asuflyer wrote:

More bad press for B6. On April 7th a flight operating from CUN-JFK, diverted to EWR. B6 had no gate available to deplane the pax so they were forced to sit for 6 hours before flying from EWR to JFK.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/11/jetblue-p ... off-plane/

Did you read the article?

“ Without proper customs processing available for the flight at Newark, the aircraft remained on the ground for 60 minutes and once the weather cleared departed again for JFK where it safely landed,” he said in an email.”

My God the entitlement and drama in these news’ articles are completely out of control!

asuflyer wrote:

More bad press for B6. On April 7th a flight operating from CUN-JFK, diverted to EWR. B6 had no gate available to deplane the pax so they were forced to sit for 6 hours before flying from EWR to JFK.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/11/jetblue-p ... off-plane/

The total time from CUN to EWR to JFK was 6 hours. There was not a 6 hr sit in EWR in anything I read on this one.

IdlewildJFK wrote:

asuflyer wrote:

More bad press for B6. On April 7th a flight operating from CUN-JFK, diverted to EWR. B6 had no gate available to deplane the pax so they were forced to sit for 6 hours before flying from EWR to JFK.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/11/jetblue-p ... off-plane/

The total time from CUN to EWR to JFK was 6 hours. There was not a 6 hr sit in EWR in anything I read on this one.

Funny isn’t it? The flight time from CUN to JFK is just a little under 4 hours, add taxi in CUN and the hold and then 60 min waiting for the weather. The exaggeration of this news article is over the top. I suspect someone in that flight must work for the press. It doesn’t make any sense why is it in the news. There are far worse flights than this…

santi319 wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

asuflyer wrote:

More bad press for B6. On April 7th a flight operating from CUN-JFK, diverted to EWR. B6 had no gate available to deplane the pax so they were forced to sit for 6 hours before flying from EWR to JFK.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/11/jetblue-p ... off-plane/

The total time from CUN to EWR to JFK was 6 hours. There was not a 6 hr sit in EWR in anything I read on this one.

Funny isn’t it? The flight time from CUN to JFK is just a little under 4 hours, add taxi in CUN and the hold and then 60 min waiting for the weather. The exaggeration of this news article is over the top. I suspect someone in that flight must work for the press. It doesn’t make any sense why is it in the news. There are far worse flights than this…

The flight left CUN five hours late.

5 hour delay
4 hour flight
1.5 hours waiting in EWR
20 minutes EWR to JFK.

At the time the video was taken those people had been in airports/on planes for 10 hours on what should be a 4 hour flight.

usflyer msp wrote:

santi319 wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

The total time from CUN to EWR to JFK was 6 hours. There was not a 6 hr sit in EWR in anything I read on this one.

Funny isn’t it? The flight time from CUN to JFK is just a little under 4 hours, add taxi in CUN and the hold and then 60 min waiting for the weather. The exaggeration of this news article is over the top. I suspect someone in that flight must work for the press. It doesn’t make any sense why is it in the news. There are far worse flights than this…

The flight left CUN five hours late.

5 hour delay
4 hour flight
1.5 hours waiting in EWR
20 minutes EWR to JFK.

At the time the video was taken those people had been in airports/on planes for 10 hours on what should be a 4 hour flight.

Capture.JPG

I was stating that the claim of 6 hours on the ground in EWR was not accurate.

usflyer msp wrote:

santi319 wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

The total time from CUN to EWR to JFK was 6 hours. There was not a 6 hr sit in EWR in anything I read on this one.

Funny isn’t it? The flight time from CUN to JFK is just a little under 4 hours, add taxi in CUN and the hold and then 60 min waiting for the weather. The exaggeration of this news article is over the top. I suspect someone in that flight must work for the press. It doesn’t make any sense why is it in the news. There are far worse flights than this…

The flight left CUN five hours late.

5 hour delay
4 hour flight
1.5 hours waiting in EWR
20 minutes EWR to JFK.

At the time the video was taken those people had been in airports/on planes for 10 hours on what should be a 4 hour flight.

Capture.JPG

That’s the risk you take when you fly. Back in sane times I took a WN flight from LAX to SEA via 1 quick stop in OAK on a 732. We circled OAK in holding for about 35-40 mins waiting for fog to lift, diverted to BUR. Then got swapped to a 733 which took some time. Finally got to OAK. Then had to hold above SEA for the very same reason then had to go to PDX for a refuel then back to SEA for another 30 minute hold before finally landing. What should have been a 4 hour and 40 minute trip took about 8.5 hours and nobody was ready to burn down the plane and start a riot.

nine4nine wrote:

usflyer msp wrote:

santi319 wrote:

Funny isn’t it? The flight time from CUN to JFK is just a little under 4 hours, add taxi in CUN and the hold and then 60 min waiting for the weather. The exaggeration of this news article is over the top. I suspect someone in that flight must work for the press. It doesn’t make any sense why is it in the news. There are far worse flights than this…

The flight left CUN five hours late.

5 hour delay
4 hour flight
1.5 hours waiting in EWR
20 minutes EWR to JFK.

At the time the video was taken those people had been in airports/on planes for 10 hours on what should be a 4 hour flight.

Capture.JPG

That’s the risk you take when you fly. Back in sane times I took a WN flight from LAX to SEA via 1 quick stop in OAK on a 732. We circled OAK in holding for about 35-40 mins waiting for fog to lift, diverted to BUR. Then got swapped to a 733 which took some time. Finally got to OAK. Then had to hold above SEA for the very same reason then had to go to PDX for a refuel then back to SEA for another 30 minute hold before finally landing. What should have been a 4 hour and 40 minute trip took about 8.5 hours and nobody was ready to burn down the plane and start a riot.

No, because back then, it wasn’t like today, where we have people that have nothing to do but scratch their privates and share facebook posts of news’ recordings of people being out of control entitled and ridiculous.

Flightaware showing 124 cancellations (11% of system) and 241 delayed flights today. Are these weather related?

boslax wrote:

Flightaware showing 124 cancellations (11% of system) and 241 delayed flights today. Are these weather related?

Yes.

JFK has a 2+ hour average GDP. LGA is in a ground stop. EWR 90 min average GDP. BOS 45 min average GDP.

As of 1700.

There are MCO and PBI weather related ATC delays as well.

Those airports listed above are a big chunk of their network.

A JetBlue worker texted me today that the director of system operations was fired. Does anyone have information or corroboration for that claim? If so it would be a step in the right direction, however given how dysfunctional JetBlue have been operating the past few years the Chief Operating Officer should be held to account as well.

trueblew wrote:

A JetBlue worker texted me today that the director of system operations was fired. Does anyone have information or corroboration for that claim? If so it would be a step in the right direction, however given how dysfunctional JetBlue have been operating the past few years the Chief Operating Officer should be held to account as well.

That’s been the rumor on the pilot internal forums for a couple days. No idea if it’s true. He’s still showing up as an active employee, for whatever that’s worth. He should have been axed a decade or so ago. Instead they’ve promoted him. Just shows the priorities of their talent management are way off. But they keep reiterating the great job they are doing with their hiring of more diversity in management roles. So, they got that going for them. Maybe they should figure out how to hire a competent operations person at some point though. At this point though, as a shareholder, my views are that the board is a little late stepping in.

IdlewildJFK wrote:

boslax wrote:

Flightaware showing 124 cancellations (11% of system) and 241 delayed flights today. Are these weather related?

Yes.

JFK has a 2+ hour average GDP. LGA is in a ground stop. EWR 90 min average GDP. BOS 45 min average GDP.

As of 1700.

There are MCO and PBI weather related ATC delays as well.

Those airports listed above are a big chunk of their network.

Flightaware shows B6 with 127 cancellations yesterday, and Delta with 10. (No, I didn't drop a digit.) Issues of B6 performance yesterday weren't all weather.

MIflyer12 wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

boslax wrote:

Flightaware showing 124 cancellations (11% of system) and 241 delayed flights today. Are these weather related?

Yes.

JFK has a 2+ hour average GDP. LGA is in a ground stop. EWR 90 min average GDP. BOS 45 min average GDP.

As of 1700.

There are MCO and PBI weather related ATC delays as well.

Those airports listed above are a big chunk of their network.

Flightaware shows B6 with 127 cancellations yesterday, and Delta with 10. (No, I didn't drop a digit.) Issues of B6 performance yesterday weren't all weather.

What were the other factors then if they were not all weather? I provided factual info of the ATC weather delays from the FAA OIS website so I stand by my theory they were weather. But if you have some data to show other factors were in play please share.

To the Delta comment:

What % of the Delta’s network touch’s the NEA airports vs the % of JetBlue’s network? I would guess it skews heavily to JetBlue. So let’s look at Republic who also has a
mostly northeast heavy network. Same number of cx and same % of total flights ~10%.

My guess as to why they canceled aggressively due to weather is that after truly abysmal performance by B6 of late, they proactively canceled ahead of this weather and forecasted ATC delays to recover faster today and into a big holiday weekend (as well as school vacation week and the Boston Marathon). Too early to tell as of 0945 EST if it worked but let’s see if today is a recovery day or if it gets worse.

We rightfully criticize B6 for their terrible operation performance but if they can recover today instead of in 3 days from now like as of late, then I would have to admit they got this right. But too early to tell that just yet.

IdlewildJFK wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

Yes.

JFK has a 2+ hour average GDP. LGA is in a ground stop. EWR 90 min average GDP. BOS 45 min average GDP.

