Airline Fanatic

The Motley Fool just published an excellent and quite comprehensive interview with JetBlue’s new CEO Dave Barger. In it he talks about JetBlue’s ability to compete in an increasingly crowded discount airline market, the airline’s expansions plans and the prospect of increasing government regulation.

Barger actually talked quite a bit about JetBlue’s increasing reliance on the E-190 Embraer 100 seat aircraft it is rapidly adding to its fleet. While the A-320 was once the mainstay of JetBlue’s fleet, the economics of the 190 are even more attractive as it moves into medium and small sized markets. Until now reliability problems have plagued the E190’s on time performance, but these problems seem to have passed judging by Barger’s comments.

With the sale of five of JetBlue’s A-320’s the smaller, shorter-range E-190 will now make up an ever greater percentage of the fleet. But this isn’t necessarily a bad migration: let me explain. The 190s has only four seats per row, as opposed to the A320’s six, meaning no one has to take the middle seat! Those seats have even more legroom and greater width than the 320, so passengers get even more comfort for their trouble. Customers don’t sacrifice anything either, as they still get the full complement of DirecTV and XM radio, and a generally newer aircraft for their flight.

Not only is the inflight experience better, but the Embraer 190 can profitably take passengers from lower trafficked cities to more popular destinations in the Northeast or Florida nonstop. Greater efficiency than the A320 and longer range than other regional jets means JetBlue can completely bypass busy and delay prone hubs of operation. The simple act of leapfrogging the black hole of on time flights that is JFK is a win for everyone. Passenger don’t have to change planes and get a shorter total trip time while airlines increase on time flights and charge premium prices for less traveled routes.

This last bit will be ever more important for airlines as oil prices continue to rise. There are ever more entrants into the discount airline space, most recently Virgin America, that will continue to drive down revenue on trans-con and holiday travel routes. But if JetBlue or any airline can move into the higher priced smaller cities and yet still bring lower prices than legacy carriers, they will be better able to mitigate increasing costs. Only time will tell if this strategy will work, but I have a feeling that JetBlue’s award winning service and amenities will cause more and more people to flock to fill its seats in these secondary markets.

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