Jetblue Case Analysis
JetBlue Airways airline was established by David Neeleman as a low-fare airline with high-quality customer service. His goal was to create an airline that was innovative for the current market. Their main focus was to provide service to areas that were underserved as well as to large cities with overpriced fares. He aimed to establish a strong brand that differentiated itself from its competitors by being a safe, reliable and low cost-airline. Neeleman managed to achieve this partially by hiring friendly, helpful, team-oriented, and customer-focused people. JetBlue is capable of offering low-cost flights due to their low operating costs. In order to achieve the cost advantage, they initially operated a single-type aircraft, the Airbus A320, as opposed to the more popular but costly Boeing 737. Not only was the airbus cheaper to maintain, but it was also more fuel-efficient. Additionally, they decided not to serve any meals on their planes as well as their pilots had to always be available, if needed, to help do the cleanup of the aircraft in order to minimize the time the aircraft was on the ground. They also pioneered the low-cost airline industry by displaying the lowest incidence of delayed, mishandled, or lost bags, and the third-lowest number of customer complaints. Since JetBlue is a customer-oriented company, its objective is to make the customer’s experience extraordinary by providing electronic ticketing and improved in-flight entertainment so that it can rapidly grow as an affordable airline. However, the airline industry has been exposed to many external threats, and therefore, JetBlue has been facing financial problems which were mainly caused by fuel prices. The rising fuel costs have impacted the airline’s financial performance and affected its customers by increasing ticket prices. Another threat for JetBlue is terrorism which has impacted the industry as whole after 9/11. There is also strong competition from other low-cost airlines such as