As of 1700.

There are MCO and PBI weather related ATC delays as well.

Those airports listed above are a big chunk of their network.

Flightaware shows B6 with 127 cancellations yesterday, and Delta with 10. (No, I didn't drop a digit.) Issues of B6 performance yesterday weren't all weather.

What were the other factors then if they were not all weather? I provided factual info of the ATC weather delays from the FAA OIS website so I stand by my theory they were weather. But if you have some data to show other factors were in play please share.

To the Delta comment:

What % of the Delta’s network touch’s the NEA airports vs the % of JetBlue’s network? I would guess it skews heavily to JetBlue. So let’s look at Republic who also has a
mostly northeast heavy network. Same number of cx and same % of total flights ~10%.

My guess as to why they canceled aggressively due to weather is that after truly abysmal performance by B6 of late, they proactively canceled ahead of this weather and forecasted ATC delays to recover faster today and into a big holiday weekend (as well as school vacation week and the Boston Marathon). Too early to tell as of 0945 EST if it worked but let’s see if today is a recovery day or if it gets worse.

We rightfully criticize B6 for their terrible operation performance but if they can recover today instead of in 3 days from now like as of late, then I would have to admit they got this right. But too early to tell that just yet.

UA cancelled 14 (they have a pretty big operation in the NE if my memory serves me correctly). AA cancelled 32. WN cancelled 14.

Flflyer83 wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

Flightaware shows B6 with 127 cancellations yesterday, and Delta with 10. (No, I didn't drop a digit.) Issues of B6 performance yesterday weren't all weather.

What were the other factors then if they were not all weather? I provided factual info of the ATC weather delays from the FAA OIS website so I stand by my theory they were weather. But if you have some data to show other factors were in play please share.

To the Delta comment:

What % of the Delta’s network touch’s the NEA airports vs the % of JetBlue’s network? I would guess it skews heavily to JetBlue. So let’s look at Republic who also has a
mostly northeast heavy network. Same number of cx and same % of total flights ~10%.

My guess as to why they canceled aggressively due to weather is that after truly abysmal performance by B6 of late, they proactively canceled ahead of this weather and forecasted ATC delays to recover faster today and into a big holiday weekend (as well as school vacation week and the Boston Marathon). Too early to tell as of 0945 EST if it worked but let’s see if today is a recovery day or if it gets worse.

We rightfully criticize B6 for their terrible operation performance but if they can recover today instead of in 3 days from now like as of late, then I would have to admit they got this right. But too early to tell that just yet.

UA cancelled 14 (they have a pretty big operation in the NE if my memory serves me correctly). AA cancelled 32. WN cancelled 14.

Yes UA and Delta do have a large northeast presence - never said they didn’t . My question was what % of their network touches the NEA airports? Add UA to that question now too.

My theory being airlines with many hubs spread out around the country can better handle weather event that only impact 1-2 of them. Wile B6 has 4 other “hubs” - feel the % of their flying that touches the 4 NEA airports has got to be a majority of their network - especially more so post NEA.

So if we are going to compare the impact to B6 vs other airlines - I think % of network impact into a geographical area provides a better comparison. I don’t have that data though so I asked. If that data doesn’t prove my theory of B6 having the largest % of network impacted by weather yesterday and hence the highest cancellation rate of about 11%, then so be it.

IdlewildJFK wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

Yes.

JFK has a 2+ hour average GDP. LGA is in a ground stop. EWR 90 min average GDP. BOS 45 min average GDP.

As of 1700.

There are MCO and PBI weather related ATC delays as well.

Those airports listed above are a big chunk of their network.

Flightaware shows B6 with 127 cancellations yesterday, and Delta with 10. (No, I didn't drop a digit.) Issues of B6 performance yesterday weren't all weather.

What were the other factors then if they were not all weather? I provided factual info of the ATC weather delays from the FAA OIS website so I stand by my theory they were weather. But if you have some data to show other factors were in play please share.

To the Delta comment:

What % of the Delta’s network touch’s the NEA airports vs the % of JetBlue’s network? I would guess it skews heavily to JetBlue. So let’s look at Republic who also has a
mostly northeast heavy network. Same number of cx and same % of total flights ~10%.

My guess as to why they canceled aggressively due to weather is that after truly abysmal performance by B6 of late, they proactively canceled ahead of this weather and forecasted ATC delays to recover faster today and into a big holiday weekend (as well as school vacation week and the Boston Marathon). Too early to tell as of 0945 EST if it worked but let’s see if today is a recovery day or if it gets worse.

We rightfully criticize B6 for their terrible operation performance but if they can recover today instead of in 3 days from now like as of late, then I would have to admit they got this right. But too early to tell that just yet.

Your comparison doesn’t make any sense- mlflyer12 provided the cancellation numbers in aggregate, not percentage based. Who has more of their total operations concentrated on the east coast is irrelevant. DL has a significant amount of their ops on the east coast (ATL, JFK, LGA, BOS, FL..); even though B6 may have a greater concentration than DL is irrelevant. I would venture to guess that DL runs more flights up and down the east coast compared to B6 even though a greater percentage of B6’s operation is concentrated on the east coast. Bottom line is DL only had 10 cancellations where B6 had 127- B6 is experiencing serious operational failures across their network, where other airlines are not.

EADSYABSOB73857 wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

Flightaware shows B6 with 127 cancellations yesterday, and Delta with 10. (No, I didn't drop a digit.) Issues of B6 performance yesterday weren't all weather.

What were the other factors then if they were not all weather? I provided factual info of the ATC weather delays from the FAA OIS website so I stand by my theory they were weather. But if you have some data to show other factors were in play please share.

To the Delta comment:

What % of the Delta’s network touch’s the NEA airports vs the % of JetBlue’s network? I would guess it skews heavily to JetBlue. So let’s look at Republic who also has a
mostly northeast heavy network. Same number of cx and same % of total flights ~10%.

My guess as to why they canceled aggressively due to weather is that after truly abysmal performance by B6 of late, they proactively canceled ahead of this weather and forecasted ATC delays to recover faster today and into a big holiday weekend (as well as school vacation week and the Boston Marathon). Too early to tell as of 0945 EST if it worked but let’s see if today is a recovery day or if it gets worse.

We rightfully criticize B6 for their terrible operation performance but if they can recover today instead of in 3 days from now like as of late, then I would have to admit they got this right. But too early to tell that just yet.

Your comparison doesn’t make any sense- mlflyer12 provided the cancellation numbers in aggregate, not percentage based. Who has more of their total operations concentrated on the east coast is irrelevant. DL has a significant amount of their ops on the east coast (ATL, JFK, LGA, BOS, FL..); even though B6 may have a greater concentration than DL is irrelevant. I would venture to guess that DL runs more flights up and down the east coast compared to B6 even though a greater percentage of B6’s operation is concentrated on the east coast. Bottom line is DL only had 10 cancellations where B6 had 127- B6 is experiencing serious operational failures across their network, where other airlines are not.

Let’s say hypothetically B6 has 1000 flights per day system wide. 500 touch EWR or JFK or LGA or BOS each day. 50% of network impacted.

Let’s say hypothetically DL has 4000 flights per day system wide. 1000 touch EWR or JFK or LGA or BOS each day. 25% of network impacted.

Yes DL has double the flights impacted. But DL decides it can handle 25% of schedule being impacted. B6 looks and says if 50% of our network is impacted - we put tomorrow at huge risk so we are going to cx and get ahead of it. Looking at twitter it appears these cx were done late the night prior so it appears it was a proactive move.

This is why I think % of network impact matters. If my numbers are even close to right, 25 vs 50% network impact would be the difference of pushing through it vs taking the flight count down.

Finally, still too early but as of 1pm, cx count for B6 is 30 for today (that number was 20 to start day, presumably balance cx from yesterday). So if those numbers hold, doesn’t that give credit to the weather theory? Because the last few times their operation imploded it took 3-4 days to recover.

Finally calling it quits with B6. Flew JFK-RNO a week ago. Left an hour and a half late. Inbound delayed. No crew to move the tail swap to the gate.

Flying RNO-JFK right now. Only showing a happy 1 hour delay. But the 5 hour delayed LAX flight is blocking the gate and most likely pushing us into an even longer delay.

Icing on the cake was the RON DL crew walking off the jetway seeing all of us sitting at the gate and one of the FAs saying “Oh look, another JetBlue delay!”

B6 was never known for being timely. But good lord, get it together. Just going to take the connections at this point.

IdlewildJFK wrote:

EADSYABSOB73857 wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

What were the other factors then if they were not all weather? I provided factual info of the ATC weather delays from the FAA OIS website so I stand by my theory they were weather. But if you have some data to show other factors were in play please share.

To the Delta comment:

What % of the Delta’s network touch’s the NEA airports vs the % of JetBlue’s network? I would guess it skews heavily to JetBlue. So let’s look at Republic who also has a
mostly northeast heavy network. Same number of cx and same % of total flights ~10%.

My guess as to why they canceled aggressively due to weather is that after truly abysmal performance by B6 of late, they proactively canceled ahead of this weather and forecasted ATC delays to recover faster today and into a big holiday weekend (as well as school vacation week and the Boston Marathon). Too early to tell as of 0945 EST if it worked but let’s see if today is a recovery day or if it gets worse.

