8/14/2023 0 Comments Jetblue mint seatsBut San Diego and Seattle? That’s a bigger stretch.ĭelta tried this to Seattle from JFK before and it went away (though it’s not clear to me it won’t come back). Sure there’s premium demand for JFK to Vegas, and though I don’t know the schedule, I assume this might operate in the night hours, something that could help with utilization. What this means is that JetBlue sees demand for fully flat beds in markets you wouldn’t expect. And in the biggest surprise from my perspective, Mint is coming to Ft Lauderdale from both LA and San Francisco. JFK will also get a Mint option to Vegas. JetBlue will now expand Mint to fly from JFK and Boston to Seattle and San Diego. But last week, JetBlue grew again and this time it’s a bolder gamble. With JetBlue having such a strong presence in Boston, this seems like a natural fit. Service to San Francisco has already begun with LA and some Caribbean flying to follow. Boston had long ago become a hugely important focus city, and now Mint was brought in to give JetBlue another edge. It didn’t take long for this to work so well that it was expanded and pushed to be year-round. Those are markets where the flight times are long and the clientele is rich, so it seemed like a perfect fit. Knowing Saturday was a low day for business travel, JetBlue shifted airplanes during peak season to fly from JFK to Aruba and Barbados. The first easy experiment was down into the Caribbean. Further, JetBlue’s prices were relatively inexpensive, and there were only 16 seats to fill. If it worked so well in those markets, why not others? Sure other markets weren’t going to have as much premium cabin demand, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any demand. Seeing the success of its Mint product on the key New York to LA/SF routes, JetBlue started getting curious. Then again, the premium cabin others offered wasn’t much to write home about anyway. For every other route, however, JetBlue still offered no premium cabin. This product kept those people onboard and won over new fans. As an airline with a hub in New York, it no longer wanted to be able to serve its loyal premium customers but then watch them go elsewhere for flights to LA and SF. It was a quick success.įor JetBlue, this made sense. Not only was the product excellent, but prices were much lower than the competition. In an arms race where everyone was upping their game, JetBlue rolled out a nuclear bomb. Initially, this was meant to make JetBlue a player in the New York to LA/SF markets that were oh-so-lucrative. But its decision to roll out 16 flat bed seats (4 in private suites with doors) under the Mint name was a leap ahead. When JetBlue decided to join the premium cabin fun, it was late to the party. Outside of the New York to LA/SF routes, it was ignored. With only 8 seats, it might not have been a big gamble, but it also wasn’t a threat to the status quo. The problem was that Virgin America had a lot of short routes where this kind of seat didn’t matter. On other routes, it was head and shoulders above the competition. In New York to LA/SF, this was a competitive product and people loved it. It went with a different plan of offering only 8 seats up front that were more of a lounger-style seat, still significantly upgraded over what everyone else was doing in the premium cabin. While this was all unfolding, Virgin America was starting up. The three were locked in on competing for those high dollar travelers. American took forever, but it leapt over everyone when it rolled out its A321T just a couple years ago. Delta had played around with international aircraft on those routes before, but they didn’t get serious about it until the JFK buildup began. About a decade ago, United stepped up its game with the launch of p.s., a more exclusive experience with an international-style onboard product. Wouldn’t that be nice?įor years, American and United slugged it out between New York and LA/SF with something considered more premium than the usual domestic First Class. JetBlue’s expansion of its Mint premium cabin to a whole slew of new routes bucks that trend, and it could mean the beginning of a premium cabin war that sees international-style premium cabins come to several new routes. Conventional wisdom in the US is that there is a ton of demand for international-style paid premium cabin offerings between New York and both Los Angeles and San Francisco.
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