----------------
On 8/31/2002 11:07:35 PM
i wonder what is next for jetblue's growth?
----------------
JetBlue's growth appears to take on a seasonal pattern. From about April to October, the emphasis is on building up transcon or sometimes new city flying. From October to April, new aircraft are added to north-south routes, mostly NY to FL. There is some pullback of these added routes toward the end of the season, after spring break, and the additional aircraft are used to inaugurate some transcon or new city flying and the cycle begins again. This has the effect of avoiding one of the big problems with airlines that largely have either north-south or east-west flying, namely seasonality. This way the assets are always in use and aren't nonproductive for a significant portion of the year.
Look at it historically and you can see about how it works:
Winter 00: Start operation, BUF and FLL. Add other FL cities and ROC shortly.
Summer 00: Start transcons to OAK, ONT, SLC and DEN (redeyes). Start BTV, SYR.
Winter 01: Add MCO, RSW, TPA, PBI, FLL flying
Summer 01: Pullback seasonal FL flying. Start MSY, SEA, LGB. Increase freqs to OAK (day flying)
Winter 02: Large expansion N-S (12 dailies to FLL, etc.)
Summer 02: Pullback seasonal FL flying. Add IAD, SJU, fill LGB slots by adding OAK, LAS flying. More freqs to OAK, LGB.
Winter 03: Another large increase in FL flying (16 dailies to FLL, 8 to MCO, etc)
Can expect:
Summer 03: Pullback seasonal FL flying. Use these aircraft to add a new city or two and/or convert some of the LGB shorthauls to longhauls.
Winter 04: Expand in FL
etc, etc.
Just keep this pattern in mind when you see a message (about every six months or so) that JBLU is being chased out of a route. The mix is constantly changing to optimize limited assets. Maybe if we had 600 planes we could afford to camp out on a money losing or overserved route, but we can't do it with 30.