We rightfully criticize B6 for their terrible operation performance but if they can recover today instead of in 3 days from now like as of late, then I would have to admit they got this right. But too early to tell that just yet.

Your comparison doesn’t make any sense- mlflyer12 provided the cancellation numbers in aggregate, not percentage based. Who has more of their total operations concentrated on the east coast is irrelevant. DL has a significant amount of their ops on the east coast (ATL, JFK, LGA, BOS, FL..); even though B6 may have a greater concentration than DL is irrelevant. I would venture to guess that DL runs more flights up and down the east coast compared to B6 even though a greater percentage of B6’s operation is concentrated on the east coast. Bottom line is DL only had 10 cancellations where B6 had 127- B6 is experiencing serious operational failures across their network, where other airlines are not.

Let’s say hypothetically B6 has 1000 flights per day system wide. 500 touch EWR or JFK or LGA or BOS each day. 50% of network impacted.

Let’s say hypothetically DL has 4000 flights per day system wide. 1000 touch EWR or JFK or LGA or BOS each day. 25% of network impacted.

Yes DL has double the flights impacted. But DL decides it can handle 25% of schedule being impacted. B6 looks and says if 50% of our network is impacted - we put tomorrow at huge risk so we are going to cx and get ahead of it. Looking at twitter it appears these cx were done late the night prior so it appears it was a proactive move.

This is why I think % of network impact matters. If my numbers are even close to right, 25 vs 50% network impact would be the difference of pushing through it vs taking the flight count down.

Finally, still too early but as of 1pm, cx count for B6 is 30 for today (that number was 20 to start day, presumably balance cx from yesterday). So if those numbers hold, doesn’t that give credit to the weather theory? Because the last few times their operation imploded it took 3-4 days to recover.

This has always been the problem.

Back when I was brand new, I flew with a guy who very succinctly summed it up: "We're trying to fly like a major airline, and we have all our hubs in the Northeast and Florida, and they both get hammered at the same time in the summer."
The meltdowns happened then - they continue today.

There's a logarithmic scaling issue here too with schedule disruptions. It's not just Crew A getting disrupted by weather, it's Tail X which Crew B was supposed to take but they never made it, so Crew C is yanked off another flight to operate, but Tail Y that they were operating never made it, so now they're out of position... JB shoots through reserves at alarming rates, and it's too common to have literally no idea how they're gonna staff what you're working.

Yet, DN was fired for the blizzard. Got it. Do other people get to bear the consequences?

(Pre-emptive edit since someone will say "But LGB!!1!": of course we had LGB then and have LAX now, but it's a couple of buses bouncing around the west coast, and redeye flying of aircraft based in the east. West coast B6 is not actually a presence, just a crew base)

IdlewildJFK wrote:

EADSYABSOB73857 wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

What were the other factors then if they were not all weather? I provided factual info of the ATC weather delays from the FAA OIS website so I stand by my theory they were weather. But if you have some data to show other factors were in play please share.

To the Delta comment:

What % of the Delta’s network touch’s the NEA airports vs the % of JetBlue’s network? I would guess it skews heavily to JetBlue. So let’s look at Republic who also has a
mostly northeast heavy network. Same number of cx and same % of total flights ~10%.

My guess as to why they canceled aggressively due to weather is that after truly abysmal performance by B6 of late, they proactively canceled ahead of this weather and forecasted ATC delays to recover faster today and into a big holiday weekend (as well as school vacation week and the Boston Marathon). Too early to tell as of 0945 EST if it worked but let’s see if today is a recovery day or if it gets worse.

We rightfully criticize B6 for their terrible operation performance but if they can recover today instead of in 3 days from now like as of late, then I would have to admit they got this right. But too early to tell that just yet.

Your comparison doesn’t make any sense- mlflyer12 provided the cancellation numbers in aggregate, not percentage based. Who has more of their total operations concentrated on the east coast is irrelevant. DL has a significant amount of their ops on the east coast (ATL, JFK, LGA, BOS, FL..); even though B6 may have a greater concentration than DL is irrelevant. I would venture to guess that DL runs more flights up and down the east coast compared to B6 even though a greater percentage of B6’s operation is concentrated on the east coast. Bottom line is DL only had 10 cancellations where B6 had 127- B6 is experiencing serious operational failures across their network, where other airlines are not.

Let’s say hypothetically B6 has 1000 flights per day system wide. 500 touch EWR or JFK or LGA or BOS each day. 50% of network impacted.

Let’s say hypothetically DL has 4000 flights per day system wide. 1000 touch EWR or JFK or LGA or BOS each day. 25% of network impacted.

Yes DL has double the flights impacted. But DL decides it can handle 25% of schedule being impacted. B6 looks and says if 50% of our network is impacted - we put tomorrow at huge risk so we are going to cx and get ahead of it. Looking at twitter it appears these cx were done late the night prior so it appears it was a proactive move.

This is why I think % of network impact matters. If my numbers are even close to right, 25 vs 50% network impact would be the difference of pushing through it vs taking the flight count down.

Finally, still too early but as of 1pm, cx count for B6 is 30 for today (that number was 20 to start day, presumably balance cx from yesterday). So if those numbers hold, doesn’t that give credit to the weather theory? Because the last few times their operation imploded it took 3-4 days to recover.

What all that may be true, B6 needs to figure it out because at the end of that day none of that is the customers problem. They just see that AA, DL, UA still have flights operating and B6 does not.

usflyer msp wrote:

IdlewildJFK wrote:

EADSYABSOB73857 wrote:

Your comparison doesn’t make any sense- mlflyer12 provided the cancellation numbers in aggregate, not percentage based. Who has more of their total operations concentrated on the east coast is irrelevant. DL has a significant amount of their ops on the east coast (ATL, JFK, LGA, BOS, FL..); even though B6 may have a greater concentration than DL is irrelevant. I would venture to guess that DL runs more flights up and down the east coast compared to B6 even though a greater percentage of B6’s operation is concentrated on the east coast. Bottom line is DL only had 10 cancellations where B6 had 127- B6 is experiencing serious operational failures across their network, where other airlines are not.

Let’s say hypothetically B6 has 1000 flights per day system wide. 500 touch EWR or JFK or LGA or BOS each day. 50% of network impacted.

Let’s say hypothetically DL has 4000 flights per day system wide. 1000 touch EWR or JFK or LGA or BOS each day. 25% of network impacted.

Yes DL has double the flights impacted. But DL decides it can handle 25% of schedule being impacted. B6 looks and says if 50% of our network is impacted - we put tomorrow at huge risk so we are going to cx and get ahead of it. Looking at twitter it appears these cx were done late the night prior so it appears it was a proactive move.

This is why I think % of network impact matters. If my numbers are even close to right, 25 vs 50% network impact would be the difference of pushing through it vs taking the flight count down.

Finally, still too early but as of 1pm, cx count for B6 is 30 for today (that number was 20 to start day, presumably balance cx from yesterday). So if those numbers hold, doesn’t that give credit to the weather theory? Because the last few times their operation imploded it took 3-4 days to recover.

What all that may be true, B6 needs to figure it out because at the end of that day none of that is the customers problem. They just see that AA, DL, UA still have flights operating and B6 does not.

That’s one of the benefits of adding the spirit network. Lots of Midwest stuff, and if they grow those footprints and have good integration with the network, they can likely recover a lot better. I still think they need a large hub/focus city some place that isn’t on the east coast to really help, but adding the spirit network would be a decent start. Same story if it were with Alaska, as it’d be rare for the west coast and the east coast to simultaneously have Wx/ATC delays.

More details on summer cuts here: https://paxex.aero/jeblue-summer-2022-schedule-cuts/

Gone: BOI and FCA/GPI stations will close.
Suspended: BOS-SJC/PAP, LAX-RIC/SEA, EWR-BQN.
BOS-YVR/BWI start dates will be pushed back.

I flew B6 SFO-JFK yesterday. Pretty uneventful flight that left on time and got in early!

Was surprised they only give a drink and then I think potato chips later on. I flew out on AA a week earlier and we actually had options for a breakfast meal. I had the cheese platter but my seatmates had oatmeal that was apparently very good.

Also they charge for headphones now? Was it always like that? At least they had free wifi.

Finally, it was the last flight for a FA as he got into some B6 program (gateway?) that I assume is a track to become a pilot. He was going to start training soon. The pilot announced it and we all gave him a nice applause.

On B6 flight from EWR-SAN right now and completely full. Anyone have any insight on what their long term plan is at EWR? Would love to see all the destinations they promised follow through but it seems as though that’s not the case.

Nicknuzzii wrote:

On B6 flight from EWR-SAN right now and completely full. Anyone have any insight on what their long term plan is at EWR? Would love to see all the destinations they promised follow through but it seems as though that’s not the case.

I heard they are eager to get ramped up in the fall when the new terminal opens, the reality from the last few weeks that running 45-50 flights a day this summer won’t be feasible with the gate situation. Next year it seems they are targeting @65 daily flights, if they succeed acquiring spirit that will bring them @25 additional flights flights, they will be close to or about 100 daily flights by late 2024 to 2025.
Pilot and flight attendant bases are still scheduled to open in June.

Abeam79 wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

On B6 flight from EWR-SAN right now and completely full. Anyone have any insight on what their long term plan is at EWR? Would love to see all the destinations they promised follow through but it seems as though that’s not the case.

