Crafting and Executing Strategy

David Neeleman sets the bar in the airline industry by concentrating on customer and employee satisfaction. JetBlue has a service orientated culture grounded in five key values; safety, caring, integrity, passion, and fun.

JetBlue is an American airline company whose headquarter is located in the New York City. They are a low-cost airline who is rapidly growing in the Unites States. According to Wikipedia, “David Neeleman founded the company in February 1999, under the name "NewAir.” Many of their approach come from Southwest Airlines include low prices airfares. However, they differ in the amenities offered to the customers.

The airline currently known as JetBlue airlines was created in 1999 by Utah entrepreneur David Needleman with the goal of bringing humanity back to the airline industry. Needleman started an innovative airline called Morris Air, and was the first airline to successfully utilize a ticketless reservation system, and the basic structure was to provide consumers with excellent service but low fares. This airline reported making over 20 million in profits in 2003, but decided to sell this new airline to Southwest airlines, and signed a five year no competition agreement (JetBlue airlines, 2008). The design of the new JetBlue airline would use aircraft with one cabin class, and incorporate an in flight entertainment system with over 24 satellite television channels and web services, as well as movies in the headrest of every seat. The choice was also made not to serve meals, but offer gourmet chips and refreshments. The cabin also offers larger leather seats with increased legroom, larger overhead bins, and JetBlue was one of the first airlines to convert to a cashless system for drinks and food. The company began flying in 2000, with only two leased Airbus A320’s, and its first route was from New York’s John F. Kennedy airport to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The airline was given 75 takeoff slots in JFK airport, and has been working there way up to one of the most successful airlines. The airlines goals were to beat their competitors by 65%, and increase the positive

JetBlue Airways has been affected by key external factors. The political factor that has affected JetBlue is the resentment towards union formation. Currently, JetBlue is a non-union company. This helps it keep its fixed costs low. Further, there are positive

JetBlue Airways was incorporated in Delaware in August 1998 with its headquarters based out of Forest Hills, New York. JetBlue’s main hub is based out of JFK airport, in New York City. JetBlue is a low-cost domestic airline in the United States that has an interesting combination of implementing its differentiation and low-cost strategies. It grew to become the 11th largest player in the airline industry in a span of six years. The airline was founded by its current CEO, David Neeleman, in February of 1999 under the name of NewAir. JetBlue intended to offer low fare flights designed to increase demand. Despite its low fares, the company stood out from other airlines due to the unique products offered by it. The products that were offered were; new aircrafts, leather seats, reliable operating performance, 36 channels of Live TV and movie selections from Fox In-flight at every seat .JetBlue was launched with a huge amount of capital, expert personnel in key positions and brand new planes leading to rapid growth as its customers increased in a bid to escape steep fares and frequent delays experienced by major airlines. It took Neeleman thirty months of planning to get New Air in the skies. Talented executives were brought in from other airlines and some executives brought in from Southwest since The Company’s operation was similar to Southwest since they shared similar ideas and concepts.

JetBlue is able to accomplish this low cost structure through its point-to-point model that allows them to fly in and out of second tier airports that are cheaper to rent space at. JetBlue has also historically used only two types of aircrafts, making it easier and cheaper to fix airplanes when they are broken and allows less training for its staff on using the different aircrafts. Another strength of JetBlue is its reputation for good employee relations. With a positive corporate culture, JetBlue has been able to maintain very low turnover in its employees, thus reducing expenses for retraining employees. For years, JetBlue has been able to maintain stable finances, and a strong balance sheet. For more information on the financial standing of JetBlue, see appendix -0-. Lastly, one of the most recognized strengths JetBlue has is its customer Bill of Rights. As stated in JetBlue’s mission statement, JetBlue is trying to bring humanity back to air travel through a customer-oriented approach. After a huge event left the airline canceling and delaying many of its flights, JetBlue set out to create a program that provides financial reciprocation if a customer’s flight is cancelled or delayed for an extended period. To this day, customers have been able to view the guidelines easily on the company website and enjoy the extra protection they receive through the Customer Bill of Rights.

David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue Airways and his management team have realized that JetBlue is still making profit despite the many challenges facing the airline industry after the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks. Despite these positive returns; JetBlue plans on raising capital through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to support its aggressive growth and to also offset portfolio losses to their venture capital

JetBlue Airways was created with the primary purpose to provide low cost American flights with “top-notch customer service” at budget prices. On the stormy day of February 14, 2007, their airline service was tested to the extreme. JetBlue initially serviced passengers between New York and Florida and then expanded rapidly. By the end of 2006, the airline had 500 flights operating in 50 different cities providing each passenger with (luxury) amenities such as TV, and leather seats (Laudon, pg. 72). This rapid expansion brought challenges the airline had not prepared

Before going public in 2002, JetBlue has outstanding advantage in the whole industries. Because of the good performance by management team (CEO: David Neelman,President and COO: David Barger ,CFO: John Owen), JetBlue provided good services which include new aircraft, leather seat, free live TV at every seat and high

Introduction JetBlue Airways is a passenger airline founded in 1999 by David Neeleman. Neeleman aimed to provide the customer with first-rate service at reasonable prices. In order to ensure this strategy, JetBlue had to recruit and hire the right people to complement its core values. The company encompasses five core values: safety, caring, integrity fun, and passion. JetBlue uses a targeted selection process to identify employees which fit the company values.

Jetblue set out to provide its customers with a great airlines experience. Neeleman’s goal was to provide customers with “the types of amenities reserved for the pricier carriers, including wider seats ……and 24 channels of in-flight television” ( Case study pg 400) One of Jetblue and Neeleman’s biggest challenges was to keep offering all these amenities while still competing with the big carriers by keeping their prices 50 to 60 percent lower on the same routes. As they grew and hired more employees they found it harder to maintain the same level of customer service across the board. Also other carriers began to compete with them in the lowprice arena. These bigger airlines had more planes and employees to they

Qantas is the largest Australian airline company. The industry in which Qantas exists seems to be attractive as it brings enormous profits for the company, however, new entrants would face many difficulties in the entering this industry. Qantas uses two-brand growth strategy while offering two types of service: premium and low-price. The premium service is being delivered by the company itself and the low-price service is delivered by subsidiary of Qantas named Jet Star that was established in order to avoid price wars with big competitor Virgin Blue and maintain the Qantas image of being premium services offering company. Qantas uses differentiation

JetBlue has been recognized for offering cheap flights to business travelers, in the same way that other airlines come up with similar offers for different types of travelers. In 2009, (case study) JetBlue was on top of the list of the low-cost carriers. The airline is classified as a major carrier, which means their annual revenue starts at $1 billion, JetBlue has a $3 billion revenue, still and all it is mentioned that JetBlue is smaller in comparison to other major airlines.

As of 2016, JetBlue has turned itself into an airline that is now viewed as strong

This results in happy employees that support the company values which, in my opinion, directly relates to the key successes of JetBlue.