Jetblue Airways Executive Summary

Business Finance Policy: FINA 380-01 Dr. William Brent February 3rd 2009 JetBlue Airways: IPO Valuation Table of Content I. Statement of Problem II. Alternative Solutions III. Analysis of the Alternatives IV. Final Recommendation V. Appendix I. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 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

Brief Summary of the JetBlue Case 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.

JetBlue's Organizational Plan JetBlue's Organizational Plan Introduction JetBlue is known as the airline that promises, and also delivers. JetBlue delivers Air flight of the future, with new jets and the lowest fares available. JetBlue has proved to the world that one can have it all. JetBlue’s Airways started in 2000 with the mission as stated by the founder Neeleman: “to bring humanity back to air travel by offering passengers low fares, friendly service, and high-quality product” (Ford, 2004, p.139). JetBlue has five core values that they operate by on a daily basis, which includes, safety, caring, integrity, passion and fun. JetBlue continues to adapt to the changing environment, and its community by evaluating the risks and

 JetBlue Airways: Starting From Scratch Troy Thorpe WGU JetBlue Airways: Starting from Scratch Before David Neeleman’s non-compete agreement with Southwest Airlines expired, he envisioned the concept of starting a low-fare airline that would combine common sense, innovation, and technology and bring the humanity back into air travel (Gittel & O’Reilly, 2001). In

JetBlue: Entrepreneurial Stage David Neelman realized his vision of creating an airlines company that is focused on customer service by starting JetBlue. During

1. JetBlue's strategy for success in the marketplace is based on the cost leadership strategy, as outlined by Michael Porter (QuickMBA, 2010). This strategy relies on delivering products or services at a lower price than competitors, and using that cost leadership as the basis by which to attract customers. JetBlue essentially built their business model after Southwest Airlines, and the company's founders had experience with Southwest that helped them learn about the business. The JetBlue approach to cost leadership is focused on the mass market.

JetBlue Airways: Managing Growth The JetBlue case gives students the opportunity to apply concepts in cost leadership. At the time of the case, JetBlue has enjoyed a meteoric rise to success in the airline industry by coupling a low-cost strategy while giving customers the sense that they are actually providing better features to their service (e.g. leather seats, satellite TV).

1. There are a few trends in the US airline industry. One is consolidation, wherein existing players merge in an attempt to lower their costs and generate operating synergies. The most recent major merger was the United Continental merger, which is still an ongoing affair, but has created the largest

1. Describe the “JetBlue Experience.” How is it related to the company’s overall business strategy? With the JetBlue Airways experience, passengers enjoyed free amenities such as watching live satellite TV, listening to XM satellite radio, brand name snacks, coffee and drink. Passengers can also experience paperless ticketing, assigned seating with more legroom. These experiences have helped to streamline JetBlue’s business strategy as being the best customer service in the airline industry.

There are two major strategic issues facing JetBlue. The first is that the company is growing very rapidly. This brings with it a number of critical challenges, such as recruitment and selection, maintaining the corporate culture, and maintaining high service levels. Secondary goals associated with this are maintaining safety standards, finding profitable routes to occupy and avoiding a unionization drive. Growing a company this rapidly is possible given the strong initial financing that the company has, but challenging in that the faster the airline grows, the more difficult it will be to find the right people and the right routes. The company can grow rapidly while plucking the low-hanging fruit but these tasks become more difficult over time.

Executive Summary JetBlue has been one of the most successful airlines since it first entered the industry in December of 1999. Founder, David Neeleman, set out to succeed by offering low-cost air travel in hopes of perpetuating his services to as many people as he could across the US. He was very adamant about having a very customer oriented business that catered to the needs of all. In doing so he wanted to emphatically promote his obligation to safety, caring, integrity, passion, while allowing the customers to have fun while traveling. There motto helps portray Neeleman’s belief stating “You Above All”. His primary goals had been to follow Southwest’s objectives of offering low rates to customers, focusing on customer’s needs and comforts while distinguishing itself with their amenities. Neeleman’s other goal was to establish his low-cost leadership strategy by concentrating his airline in a large popular metropolitan area that already is already correlated with high airfare (Peterson, 2004). He then began operating based out of the New York metropolitan area at John F. Kennedy International airport with his secondary locations in Washington D.C., Boston and Los Angeles.

• Customer service personnel : check-in, ticket sales and reservations • Passengers. • In flight refreshments. Operations In an airline industry, customers form the core of the organisation and this is achieved by the level of customer satisfaction by voting for the airline. This expresses confidence in the airline. The airline to meet its customers expectations needs to ensure the following is adhered to:

JetBlue’s product can be considered innovate in terms some of their products are unique and new. They exchanged new experience among their flights and the relationship with their customer’s. They adapt their products with the customer’s wants and demands, this means that their products exceptionally implement to make customers happy but also to distinguish them for the competitors. For example the new seats or the foods and beverage that are full time serve to the customer’s. Another exchanged is customer’s feed-back and the improvement of their services by having a strategy to become more popular.

JetBlue Airways IPO In April 2000, JetBlue first started in New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport. Even after the 2001 terrorist attacks, company remained profitable and was growing aggressively. To support their growth and offset portfolio losses by their venture capital investors, management was ready to raise additional capital through a public equity offering.

Founded by the discount airline veteran David Neeleman in 2000, JetBlue Airways has quickly become one of the largest discount airlines in the United States. Starting primarily by serving the East Coast, the airline has since expanded throughout the country and entered the international market. The reasons for its early success are numerous: JetBlue entered the market with one of the largest levels of liquidity of any start-up airline; it met the needs of customers’ whose primary concerns are price and route; and it successfully defined its brand and differentiated itself