I heard they are eager to get ramped up in the fall when the new terminal opens, the reality from the last few weeks that running 45-50 flights a day this summer won’t be feasible with the gate situation. Next year it seems they are targeting @65 daily flights, if they succeed acquiring spirit that will bring them @25 additional flights flights, they will be close to or about 100 daily flights by late 2024 to 2025.
Pilot and flight attendant bases are still scheduled to open in June.

That definitely makes me happy to hear, hope your sources are accurate! They really need to put more capacity on the DR, MCO/FLL, BOS, ATL, LAS routes. With no F9 they can essentially name their price. NK fares have already gone up so much since F9’s departure.

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Abeam79 wrote:

Nicknuzzii wrote:

On B6 flight from EWR-SAN right now and completely full. Anyone have any insight on what their long term plan is at EWR? Would love to see all the destinations they promised follow through but it seems as though that’s not the case.

I heard they are eager to get ramped up in the fall when the new terminal opens, the reality from the last few weeks that running 45-50 flights a day this summer won’t be feasible with the gate situation. Next year it seems they are targeting @65 daily flights, if they succeed acquiring spirit that will bring them @25 additional flights flights, they will be close to or about 100 daily flights by late 2024 to 2025.
Pilot and flight attendant bases are still scheduled to open in June.

That definitely makes me happy to hear, hope your sources are accurate! They really need to put more capacity on the DR, MCO/FLL, BOS, ATL, LAS routes. With no F9 they can essentially name their price. NK fares have already gone up so much since F9’s departure.

I think what we are seeing in short term is just due to staffing issues. And given their agreement with AA and the EWR gates situation, they are going to focus on operating JFK/LGA/BOS first and cut elsewhere for the summer.

I think if they do merge with NK, EWR will be one of the winners in terms of JetBlue network.

In one of my FB travel groups someone just posted that they are delayed indefinitely on their trip to Boston due to maintenance and will soon cancel if the crew times out.

B6 is apparently sending mechanics from Orlando to Jacksonville but it will take a few hours for them to get there and hopefully then it cane be fixed.

Mess continues I suppose

So what’s everyone’s consensus now that B6/nk proposed buy of nk has let simmered the past couple weeks? Aside from network synergies, If I was a nk board member/exec eyeing few extra millions in cash and a potential top leadership position at the merged jetblue, I don’t see why you would turn from that. Plus the combined B6/nk network would be much more formidable than nk/F9 which would up front be the size of jetblue currently. Also just heard that nk/F9 have much more overlap @40% vs about 20% B6/nk. I’m guessing nk will accept the B6 offer

maverick4002 wrote:

Finally, it was the last flight for a FA as he got into some B6 program (gateway?) that I assume is a track to become a pilot. He was going to start training soon. The pilot announced it and we all gave him a nice applause.

It's a career mentorship program - sort of like the AA Cadets program, or United Aviate. I'm pretty sure JB's program was the first of its kind in the country, it's been around for a while.

Not sure how it works now, but it used to be that they'd get paired with a pilot mentor, pay their own way through a commercial pilot's license on their own, and get a guaranteed interview at Cape Air. Also guaranteed interview at JB once they hit the mandatory hiring minimums.

The only thing is it's a long road to hitting airline hiring minimums flying for $15/hr at Cape Air. I knew one FA that did it and I guess it worked out pretty fine for them, they're a captain at a regional now. I still think the solution to the hiring crisis is going to be programs like this, but the companies need to have some financial skin in the game and bind the prospective pilot contractually. It's just a really hard sell for people to blow $200k for an undergrad at Riddle while hoping for those 4 years the airline industry doesn't self-immolate, consolidate, or go through a cyclical downturn. The B6 program IIRC doesn't offer any financial contribution, but they get to take a leave of absence while training, sim sessions, etc., and it's looked on favorably when they move on to somewhere else to build their 1500 hours.

European airlines seem to have something like this, right? I knew someone many years ago that got hired on at Ryanair with low time, and they had some sort of time building career path strategy, but that may have just been very low hiring minimums since they don't have the post-Colgan crash time requirement the US implemented.

Abeam79 wrote:

So what’s everyone’s consensus now that B6/nk proposed buy of nk has let simmered the past couple weeks? Aside from network synergies, If I was a nk board member/exec eyeing few extra millions in cash and a potential top leadership position at the merged jetblue, I don’t see why you would turn from that. Plus the combined B6/nk network would be much more formidable than nk/F9 which would up front be the size of jetblue currently. Also just heard that nk/F9 have much more overlap @40% vs about 20% B6/nk. I’m guessing nk will accept the B6 offer

The B6 offer is a "pure cash, Spirit goes away please, thanks" offer, so I wouldn't be sitting on the board at SAVE thinking I'm going to be a JBLU board member any time soon. That's a bit of a complication, the F9 offer is a merger of equals, the B6 "merger" offer is a straight acquisition.

Combined there are four obvious wins
1. B6 becomes a distant 5th largest airline with a common fleet even down to the engines
2. B6 dominates FLL and MCO (and eliminates biggest competitor)
3. B6 dominates Latin America (and eliminates biggest competitor - AA has some claim to this still but not like they used to)
4. B6 buys a midwest and west presence and bases, they've historically never been able to figure out how to make inroads outside of the Northeast.

I think you'll see a lot of NK flying cut right off the bat, gives them the flexibility to sunset the 190s as quickly as possible, and modest, tempered expansion. The thing that caught I think everyone by surprise is that B6 has been risk-averse for many years - very conservative route additions, playing only in markets where a win is guaranteed, and only working with their "Fourth Way" (or Fifth Column lol) codeshare partners.

Obviously, we've seen a lot of change since 2019ish and COVID:
- Started MIA, I remember being told we would never go to MIA
- Put YVR on the books, I remember being told we would never go to Canada - taxes too high
- Started LHR, if you told me 6 years ago we'd do LHR I'd advise you to stop listening to rumors on the van
- Wacky COVID EWR and P2P Airbus flying
- The NEA, enough said
- Dumped the blue chips but still have an airplane named after them (this is a joke)
- And now, trying to buy NK.

Honestly, I have no idea what's going on anymore. They've flipped the script on what they used to view as "sustainable, incremental growth" and seem to want to become a heavy hitter. Better than being bought by American, but it's a bit hard to follow or predict.

Pleased to announce I had 2 early flights with B6 between MCI and JFK. When it works it’s great! Hoping this service (and MKE) is successful.

Abeam79 wrote:

So what’s everyone’s consensus now that B6/nk proposed buy of nk has let simmered the past couple weeks? Aside from network synergies, If I was a nk board member/exec eyeing few extra millions in cash and a potential top leadership position at the merged jetblue, I don’t see why you would turn from that. Plus the combined B6/nk network would be much more formidable than nk/F9 which would up front be the size of jetblue currently. Also just heard that nk/F9 have much more overlap @40% vs about 20% B6/nk. I’m guessing nk will accept the B6 offer

Still think it is an absolutely awful proposal; B6 management must have drank some bad blue juice. I totally get why NK would accept it but B6 is overpaying and really doesn't have a good plan as to what goals an NK acquisition is going to help them achieve.

usflyer msp wrote:

Still think it is an absolutely awful proposal; B6 management must have drank some bad blue juice. I totally get why NK would accept it but B6 is overpaying and really doesn't have a good plan as to what goals an NK acquisition is going to help them achieve.

I mean, it distracts people from all the other bad news? *Smoke bomb!!*

bluecrew wrote:

3. B6 dominates Latin America (and eliminates biggest competitor - AA has some claim to this still but not like they used to)

Not sure about that one. While B6 and NK combined surely make for a better competitor to AA in Latin America, claiming that they will dominate is a bit far-fetched. I just took a quick look at the full-year 2022 numbers which show that B6/NK combined have flown/will fly 147,324 flights with 24,820,318 seats between the US and Latin America while AA will fly 191,651 flights with 30,907,667 seats. Even at face value that's not "dominating" Latin America, while in reality the combined flights will likely be lower as flights are trimmed in overlapping markets. More competition? Sure. Dominance? Not at all.

Now, there may be some markets where they become dominate, but that's different than the claim you made.

bluecrew wrote:

Abeam79 wrote:

So what’s everyone’s consensus now that B6/nk proposed buy of nk has let simmered the past couple weeks? Aside from network synergies, If I was a nk board member/exec eyeing few extra millions in cash and a potential top leadership position at the merged jetblue, I don’t see why you would turn from that. Plus the combined B6/nk network would be much more formidable than nk/F9 which would up front be the size of jetblue currently. Also just heard that nk/F9 have much more overlap @40% vs about 20% B6/nk. I’m guessing nk will accept the B6 offer

The B6 offer is a "pure cash, Spirit goes away please, thanks" offer, so I wouldn't be sitting on the board at SAVE thinking I'm going to be a JBLU board member any time soon. That's a bit of a complication, the F9 offer is a merger of equals, the B6 "merger" offer is a straight acquisition.

Combined there are four obvious wins
1. B6 becomes a distant 5th largest airline with a common fleet even down to the engines
2. B6 dominates FLL and MCO (and eliminates biggest competitor)
3. B6 dominates Latin America (and eliminates biggest competitor - AA has some claim to this still but not like they used to)
4. B6 buys a midwest and west presence and bases, they've historically never been able to figure out how to make inroads outside of the Northeast.

