Originally Posted by Bluedriver

I would say, at the margins, maybe, a little. But overall probably not moving much towards a ULCC model. I could see adding 1-2 rows of seats, maybe. I believe the internet remains free, snacks/drinks remain free. TVs remain in the seats, at least for a while unless customers stop using them, which may never happen.

While JB wants to be a national airline, it primarily wants to take customers from legacies based on price AND a better product. They are also staking the company's future on our business class Mint product and European expansion. That model again requires a better price and a better product.

It's easy from a casual observers position to question the financial viability of that model. JB's financial performance hasn't been stellar for a few years. But it was previously. In the last several years JB has had a lot of headwinds to deal with, and it has a plan for most of them. JB's E190s have been a real financial drag from a maintenance and CASM standpoint. It is almost certainly the highest CASM fleet type in mainline operation today. It is actively being replaced, although just at the very beginning stages, by the A200-300, which is probably the industry's lowest CASM narrow-body. It is also a much better customer experience. JB has faced intense competition by Delta, especially the last 4 years as Delta aggressively thwarted JB's plans of turning BOS into a fortress hub. Specifically because of JB's model, legacy airlines, Delta in particular, is very aggressively preempting JB's plans, and even hires a covert "analyst" on seeking alpha to disparage JB, posing as a regular airline analyst. Through COVID, JB's intense concentration of operations in the northeast significantly hinder financial performance as they were the first to lock down and avoid travel and were the last region to really get back to normal travel patterns.

I won't even touch the airlines previous abysmal operational performance, which no doubt alienated customers and cost them a lot of revenue. And there are many more financial headwinds I could mention, if I wanted to make this post long...

The common refrain on the JB board is "wasted potential" because we have all seen how revered this brand can be, how much customers love the airline, when it is run by adults ... And have had to watch how bad that potential is wasted when the let the children run the airline.

The financial potential of the existing model is there, without a doubt, but like anything it needs to be managed properly and have to catch some breaks with the macro environment.

When Mint was conceived, they weren't sure how well it would do. It ended up being some of the most profitable flying JB does. Europe may well be the same.