Yeah I understand that, and that was to purchase another airline which isn’t happening. I wouldn’t think they’d be allowed to use that money for other purposes but maybe they can.

 

With Icahn involved I can see him pushing for dividend recapitalization. Take on the new debt to pay dividends as an upfront fee. Then sell assets to pay off the new debt.

 

This is why I think the leadership should do a sale-leaseback of all unencumbered airplanes and do a stock buyback. Maybe drive up the stock price enough to get Carl to go away. If he can't extract money, he will go away.

Sure it leaves the airline riddled with debt and would possibly be insolvent at some point, but at least it stops the humiliation of being parted out by a vulture.

im just thinking out loud.

 

Aside from the planes, he’d be able to extract value from other things like the attractive gate and slot portfolio JetBlue currently holds. If all these things get sold off, it will make JetBlue not only less viable as a standalone but also less attractive for the possibility of a future buyer. I would certainly hope the other board members wouldn’t vote in favor of stripping JetBlue of its assets just so Icahn can get his dividends.

 

"Other board members" have sat on their asses while the airline has been losing money every year for the past 4 years.

 

I totally agree!

 

Someone in the March Pocket Session chat very pointedly asked about buying "11 used 330s," to which the moderator dismissed it -- as I would expect them to do of any news they are not ready to discuss yet. Fair enough. 11 is oddly specific, however, and it comes on the heels of this remark above, and rumors at JBU that we've sent, or are sending, instructors to learn the 330. I poked around about the instructor rumor and I'm not sure it has any basis in reality.

That said, personally, I think if leadership doesn't come out swinging for investor day with something inspiring for investors, they'll be in for a rough time. Think what you will of them, but these are not stupid or unmotivated people. All of the back-end changes like cost cutting, door closing proceudres, and six sigma stuff is great, but it's not going to cause the investor day splash which they have been building up to. Even Joanna said in the Pocket Session there are some things they want to save to announce at investor day. Totally get it, but also you can't build that up and then three point it. All I know is nobody on the west coast wants to do a layover on the east coast before flying to Europe, and vice versa for Hawaii.

So my question is for DontCallMeCindy [MENTION=65919]DontCallMeCindy[/MENTION] (and whoever asked about the 11 330s): On a scale of 1 to bullsh!t, where does this land? It's not nice to play with our feels...but also, tell us more.

 

I don’t mean to speak for anyone else, but the 330 rumor has been around for a solid 20+yrs during the tenure of 4 different CEOs.

There has been “Robin really loves the 787 and the 321LR is just a short term use case til we get the 787.” There was even a promotional sales pitch from Boeing complete with a 787 scale model painted in JB colors in LSC.

Before that we had the infamous “we’re gonna fly 777s to TLV and West Africa” which was a strong one back around 2017ish. Apparently during that time we came the closest to WBs ever, with OSC developing a 330 training program and all but never pulling the trigger (this was per JW during a mgmt lunch last year).

A quick search through the Bluepilots history shows “We have training instructors sent to review A330 performance manuals/procedures and are expecting deliveries to start soon” that was from 2008.

Point being, this has been going on forever and always seemed believable. I genuinely believe WBs are being closely looked at by mgmt currently, as are all sorts of options, but please don’t hold your breath or make any decisions based on that expectation.

I expect investor day to lay out plans for a domestic first class product fleet wide, along with premium lounges in BOS/JFK along with some codeshare/partnership deals. Maybe some new credit card/frequent flier program details. I’d say we have maybe a 30% chance of hearing solid WB news on investor day.

 

Ah, I was familiar with some of those historical rumors, but not all. Thanks for the added details. No decisions being made on my part in regards to this, I'm just rooting for the home team to do more than circle the wagons.

 

Same here…