I think you'll see a lot of NK flying cut right off the bat, gives them the flexibility to sunset the 190s as quickly as possible, and modest, tempered expansion. The thing that caught I think everyone by surprise is that B6 has been risk-averse for many years - very conservative route additions, playing only in markets where a win is guaranteed, and only working with their "Fourth Way" (or Fifth Column lol) codeshare partners.

Obviously, we've seen a lot of change since 2019ish and COVID:
- Started MIA, I remember being told we would never go to MIA
- Put YVR on the books, I remember being told we would never go to Canada - taxes too high
- Started LHR, if you told me 6 years ago we'd do LHR I'd advise you to stop listening to rumors on the van
- Wacky COVID EWR and P2P Airbus flying
- The NEA, enough said
- Dumped the blue chips but still have an airplane named after them (this is a joke)
- And now, trying to buy NK.

Honestly, I have no idea what's going on anymore. They've flipped the script on what they used to view as "sustainable, incremental growth" and seem to want to become a heavy hitter. Better than being bought by American, but it's a bit hard to follow or predict.

A combined NK/B6 would NOT dominate MCO. Combined, both airlines would be just over 26% of the market. That would only be slightly larger than WN at about 24% of the market. And that’s before there would be any consolidation on overlapping service. At FLL, while it would definitely be bigger, combined they would have less than 50% market share; hardly dominant. And again, they would be pre-consolidation of overlapping flights.

dfw88 wrote:

bluecrew wrote:

3. B6 dominates Latin America (and eliminates biggest competitor - AA has some claim to this still but not like they used to)

Not sure about that one. While B6 and NK combined surely make for a better competitor to AA in Latin America, claiming that they will dominate is a bit far-fetched. I just took a quick look at the full-year 2022 numbers which show that B6/NK combined have flown/will fly 147,324 flights with 24,820,318 seats between the US and Latin America while AA will fly 191,651 flights with 30,907,667 seats. Even at face value that's not "dominating" Latin America, while in reality the combined flights will likely be lower as flights are trimmed in overlapping markets. More competition? Sure. Dominance? Not at all.

Now, there may be some markets where they become dominate, but that's different than the claim you made.

Exactly. A combined NK/B6 would not in any way dominate Latin America.

B6 does not dominate Latin America by any measure, and a merger with NK doesn't really change that. Yes, B6 and NK serve select markets in the region, and B6 has a strong footprint in some markets + Caribbean, but a merger with NK does not alter that and if anything there is considerable overlap.

American's share in Latin America remains quite large and more to the point, POS remains strong on both ends.

Do we think B6 will respond to Kirby’s quotes today regarding the EWR issues…

Will we see Jetblue react to the news of Breeze coming to HPN? Breeze announced new select transcon routes out of HPN as well as a few cities on the east coast. Will B6 want to do what they can to keep breeze out/grow anymore in HPN or will we not see much reaction.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/breeze-ai ... y-airport/

FARmd90 wrote:

Will we see Jetblue react to the news of Breeze coming to HPN? Breeze announced new select transcon routes out of HPN as well as a few cities on the east coast. Will B6 want to do what they can to keep breeze out/grow anymore in HPN or will we not see much reaction.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/breeze-ai ... y-airport/

HPN-LAX/SFO seemed right up JetBlue's alley, and could've printed cash for B6 had they jumped on both. I'm surprised Breeze beat B6 to adding both routes. Also, BDL-LAS is now available on Breeze, which is a route that directly competes with B6.

hbernal1 wrote:

FARmd90 wrote:

Will we see Jetblue react to the news of Breeze coming to HPN? Breeze announced new select transcon routes out of HPN as well as a few cities on the east coast. Will B6 want to do what they can to keep breeze out/grow anymore in HPN or will we not see much reaction.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/breeze-ai ... y-airport/

HPN-LAX/SFO seemed right up JetBlue's alley, and could've printed cash for B6 had they jumped on both. I'm surprised Breeze beat B6 to adding both routes. Also, BDL-LAS is now available on Breeze, which is a route that directly competes with B6.

I wonder if we'll see B6 knee-jerk react with HPN-LAX/SFO/LAS with 220s. Anybody know if B6's more densely-configured 220 can make it off HPN's runway without restricting bags and/or pax?

FARmd90 wrote:

Will we see Jetblue react to the news of Breeze coming to HPN? Breeze announced new select transcon routes out of HPN as well as a few cities on the east coast. Will B6 want to do what they can to keep breeze out/grow anymore in HPN or will we not see much reaction.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/breeze-ai ... y-airport/

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Do we think B6 will respond to Kirby’s quotes today regarding the EWR issues…

bluecrew wrote:

Abeam79 wrote:

So what’s everyone’s consensus now that B6/nk proposed buy of nk has let simmered the past couple weeks? Aside from network synergies, If I was a nk board member/exec eyeing few extra millions in cash and a potential top leadership position at the merged jetblue, I don’t see why you would turn from that. Plus the combined B6/nk network would be much more formidable than nk/F9 which would up front be the size of jetblue currently. Also just heard that nk/F9 have much more overlap @40% vs about 20% B6/nk. I’m guessing nk will accept the B6 offer

The B6 offer is a "pure cash, Spirit goes away please, thanks" offer, so I wouldn't be sitting on the board at SAVE thinking I'm going to be a JBLU board member any time soon. That's a bit of a complication, the F9 offer is a merger of equals, the B6 "merger" offer is a straight acquisition.

Combined there are four obvious wins
1. B6 becomes a distant 5th largest airline with a common fleet even down to the engines
2. B6 dominates FLL and MCO (and eliminates biggest competitor)
3. B6 dominates Latin America (and eliminates biggest competitor - AA has some claim to this still but not like they used to)
4. B6 buys a midwest and west presence and bases, they've historically never been able to figure out how to make inroads outside of the Northeast.

I think you'll see a lot of NK flying cut right off the bat, gives them the flexibility to sunset the 190s as quickly as possible, and modest, tempered expansion. The thing that caught I think everyone by surprise is that B6 has been risk-averse for many years - very conservative route additions, playing only in markets where a win is guaranteed, and only working with their "Fourth Way" (or Fifth Column lol) codeshare partners.

Obviously, we've seen a lot of change since 2019ish and COVID:
- Started MIA, I remember being told we would never go to MIA
- Put YVR on the books, I remember being told we would never go to Canada - taxes too high
- Started LHR, if you told me 6 years ago we'd do LHR I'd advise you to stop listening to rumors on the van
- Wacky COVID EWR and P2P Airbus flying
- The NEA, enough said
- Dumped the blue chips but still have an airplane named after them (this is a joke)
- And now, trying to buy NK.

Honestly, I have no idea what's going on anymore. They've flipped the script on what they used to view as "sustainable, incremental growth" and seem to want to become a heavy hitter. Better than being bought by American, but it's a bit hard to follow or predict.

FARmd90 wrote:

Will we see Jetblue react to the news of Breeze coming to HPN? Breeze announced new select transcon routes out of HPN as well as a few cities on the east coast. Will B6 want to do what they can to keep breeze out/grow anymore in HPN or will we not see much reaction.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/breeze-ai ... y-airport/

Probably not. They don't have the staffing to do it. If they had the staffing, they should have launched these routes already.

Nicknuzzii wrote:

Do we think B6 will respond to Kirby’s quotes today regarding the EWR issues…

I don't think they can do much given the staffing issues

But yes, ua and their pathetic monopolistic comments are quite annoying. If doj cares about competition, they will allow more competition at ewr.

bluecrew wrote:

Abeam79 wrote:

So what’s everyone’s consensus now that B6/nk proposed buy of nk has let simmered the past couple weeks? Aside from network synergies, If I was a nk board member/exec eyeing few extra millions in cash and a potential top leadership position at the merged jetblue, I don’t see why you would turn from that. Plus the combined B6/nk network would be much more formidable than nk/F9 which would up front be the size of jetblue currently. Also just heard that nk/F9 have much more overlap @40% vs about 20% B6/nk. I’m guessing nk will accept the B6 offer

The B6 offer is a "pure cash, Spirit goes away please, thanks" offer, so I wouldn't be sitting on the board at SAVE thinking I'm going to be a JBLU board member any time soon. That's a bit of a complication, the F9 offer is a merger of equals, the B6 "merger" offer is a straight acquisition.

Combined there are four obvious wins
1. B6 becomes a distant 5th largest airline with a common fleet even down to the engines
2. B6 dominates FLL and MCO (and eliminates biggest competitor)
3. B6 dominates Latin America (and eliminates biggest competitor - AA has some claim to this still but not like they used to)
4. B6 buys a midwest and west presence and bases, they've historically never been able to figure out how to make inroads outside of the Northeast.

I think you'll see a lot of NK flying cut right off the bat, gives them the flexibility to sunset the 190s as quickly as possible, and modest, tempered expansion. The thing that caught I think everyone by surprise is that B6 has been risk-averse for many years - very conservative route additions, playing only in markets where a win is guaranteed, and only working with their "Fourth Way" (or Fifth Column lol) codeshare partners.

Obviously, we've seen a lot of change since 2019ish and COVID:
- Started MIA, I remember being told we would never go to MIA
- Put YVR on the books, I remember being told we would never go to Canada - taxes too high
- Started LHR, if you told me 6 years ago we'd do LHR I'd advise you to stop listening to rumors on the van
- Wacky COVID EWR and P2P Airbus flying
- The NEA, enough said
- Dumped the blue chips but still have an airplane named after them (this is a joke)
- And now, trying to buy NK.

