JetBlue Airways could add more Airbus A321s configured with its premium Mint cabin, as it looks at offering the product to more routes.
“We have a pretty robust A321 orderbook,” says JetBlue’s vice-president of network planning Dave Clark. “We can convert more of them to the Mint fleet, with about nine to 12 months’ lead time.”
JetBlue is now offering the Mint product, which comes with lie-flat seats and other amenities, on its flights from New York JFK to Los Angeles and San Francisco. The carrier says it has been pleased with the performance of Mint, with JetBlue president Robin Hayes saying recently that operating margin on the Mint routes improved twice as much as on other transcontinental markets during the fourth quarter of 2014.
The airline has previously indicated it could offer Mint on routes out of Boston, where it operates a focus city. Clark says this remains under study, and the airline is also looking to offer Mint on other transcontinental routes out of New York JFK.
Clark does not name the potential transcontinental city pairs, but JetBlue serves several west coast cities from New York JFK including Seattle, San Jose, Long Beach, San Diego and Portland.
JetBlue has committed to outfitting 11 A321s with the Mint cabin. The 10th such A321 begins service this month, and the 11th will be deployed on revenue service in March. Clark says JetBlue has flexibility to take more A321s with the Mint cabin if it chooses to.
The airline has 32 current engine option A321s on order, Ascend Fleets shows. JetBlue is taking delivery of only A321s this year and will add 12 of the type.
To a lesser extent, JetBlue could also deploy Mint on its routes out of New York JFK to the Caribbean on a seasonal basis, says Clark.
This will be on a “very limited seasonal basis” during the holiday season, he adds. “We are targeting the high-end leisure customer. Mint will be the best seat in the Caribbean from the US.”
Source: Cirium Dashboard
