What does the Transatlantic bring to JetBlue? |

With the addition this week of Amsterdam Schiphol, the transatlantic network of JetBlue now covers three cities in Europe served from New York JFK and one from Boston. Boston-Amsterdam will follow on September 20, but that completes the European network of the US carrier. For now, that is, as JetBlue has every intention to grow in Europe in the near future. What is transatlantic bringing to the US carrier? AirInsight spoke to Maja Gedosev, General Manager Europe, on the occasion of the first service to Schiphol on Wednesday. But let’s put JetBlue’s transatlantic activities into perspective first. Since launching services from JFK to London Heathrow in August 2021, the airline has doubled them to daily. According to the website FlightsFrom.com, there are currently 22 daily flights between the two cities: two by JetBlue, eight by British Airways, six by Virgin Atlantic, four by American, and two by Delta Air Lines. JetBlue serves London Gatwick once a day from JFK, which is one of four daily services going there, with others offered by British Airways, Delta, and Norse Atlantic. Until September 2, JetBlue was the only airline to serve Boston from Gatwick, until Norse Atlantic launched a new service. It has competition on the route from Heathrow. Including JetBlue, there are eight daily flights on this route, including three by BA and one each by Delta, American, United, and Virgin. On July 30, JetBlue launched a daily service between JFK and Paris Charles de Gaulle. It’s one of eleven daily flights, with Air France offering five to six services, its partner Delta three, American and Norse Atlantic one each. The carrier will launch Paris-Boston when more aircraft become available, which would mean competition for the single services of Air France and Delta. JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes, Amsterdam Schiphol CEO Ruud Sondag, and Maja Gedosev at the gate after the first service arrived at Schiphol. (Richard Schuurman) JetBlue’s latest route from JFK to Amsterdam sees competition from home carrier KLM, which offers two to three daily services on this route, with another two offered by Delta. When Boston-Amsterdam goes active on September 20, that means a fourth service with two offered by Delta and one by KLM. Adding up the numbers gives 60 one-way services per day between these city pairs. If we include Boston-Amsterdam from late September and Boston-Paris a little later, JetBlue will operate nine of them each day on the transatlantic network. Market response As CEO Robin Hayes said on August 30 in a media briefing at Schiphol, JetBlue has been keen to add Amsterdam to the network of European destinations. “We have a very significant presence in New York and Boston. When we looked at some of the largest markets that we don’t fly to, Europe is the answer to that. We want to add some key markets in Europe to our network, so that we can serve the needs of our customers who want to fly on leisure or business. It helps you build your frequent flyer program and other things. Simply, behind London and Paris, Amsterdam is one of the most important markets in Europe.” But how does the market respond? According to Hayes and Maja Gedosev, pretty well. Gedosev has played a key role in developing the European network, joining JetBlue in March 2020 after various communication roles at Flybe, Air Seychelles, and Air Serbia. Her boss at JetBlue is President and Chief Operating Officer, Joanna Geraghty, who first announced the expansion plans for Europe in 2019. “We are seeing very positive forward bookings, especially on our flights that have been the longest in the market in London. But there is also a strong ramp-up of our newly introduced Paris flight. And we are also seeing a very good pick up in the Dutch market on our New York to Amsterdam and Boston to Amsterdam flights,” says Gedosev. “Overall, I am very confident that we will be successful on these routes, that we are even going to get better in the future. As more customers try us, there will be word of mouth coming around and people will understand what we bring to the table in terms of customer experience and fares. It is not just offering a fare just for the launch, it is about doing it on a continuous basis. This is what we do successfully on the other markets.” Personal service While JetBlue likes to push the “JetBlue effect” of reduced fares in markets it enters as one of the reasons for attracting customers, Maja Gedosev points to other reasons that show up in passenger surveys. “I am really proud of that, but people choose us for the uniqueness of our crew. Our cabin crew is probably the best out there, they really have the time in this narrowbody aircraft to take care of each customer, to address them by their name, and deliver to them the personal service that the customer expects. That makes a huge difference.” There are 114 Core