Honestly, I have no idea what's going on anymore. They've flipped the script on what they used to view as "sustainable, incremental growth" and seem to want to become a heavy hitter. Better than being bought by American, but it's a bit hard to follow or predict.

Keep in mind that a lot of the covid route choices were due to Scott Laurence. I am not sure Dave Clark would make the same additions.

Having said that, there is a lot of value in buying nk.

If the merger is approved, I see JetBlue cutting a lot of their own fll and a few mco routes. The fleet that gets freed up can then be redeployed to building up their network in the northeast, where their brand is the strongest.

Yes, it would allow them to retire E90 more quickly. Maybe they can retrofit some of those a319 in lower density configs for Boston business markets. At least that's what I would do.

It would give them tremendous advantage at fll. I would move some of that mia capacity back to fll. And maybe even mco capacity to fll.

They would actually have enough gates at lax to have a 100+ flight hub. Pretty big deal. They would have enough aircraft to build up an sfo operation and forget about oak. I would cut a lot of the low yielding las routes.

They have to be very careful about how they deploy nk aircraft before reconfiguration. There will be some nk configured aircraft even after nk aoc goes away. I would probably put them on vfr routes out of fll and sju. And probably las and mco routes that don't touch their focus cities. Over time, it would not surprise me if they have more dense a321neo aircraft stick around for vfr and leisure stuff out of fll and mco.

I think the biggest gain for JetBlue are:
1) the additional staffing and aircraft that can immediately be deployed to northeast.
2) the additional gates at fll, lax, ewr, ord and bwi.
3) the already opened stations which would save JetBlue out of cost in opening new stations
4) the additional slots at lga and takeoff times at ewr
5) the increased revenue from less ulccs competition.

Overall, having one fortress hub and strengthening northeast will probably make this deal quite worthwhile for JetBlue. Have 3 major hubs in NYC, Boston and fll would be quite the boost for this airline. Having up to 14 gates at lax would make them easily the 4th largest airline there. They would be a truly national brand with quite a bit of international presence.

We discussed the pros of merging with nk quite a few times on this thread at start of covid. It's the most logical merger for them while retaining their brand. If I had more faith in this management, I would be more excited about this.

tphuang wrote:

I think you'll see a lot of NK flying cut right off the bat, gives them the flexibility to sunset the 190s as quickly as possible, and modest, tempered expansion. The thing that caught I think everyone by surprise is that B6 has been risk-averse for many years - very conservative route additions, playing only in markets where a win is guaranteed, and only working with their "Fourth Way" (or Fifth Column lol) codeshare partners.

Having said that, there is a lot of value in buying nk.

If the merger is approved, I see JetBlue cutting a lot of their own fll and a few mco routes. The fleet that gets freed up can then be redeployed to building up their network in the northeast, where their brand is the strongest.

It would give them tremendous advantage at fll. I would move some of that mia capacity back to fll. And maybe even mco capacity to fll.

Most of the destinations in the contiguous U.S. that would be losing B6 nonstop service to FLL if the B6-NK merger does happen would still have nonstop service to the MIA/FLL market on G4, F9, WN, or SY.

It would probably make sense for B6 to hold onto MKE-FLL nonstop service if the B6-NK merger does happen with NK being the only airline serving other than AA that currently serves the MKE/FLL market nonstop from MKE.

tphuang wrote:

I would cut a lot of the low yielding las routes.

I agree that B6 could drop most of the low-yielding LAS routes if the B6-NK merger does happen with most of the markets that NK currently serves nonstop from LAS already having nonstop service to LAS on G4, F9, or WN in addition to NK.

tphuang wrote:

bluecrew wrote:

Abeam79 wrote:

So what’s everyone’s consensus now that B6/nk proposed buy of nk has let simmered the past couple weeks? Aside from network synergies, If I was a nk board member/exec eyeing few extra millions in cash and a potential top leadership position at the merged jetblue, I don’t see why you would turn from that. Plus the combined B6/nk network would be much more formidable than nk/F9 which would up front be the size of jetblue currently. Also just heard that nk/F9 have much more overlap @40% vs about 20% B6/nk. I’m guessing nk will accept the B6 offer

The B6 offer is a "pure cash, Spirit goes away please, thanks" offer, so I wouldn't be sitting on the board at SAVE thinking I'm going to be a JBLU board member any time soon. That's a bit of a complication, the F9 offer is a merger of equals, the B6 "merger" offer is a straight acquisition.

Combined there are four obvious wins
1. B6 becomes a distant 5th largest airline with a common fleet even down to the engines
2. B6 dominates FLL and MCO (and eliminates biggest competitor)
3. B6 dominates Latin America (and eliminates biggest competitor - AA has some claim to this still but not like they used to)
4. B6 buys a midwest and west presence and bases, they've historically never been able to figure out how to make inroads outside of the Northeast.

I think you'll see a lot of NK flying cut right off the bat, gives them the flexibility to sunset the 190s as quickly as possible, and modest, tempered expansion. The thing that caught I think everyone by surprise is that B6 has been risk-averse for many years - very conservative route additions, playing only in markets where a win is guaranteed, and only working with their "Fourth Way" (or Fifth Column lol) codeshare partners.

Obviously, we've seen a lot of change since 2019ish and COVID:
- Started MIA, I remember being told we would never go to MIA
- Put YVR on the books, I remember being told we would never go to Canada - taxes too high
- Started LHR, if you told me 6 years ago we'd do LHR I'd advise you to stop listening to rumors on the van
- Wacky COVID EWR and P2P Airbus flying
- The NEA, enough said
- Dumped the blue chips but still have an airplane named after them (this is a joke)
- And now, trying to buy NK.

Honestly, I have no idea what's going on anymore. They've flipped the script on what they used to view as "sustainable, incremental growth" and seem to want to become a heavy hitter. Better than being bought by American, but it's a bit hard to follow or predict.

Keep in mind that a lot of the covid route choices were due to Scott Laurence. I am not sure Dave Clark would make the same additions.

Having said that, there is a lot of value in buying nk.

If the merger is approved, I see JetBlue cutting a lot of their own fll and a few mco routes. The fleet that gets freed up can then be redeployed to building up their network in the northeast, where their brand is the strongest.

Yes, it would allow them to retire E90 more quickly. Maybe they can retrofit some of those a319 in lower density configs for Boston business markets. At least that's what I would do.

It would give them tremendous advantage at fll. I would move some of that mia capacity back to fll. And maybe even mco capacity to fll.

They would actually have enough gates at lax to have a 100+ flight hub. Pretty big deal. They would have enough aircraft to build up an sfo operation and forget about oak. I would cut a lot of the low yielding las routes.

They have to be very careful about how they deploy nk aircraft before reconfiguration. There will be some nk configured aircraft even after nk aoc goes away. I would probably put them on vfr routes out of fll and sju. And probably las and mco routes that don't touch their focus cities. Over time, it would not surprise me if they have more dense a321neo aircraft stick around for vfr and leisure stuff out of fll and mco.

I think the biggest gain for JetBlue are:
1) the additional staffing and aircraft that can immediately be deployed to northeast.
2) the additional gates at fll, lax, ewr, ord and bwi.
3) the already opened stations which would save JetBlue out of cost in opening new stations
4) the additional slots at lga and takeoff times at ewr
5) the increased revenue from less ulccs competition.

Overall, having one fortress hub and strengthening northeast will probably make this deal quite worthwhile for JetBlue. Have 3 major hubs in NYC, Boston and fll would be quite the boost for this airline. Having up to 14 gates at lax would make them easily the 4th largest airline there. They would be a truly national brand with quite a bit of international presence.

We discussed the pros of merging with nk quite a few times on this thread at start of covid. It's the most logical merger for them while retaining their brand. If I had more faith in this management, I would be more excited about this.

As usual I agree with you on the vast majority here.

1. I agree the allocation of resources will change immediately. I've heard (not confirmed - but it would make sense) that most NKS below-the-wing staff outside of hubs are outsourced station personnel - very easy to cut labor costs fast. Keep the crew bases, you can build pairings out of any domicile NKS has today by adding some P2P without totally overhauling the flying model. Lots of DH segments for the NK guys - their airplanes would probably get blue paint and be flying out of BOS and FLL (more likely FLL/MCO - I think the natural play would be to aggressively grow the VFR market and connections to Florida).
2. Helps. LAX and FLL in a big way, FLL can be a pain on gate occupancy already, but the FLL gates will further future growth and allow a larger shift of flying into LatAm. I can't see Hawaii or anything hugely meaningful out of LAX in the future... I would expect to see a regional "connect the dots" approach - more SEA, SLC, SFO, possibly return to OAK, and maybe expand to Montana and Idaho. The purpose of course isn't to sell LAX-BZN flights, but to feed BZN-LAX-JFK. JBU's approach to the west coast has been non-committal at best, best described by a former CEO as "we don't fly people to New York, we are a New York airline that flies New Yorkers to where they want to go."
3. Yep - huge. Ground handling is often underestimated as a cost - like the air force, the sheer number of humans to get that airplane off chocks is shocking.
4. LGA slots are good - they clearly have the profitability metrics from LGA to FL drilled in, as frequency, capacity, and routes rarely seem to change, and LGA always gets additions. Even before NEA, the connecting traffic, and being tricked into flying the Shuttle, LGA was steadily growing frequencies and (apocryphally) loads seemed good. Nothing can help EWR... Newark gonna Newark. Nothing you can do to improve TOT's because the FAA decided EWR was going to be the bottom of the wedding cake (and TEB is the cardboard under the cake). Most volatile and subject to traffic restrictions and GDPs with LGA nipping at its heels. You can have 400 gates at EWR and bribe the mayor, nobody will improve this beautiful, perfect disaster.
5. Yes - leaves Frontier in the cold, the old hand in a market with Breeze and Avelo. NKS goes away, the brand gets erased and gets replaced with a brand with a lower NPS... for now?.. and from a route and business perspective, JBU gets a couple rocket boosters into the major territory. This isn't Yahoo buying GeoCities, this is Facebook buying Instagram - it's a shock to the heart for a stagnant brand that's found no path towards quick, sustainable growth. If we want another major airline in the US market, this is how it gets done.

