Keeping blue green, OR, Pass the collection plate

JetBlue founder and chief executive David Neeleman has a become something of an apologist now that the darling of the low-cost, low-fare airline industry has shown its feet or landing gear of clay by racking up a major deficit for 2005 and predicting another for this year. Out in Las Vegas at a Citigroup-sponsored investor conference the other day, Neeleman said he'd been telling anyone who would listen that fares really have to up another $5 or $10 bucks or so if jetBlue is to avoid more red ink. Antitrust-fearing lawyers, he told the analysts, had urged him to be a little more vague about the dollar figure, but the message was getting out; "people are writing in, and I got one letter with a cheque for $100 saying, 'here's for my last 10 trips'," he recounted at the gambling city's Four Seasons hotel. That may not have been the type of support Neeleman was looking for, but every little bit of green helps jetBlue fly closer to the black ink.

Speaking seriously, Neeleman said jetBlue would consider feeder-type agreements with international carriers serving the airline's New York JFK hub now that its new Embraer E190 fleet gave it economic access to smaller cities throughout the East. "We've been approached by many international carriers," he explained, but some have no feed, such as Richmond or other markets jetBlue to which will be flying. The airline will open seven new gates there by June, bringing its total gates at JFK to 21 and giving it room for another 10 to 15 new cities. "We're going to diversify the route system into a lot of new routes," he told the Citigroup Small and Mid-cap Conference. "I really believe we'll be a much stronger company because of the rough patch we're going through now," he said.