Originally Posted by
SoarHigh757
Ok hear me out a second - I think JetBlue + Allegiant would actually be more useful for filling in the center of the country (though not sure if our product is too expensive for some of the smaller markets they serve). However, Allegiant in the last three years has really grown at a couple major airports - BNA to 25 cities, CVG to 17 cities, IND to 13 cities. They also have vacation packages that could overlap with JetBlue vacations. While different engines, they have 113 Airbus. And our A220s would be excellent on some of their longer routes (CVG-LAX is one I can think of).
Not likely to happen. They're two separate companies with polar opposite business strategies. Allegiant has low utilization flying from nowhere to somewhere, packing as many low ticket price, high ancillary spending passengers as possible. Meanwhile Jetblue has a highly utilized fleet flying from large and mid size markets with a full service product and relatively little focus on ancillary revenue. The 737max order just further divides the two carriers. Besides, Allegiant spends their extra money investing in cool stuff like arcades and go-karts while jetblue invests in weather machines or something. I just don't see enough synergies to warrant spending money to combine the two.
I agree with you that jetblue needs to focus on the Midwest more than it is currently. Hopefully the NEA has shown there's more of an appetite for jetblue in more places than network planning had thought beforehand. The lower CASM of the A220 can provide a cost advantage or at least narrow the difference between it and the ULCCs to carry out that expansion. For now and the next several years, I don't see much Midwest expansion besides the current NYC/BOS/Florida to there structure, like the already announced MKE and MCO flying.