FLL becomes a fortress hub, MCO gets very close. I think BWI gets drawn down as it's a potential knife fight with SWA. Potentially expand DR flying from BWI, bump SJU, connect to the rest of the JBU network and see what works. SJU and FLL become the gateway to LatAm, and you turn 2x NK and 2x B6 A320s flying to Kingston into 3 A320s. The amount of overlap between the NKS and JBU schedules in FLL and MCO alone fuels the growth, the freed up aircraft become a good way to cheaply add capacity or try new strategies. For those that think a combined B6/NK doesn't dominate MCO and FLL - you're adding 2+2 and getting 4, when you should be getting 2+2=3+1. Eliminating the biggest direct competitor doesn't just add their gold to your gold pile. SWA remains competitive but a merger adds a lot more dots and allows a lot more to be consolidated.

Sadly, the 190 probably goes away a little faster, and I wouldn't be shocked if it turned into a bid to send those frames to a regional (rumor was Republic). I'd speculate the A319neos on the order book become A321neos, and the 319s get a higher density than usual config and probably start flying south, if they stick around for a while. Frees up some 220s which are just significantly more capable at profitably flying the long thin routes out west.

Now I'm not a big blue juicer, not even sure B6 should survive a merger, but the business case for this is really compelling. Provided they don't screw it up. The lack of a blocking move from the board is a good sign it's under consideration, but so many things could go wrong.

bluecrew wrote:

tphuang wrote:

bluecrew wrote:

The B6 offer is a "pure cash, Spirit goes away please, thanks" offer, so I wouldn't be sitting on the board at SAVE thinking I'm going to be a JBLU board member any time soon. That's a bit of a complication, the F9 offer is a merger of equals, the B6 "merger" offer is a straight acquisition.

Combined there are four obvious wins
1. B6 becomes a distant 5th largest airline with a common fleet even down to the engines
2. B6 dominates FLL and MCO (and eliminates biggest competitor)
3. B6 dominates Latin America (and eliminates biggest competitor - AA has some claim to this still but not like they used to)
4. B6 buys a midwest and west presence and bases, they've historically never been able to figure out how to make inroads outside of the Northeast.

I think you'll see a lot of NK flying cut right off the bat, gives them the flexibility to sunset the 190s as quickly as possible, and modest, tempered expansion. The thing that caught I think everyone by surprise is that B6 has been risk-averse for many years - very conservative route additions, playing only in markets where a win is guaranteed, and only working with their "Fourth Way" (or Fifth Column lol) codeshare partners.

Obviously, we've seen a lot of change since 2019ish and COVID:
- Started MIA, I remember being told we would never go to MIA
- Put YVR on the books, I remember being told we would never go to Canada - taxes too high
- Started LHR, if you told me 6 years ago we'd do LHR I'd advise you to stop listening to rumors on the van
- Wacky COVID EWR and P2P Airbus flying
- The NEA, enough said
- Dumped the blue chips but still have an airplane named after them (this is a joke)
- And now, trying to buy NK.

Honestly, I have no idea what's going on anymore. They've flipped the script on what they used to view as "sustainable, incremental growth" and seem to want to become a heavy hitter. Better than being bought by American, but it's a bit hard to follow or predict.

Keep in mind that a lot of the covid route choices were due to Scott Laurence. I am not sure Dave Clark would make the same additions.

Having said that, there is a lot of value in buying nk.

If the merger is approved, I see JetBlue cutting a lot of their own fll and a few mco routes. The fleet that gets freed up can then be redeployed to building up their network in the northeast, where their brand is the strongest.

Yes, it would allow them to retire E90 more quickly. Maybe they can retrofit some of those a319 in lower density configs for Boston business markets. At least that's what I would do.

It would give them tremendous advantage at fll. I would move some of that mia capacity back to fll. And maybe even mco capacity to fll.

They would actually have enough gates at lax to have a 100+ flight hub. Pretty big deal. They would have enough aircraft to build up an sfo operation and forget about oak. I would cut a lot of the low yielding las routes.

They have to be very careful about how they deploy nk aircraft before reconfiguration. There will be some nk configured aircraft even after nk aoc goes away. I would probably put them on vfr routes out of fll and sju. And probably las and mco routes that don't touch their focus cities. Over time, it would not surprise me if they have more dense a321neo aircraft stick around for vfr and leisure stuff out of fll and mco.

I think the biggest gain for JetBlue are:
1) the additional staffing and aircraft that can immediately be deployed to northeast.
2) the additional gates at fll, lax, ewr, ord and bwi.
3) the already opened stations which would save JetBlue out of cost in opening new stations
4) the additional slots at lga and takeoff times at ewr
5) the increased revenue from less ulccs competition.

Overall, having one fortress hub and strengthening northeast will probably make this deal quite worthwhile for JetBlue. Have 3 major hubs in NYC, Boston and fll would be quite the boost for this airline. Having up to 14 gates at lax would make them easily the 4th largest airline there. They would be a truly national brand with quite a bit of international presence.

We discussed the pros of merging with nk quite a few times on this thread at start of covid. It's the most logical merger for them while retaining their brand. If I had more faith in this management, I would be more excited about this.

As usual I agree with you on the vast majority here.

1. I agree the allocation of resources will change immediately. I've heard (not confirmed - but it would make sense) that most NKS below-the-wing staff outside of hubs are outsourced station personnel - very easy to cut labor costs fast. Keep the crew bases, you can build pairings out of any domicile NKS has today by adding some P2P without totally overhauling the flying model. Lots of DH segments for the NK guys - their airplanes would probably get blue paint and be flying out of BOS and FLL (more likely FLL/MCO - I think the natural play would be to aggressively grow the VFR market and connections to Florida).
2. Helps. LAX and FLL in a big way, FLL can be a pain on gate occupancy already, but the FLL gates will further future growth and allow a larger shift of flying into LatAm. I can't see Hawaii or anything hugely meaningful out of LAX in the future... I would expect to see a regional "connect the dots" approach - more SEA, SLC, SFO, possibly return to OAK, and maybe expand to Montana and Idaho. The purpose of course isn't to sell LAX-BZN flights, but to feed BZN-LAX-JFK. JBU's approach to the west coast has been non-committal at best, best described by a former CEO as "we don't fly people to New York, we are a New York airline that flies New Yorkers to where they want to go."
3. Yep - huge. Ground handling is often underestimated as a cost - like the air force, the sheer number of humans to get that airplane off chocks is shocking.
4. LGA slots are good - they clearly have the profitability metrics from LGA to FL drilled in, as frequency, capacity, and routes rarely seem to change, and LGA always gets additions. Even before NEA, the connecting traffic, and being tricked into flying the Shuttle, LGA was steadily growing frequencies and (apocryphally) loads seemed good. Nothing can help EWR... Newark gonna Newark. Nothing you can do to improve TOT's because the FAA decided EWR was going to be the bottom of the wedding cake (and TEB is the cardboard under the cake). Most volatile and subject to traffic restrictions and GDPs with LGA nipping at its heels. You can have 400 gates at EWR and bribe the mayor, nobody will improve this beautiful, perfect disaster.
5. Yes - leaves Frontier in the cold, the old hand in a market with Breeze and Avelo. NKS goes away, the brand gets erased and gets replaced with a brand with a lower NPS... for now?.. and from a route and business perspective, JBU gets a couple rocket boosters into the major territory. This isn't Yahoo buying GeoCities, this is Facebook buying Instagram - it's a shock to the heart for a stagnant brand that's found no path towards quick, sustainable growth. If we want another major airline in the US market, this is how it gets done.

FLL becomes a fortress hub, MCO gets very close. I think BWI gets drawn down as it's a potential knife fight with SWA. Potentially expand DR flying from BWI, bump SJU, connect to the rest of the JBU network and see what works. SJU and FLL become the gateway to LatAm, and you turn 2x NK and 2x B6 A320s flying to Kingston into 3 A320s. The amount of overlap between the NKS and JBU schedules in FLL and MCO alone fuels the growth, the freed up aircraft become a good way to cheaply add capacity or try new strategies. For those that think a combined B6/NK doesn't dominate MCO and FLL - you're adding 2+2 and getting 4, when you should be getting 2+2=3+1. Eliminating the biggest direct competitor doesn't just add their gold to your gold pile. SWA remains competitive but a merger adds a lot more dots and allows a lot more to be consolidated.

Sadly, the 190 probably goes away a little faster, and I wouldn't be shocked if it turned into a bid to send those frames to a regional (rumor was Republic). I'd speculate the A319neos on the order book become A321neos, and the 319s get a higher density than usual config and probably start flying south, if they stick around for a while. Frees up some 220s which are just significantly more capable at profitably flying the long thin routes out west.

