Originally Posted by
gloopy
And that "analysis" is outdated and irrelevant now. That being the initial plan is speculative but possible, who knows and who cares because its a different world now. Their timing was amazingly, unprecedentedly and almost impossibly lucky for them. Right when they should have been feeling the squeeze the most, the tables turned and all of their competition was yielding marketshare to anyone and everyone as fast as planes could be flown to the deserts and pilots could be trained to facilitate furloughs and downgrades and that lasted for years, all the while they had a CASM advantage that wasn't even in the same universe.
Now, however, there is no way DOT/J would allow a merger with a legacy (other than maybe SWA under a partial but significant divesture) and they know it. That ship sailed years ago. At this point they very well may merge, but the biggest would likely be AK and probably smaller (F9, NK, etc).
The EU Mint offensive is not to be taken lightly. Its not just a nibble on marketshare with a funky fresh super saver coach product; its a full on assault at a very small fraction of prevailing fares to the most critical premium revenue sources available. I can't yet tell how serious legacy management teams are taking this. Simply adding some flights in anticipation will do nothing when they fully intend to permanently shatter fares on those key premium markets by 50-80%. If anything, simply adding capacity makes legacies more vulnerable unless they intend to win that war of attrition, which they could very easilly, but they may not have the stomach to self reduce yields more in the short term to preserve them in the long term.
Numerous puzzle pieces going into place in BOS and to a lesser extent NYC are a very encouraging sign but its too early to tell what the long term counter offensive will be.
I'm not quite as pessimistic as you are. Recently the family bought tix on JetBlue, dirt cheap. Granted this was routine domestic flying on a 320, and not Mint. I was "underwhelmed" to say the least. The TV screens, while revolutionary in 2000 (when DAL and all the other legacies had an atrocious product and almost took pride in their cancelled flights, not to mention a Crandall-esque mindset of "removing an olive from the salad saved us $42,000 last year") looked 20 years old. Small screens, clumsy buttons on the armrest to control them, and the image literally had horizontal lines back and forth like a seen from a TV show trying to date itself to the late 80s.
The passengers were mostly of the "wow, I've never flown before!" variety. The crew were outstanding by the way, doing a great job keeping us informed when there were some serious weather-related delays.
Most importantly, as Delta learned from Song--an otherwise great product--single class service ain't going to cut it with transoceanic or high-yield passengers. Yes, Mint is more than the basic JetBlue experience. I haven't seen anything to suggest that single-aisle service, with single-class "plus" experience in Mint will be the yield-trashing reality you suggest, compared to Delta One, and all the similar offerings from the other legacies.
However I do agree that we need to nip that in the bud. Thankfully, UNlike JetBlue's early days, we have a very good management team that can do that now.