretty decent offers when they launched sales.

IIRC VS matched them ex USA to UK but not on UK-US fares.

I’m sure they will have other offers once the likes of BA and VS start having sales which will be when the UK and US open their borders up to each other as there will be plenty of demand.

There is no reason to expect them to be cheaper when they have a fraction of the seats that their competition is selling. Especially for Y. They are a full service carrier. Their food options and IFE in Y looks to be far better than what I see out of the big 3.

Interesting. I noticed when pricing RT that US-UK was pretty competitive, but return UK-US was super high.

Depends on the dates of your trip.

When they first put the London flights on sale it was possible to get Mint for between £950 - £1,000 return ex LON.


I was looking at NYC fares for next January and pricing up as around the £1,300 mark. BA/AA asking for £1,300. Ditto for VS/DL This is for a midweek to midweek so including a Saturday night stay.

Given the similarity in prices personally I’d fly VS or BA purely for the lounge access and the increased number of flights available.

A Monday to a Friday trip is £3.5k. BA and VS want £6.5k

Until borders on both sides are fully opened without quarantine, there is really no need to offer bargain basement fares—especially if flights have to be temporarily cut if one side or the other further restricts travel once the cooler weather returns.

In addition, VS\BA with another lost year are both going to be more desperate for cash. VS had enough to last through 2021–assuming summer flights returned to a more normal level—which seems unlikely at this point. They won’t be flying around a lot of extra capacity if that will put them in an even more precarious financial position. BA will be losing a ton of money if they keep canceling flights every week as they have thus far.

With summer flights still being cut by competitors and transatlantic business travel unlikely to be up to 2019 levels for another year at least, competitive capacity will remain muted. We will have to wait until 2022 to see which carriers are still standing and in what shape each will be in by the winter 2022 before we see how pricing will shake out.

Maybe non-competitive, but at least for mid-Sept, the prices are low, both on JetBlue and BA for example. Not sure who is undercutting whom but:
JetBlue Mint JFK->LHR->JFK $2500
BA Bus Class JFK->LHR->JFK $2300 (First is a lot more!)

Very good prices!

Unless it's BA Club Suite, Mint is worth the extra $200 over regular Club World, what a detestable product.

Yes, agree as far as personal space etc (esp the Mint singlet seat!). However, I find Mint seats uncomfortable when upright in the seated position. I know this is a personal thing. Mint is great for sleeping however.

Transatlantc Mint will always have the new Mint cabin where all Mint seats are individual suites.

Very true... I had no expectation of what prices would or wouldn't look like from Jetblue as they open up LON. I have no love for the huge network carriers, and if I can avoid them, I generally do, even though I have (generally useless) lifetime status on one and annual status on another. Jetblue has always been just a tad better than United (Newark based for me), so it was an easier decision for me to choose anyone else.

Oddly, Jetblue's "Blue Basic" maneuver has soured me a bit, as they now price EXACTLY like United on nearly every route, so its basically a wash except for wifi, which I don't use half the time anyway as its profoundly unreliable almost all the time on every airline

I was kind of hoping that they (Jetblue) would play some sort of downward pressure role on transatlantic fares in a way that things like Level, Norwegian and a handful of others did, but early signs aren't pointing that way.

To your point though, as volume ramps, and an actual competitive environment returns, maybe we can expect some pricing action.

JetBlue could haver been a disrupter if they charged OW fares like they do for the rest of the network.
Very disappointed to see RT required.

considering how much lower business fares are, I would say they already have been a major disrupter.

Did people really expect them to disrupt economy fares when they offer full service economy class with much better meals than legacies and free wifi/satellite tv access? And they are only selling 110 seats a flight? They'd be doing something wrong if they are not charging a premium on that.

People also need to realise that taxes make up such a high portion of the overall fare. For them to really move the needle they have to really undercut the other carriers on the fare as taxes are the same across the board.

It’s easier for them to do that in the premium cabin but I don’t think their pricing will ever be much better in economy.