Now I'm not a big blue juicer, not even sure B6 should survive a merger, but the business case for this is really compelling. Provided they don't screw it up. The lack of a blocking move from the board is a good sign it's under consideration, but so many things could go wrong.

Why would Republic want 190s? They could only fly them for Alaska (due to scope with AA/DL/UA/B6) and they are an east coast regional. 190s to Republic doesn’t have any business case. Plus B6 only controls half that fleet - so only up to 30 could go to to the same place unless each lessor on the other 30 also wanted to send each one to the same company as B6 picked.

I just don’t see anyway this is possible. What am I missing?

IdlewildJFK wrote:

bluecrew wrote:

tphuang wrote:

Keep in mind that a lot of the covid route choices were due to Scott Laurence. I am not sure Dave Clark would make the same additions.

Having said that, there is a lot of value in buying nk.

If the merger is approved, I see JetBlue cutting a lot of their own fll and a few mco routes. The fleet that gets freed up can then be redeployed to building up their network in the northeast, where their brand is the strongest.

Yes, it would allow them to retire E90 more quickly. Maybe they can retrofit some of those a319 in lower density configs for Boston business markets. At least that's what I would do.

It would give them tremendous advantage at fll. I would move some of that mia capacity back to fll. And maybe even mco capacity to fll.

They would actually have enough gates at lax to have a 100+ flight hub. Pretty big deal. They would have enough aircraft to build up an sfo operation and forget about oak. I would cut a lot of the low yielding las routes.

They have to be very careful about how they deploy nk aircraft before reconfiguration. There will be some nk configured aircraft even after nk aoc goes away. I would probably put them on vfr routes out of fll and sju. And probably las and mco routes that don't touch their focus cities. Over time, it would not surprise me if they have more dense a321neo aircraft stick around for vfr and leisure stuff out of fll and mco.

I think the biggest gain for JetBlue are:
1) the additional staffing and aircraft that can immediately be deployed to northeast.
2) the additional gates at fll, lax, ewr, ord and bwi.
3) the already opened stations which would save JetBlue out of cost in opening new stations
4) the additional slots at lga and takeoff times at ewr
5) the increased revenue from less ulccs competition.

Overall, having one fortress hub and strengthening northeast will probably make this deal quite worthwhile for JetBlue. Have 3 major hubs in NYC, Boston and fll would be quite the boost for this airline. Having up to 14 gates at lax would make them easily the 4th largest airline there. They would be a truly national brand with quite a bit of international presence.

We discussed the pros of merging with nk quite a few times on this thread at start of covid. It's the most logical merger for them while retaining their brand. If I had more faith in this management, I would be more excited about this.

As usual I agree with you on the vast majority here.

1. I agree the allocation of resources will change immediately. I've heard (not confirmed - but it would make sense) that most NKS below-the-wing staff outside of hubs are outsourced station personnel - very easy to cut labor costs fast. Keep the crew bases, you can build pairings out of any domicile NKS has today by adding some P2P without totally overhauling the flying model. Lots of DH segments for the NK guys - their airplanes would probably get blue paint and be flying out of BOS and FLL (more likely FLL/MCO - I think the natural play would be to aggressively grow the VFR market and connections to Florida).
2. Helps. LAX and FLL in a big way, FLL can be a pain on gate occupancy already, but the FLL gates will further future growth and allow a larger shift of flying into LatAm. I can't see Hawaii or anything hugely meaningful out of LAX in the future... I would expect to see a regional "connect the dots" approach - more SEA, SLC, SFO, possibly return to OAK, and maybe expand to Montana and Idaho. The purpose of course isn't to sell LAX-BZN flights, but to feed BZN-LAX-JFK. JBU's approach to the west coast has been non-committal at best, best described by a former CEO as "we don't fly people to New York, we are a New York airline that flies New Yorkers to where they want to go."
3. Yep - huge. Ground handling is often underestimated as a cost - like the air force, the sheer number of humans to get that airplane off chocks is shocking.
4. LGA slots are good - they clearly have the profitability metrics from LGA to FL drilled in, as frequency, capacity, and routes rarely seem to change, and LGA always gets additions. Even before NEA, the connecting traffic, and being tricked into flying the Shuttle, LGA was steadily growing frequencies and (apocryphally) loads seemed good. Nothing can help EWR... Newark gonna Newark. Nothing you can do to improve TOT's because the FAA decided EWR was going to be the bottom of the wedding cake (and TEB is the cardboard under the cake). Most volatile and subject to traffic restrictions and GDPs with LGA nipping at its heels. You can have 400 gates at EWR and bribe the mayor, nobody will improve this beautiful, perfect disaster.
5. Yes - leaves Frontier in the cold, the old hand in a market with Breeze and Avelo. NKS goes away, the brand gets erased and gets replaced with a brand with a lower NPS... for now?.. and from a route and business perspective, JBU gets a couple rocket boosters into the major territory. This isn't Yahoo buying GeoCities, this is Facebook buying Instagram - it's a shock to the heart for a stagnant brand that's found no path towards quick, sustainable growth. If we want another major airline in the US market, this is how it gets done.

FLL becomes a fortress hub, MCO gets very close. I think BWI gets drawn down as it's a potential knife fight with SWA. Potentially expand DR flying from BWI, bump SJU, connect to the rest of the JBU network and see what works. SJU and FLL become the gateway to LatAm, and you turn 2x NK and 2x B6 A320s flying to Kingston into 3 A320s. The amount of overlap between the NKS and JBU schedules in FLL and MCO alone fuels the growth, the freed up aircraft become a good way to cheaply add capacity or try new strategies. For those that think a combined B6/NK doesn't dominate MCO and FLL - you're adding 2+2 and getting 4, when you should be getting 2+2=3+1. Eliminating the biggest direct competitor doesn't just add their gold to your gold pile. SWA remains competitive but a merger adds a lot more dots and allows a lot more to be consolidated.

Sadly, the 190 probably goes away a little faster, and I wouldn't be shocked if it turned into a bid to send those frames to a regional (rumor was Republic). I'd speculate the A319neos on the order book become A321neos, and the 319s get a higher density than usual config and probably start flying south, if they stick around for a while. Frees up some 220s which are just significantly more capable at profitably flying the long thin routes out west.

Now I'm not a big blue juicer, not even sure B6 should survive a merger, but the business case for this is really compelling. Provided they don't screw it up. The lack of a blocking move from the board is a good sign it's under consideration, but so many things could go wrong.

Why would Republic want 190s? They could only fly them for Alaska (due to scope with AA/DL/UA/B6) and they are an east coast regional. 190s to Republic doesn’t have any business case. Plus B6 only controls half that fleet - so only up to 30 could go to to the same place unless each lessor on the other 30 also wanted to send each one to the same company as B6 picked.

I just don’t see anyway this is possible. What am I missing?

Additionally, if republic flew 190s (or any non-delta-scope-compliant plane) for Alaska or anyone else, they’d lose delta flying, as delta can’t partner with anyone who has any plane partnering for anyone else that violates their pilots’ scope. Same reason Skywest can’t fly the higher gross weight 175s for Alaska, but horizon can. So yeah, I agree republic doesn’t have a use for 190s.

Yes... ignore the wall of text... focus on the parentheses that clearly state it was the rumor on the property, this is the a.net way.

We're talking about the airline that had a pervasive rumor that United was in final talks to buy it for over five years.

panam330 wrote:

hbernal1 wrote:

FARmd90 wrote:

Will we see Jetblue react to the news of Breeze coming to HPN? Breeze announced new select transcon routes out of HPN as well as a few cities on the east coast. Will B6 want to do what they can to keep breeze out/grow anymore in HPN or will we not see much reaction.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/breeze-ai ... y-airport/

HPN-LAX/SFO seemed right up JetBlue's alley, and could've printed cash for B6 had they jumped on both. I'm surprised Breeze beat B6 to adding both routes. Also, BDL-LAS is now available on Breeze, which is a route that directly competes with B6.

I wonder if we'll see B6 knee-jerk react with HPN-LAX/SFO/LAS with 220s. Anybody know if B6's more densely-configured 220 can make it off HPN's runway without restricting bags and/or pax?

Good question. On a hot humid day or when runway is contaminated by rain, snow or slush, There could be limits.

bluecrew wrote:

Yes... ignore the wall of text... focus on the parentheses that clearly state it was the rumor on the property, this is the a.net way.

We're talking about the airline that had a pervasive rumor that United was in final talks to buy it for over five years.

Ok fair enough, if we ignore the parentheses rumor of Rebublic specifically, you did say you wouldn’t be shocked if those frames went to a regional, so ignoring the rumor of where specifically they could go, you do think it possible they go to a regional.

So based on a non-specific regional, what I said still stands. AA, DL and UA scope would not allow it, so AS would be the only possible airline with regionals who could have them. And they are still not a package deal as only half are controlled by B6.

My point is that I personally would be shocked if those birds end up flying for a regional - based on scope clauses and split ownership of the fleet.

I am not agreeing with/disagreeing with any of your other many points and that is why I don’t respond to them.


Original quote for reference:

“Sadly, the 190 probably goes away a little faster, and I wouldn't be shocked if it turned into a bid to send those frames to a regional (rumor was Republic).”