seats on the Airbus A321LR used on transatlantic routes. JetBlue leaves out one row of three plus one Mint Suite for use as crew rest. (Richard Schuurman) “Secondly, I would point to the onboard product and services. You have seen the legroom, which in our Core of Economy Class is the largest on any transatlantic flight. We offer free live TV, free Wi-Fi, and a Wi-Fi that actually works. You can stream your favorite Netflix movies, you are never disconnected, even over the Atlantic because we offer Wi-Fi through Viasat. Many airlines say they invest in a business class product, but actually, on our side, we invested so much in the Economy product. That’s where we make the difference.” Although the Airbus A321LRs used on transatlantic routes come with 24 Mint Suites and 114 Core seats for a total of 138, Gedosev says that actually 134 seats are bookable. A row of three Core seats at the back of the cabin and Mint Suite 12A at the back of the premium cabin are kept for the crew during the flight as the A321LR has no separate crew rest bunk. So the third pilot on the flight and the cabin crew can use these seats when they are off-duty. The row of Core seats is also available for emergency situations when someone has to lie down. Fares But lower fares are undeniably one of the reasons that JetBlue generates traffic. Robin Hayes criticized legacy carriers for dominating much too long on the transatlantic, keeping fares higher than is desirable. For the new Amsterdam-New York service, JetBlue offered introduction fares of just €399/$439 for a roundtrip in Core or €1.599/$1.756 in Mint. We compared fares offered from Amsterdam to JFK on the randomly selected date of October 3 and a return flight to Amsterdam on October 10. Blue Basic costs you €415/$452 to New York or €1.343/$1.461 in Mint, with the return ticket available from €245/$266 in Core and €1.773/$1.929 in Mint. KLM is offering the same flight in Economy as Light ticket from €453/$493, with the return to Amsterdam available from €253/$275. Business Class costs €1.523/$1.657 to JFK and €1.237/$1.345 the other way. The fares of KLM partner Delta Air Lines are almost identical. This means that KLM/Delta and jetBlue are very competitive and almost offer fares at the same price. But if you search, KLM is offering a fare at just €255/$277 that is identical for both legs. But you only can book it if you are prepared to fly back on Virgin Atlantic to London Heathrow and change to KLM for Amsterdam. Making a profit Whereas its competitors use widebodies with plenty of seats, JetBlue flies with the A321LRs or standard A321neo’s certified for ETOPS, the latter only to the UK from Boston. How then is JetBlue able to make a profit out of transatlantic with just 134 bookable seats per aircraft? “Let’s put it this way. What we are trying to do here is to actually make sure we create as many as possible returning loyal customers,” says Gedosev. “So far, in the UK we have created around a thousand of loyal Mosaics, our top-tier customers who come back regularly to us to either New York and Boston or beyond. What we do best is basically is watch our costs and make sure we provide the customer with the best product in service at an affordable fare. But we are not a low-cost airline, we are a value carrier.” At the front of the cabin are two Mint Studio suites. (Richard Schuurman) During the Q2 earnings call, COO Joanna Geraghty remarked that transatlantic travel performed extremely well and drove the strongest year-over-year revenues of all geographies in the network. Asked if she could specify what is the share of transatlantic in JetBlue’s total revenues, which totaled $2.610 billion in Q2, Gedosev said: “It is just a small percentage, but it is developing quite well. It will play a significant role because these markets are very important to us. The more people hear about us in Europe, the more they will also like to fly our (US) domestic product.” “Thinking about the future and how we are going to develop as an airline, we will definitely want to have more transatlantic customers. Up until recently, they used to fly with our competitors, but now they are able to us to cross the pond and continue on to other destinations in North and Latin America or the Caribbean where we are really significantly present.” Aircraft delivery issues are restricting further growth of JetBlue in Europe in the near term. The airline hopes to get another three A321LRs this year to bring the fleet to eleven aircraft, so it has redundancy on the current network even after the Paris and Amsterdam services from Boston. As reported in our JetBlue story on Wednesday, further growth will come with the introduction of thirteen A321XLRs. They get to fly as far as Germany and maybe even further East, but Spain is another market that JetBlue is keen to enter and give Iberia some competition.

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