Jetblue Airways: Starting From Scratch - Case Analysis Essay

The skill emphasis needed in a service industry such as airlines is mostly interpersonal. Recognizing the need for interpersonal skills, JetBlue designed the employee selection process to make sure the hired crew members fit into the culture and understood the values and mission. Decision making is another important characteristic of the service industry and the crew members were also identified and selected on their decision making capabilities as the customer related decisions are made at the lowest level of the organization. JetBlue designed the orientation process to highlight the different core values to the employees and made them identify with the mission. Expected behavior of the employees and their contribution to the success of the

Suppliers generally have a moderate to high bargaining power within the industry due to the limited number of suppliers which forces aviation companies to choose from the number available and accordingly to accept their prices. In fact, fuel is the second highest cost for aviation companies. There are highly depended on supplier’s prices and the availability which indicates on a relatively high bargaining power of suppliers. In addition, there are high switching costs which are strongly in favor of the suppliers and means that the company experiences an increase in operating costs when switching to another supplier as flying another type of aircraft leads to additional costs (maintenance, training etc.).Aircrafts are vulnerable to delays due to the location of gate locations which leads to a decrease in utilization and therefore to an increase in costs.

JetBlue is a pro at utilizing its resources and structure. As such, JetBlue has proven to be efficient in its internal environment. Out of the physical and human aspects of the internal environment JetBlue focuses on human as the key factor. JetBlue views its employees and their skills as the key to a successful structure by emphasizing elements of loyalty, satisfaction, service quality, productivity, capability, and output quality. JetBlue reflects a culture of employees that understand how to retain customers and can perform under various situations with an equally varied consumer base. In addition to human capital, JetBlue uses physical assets to set them apart from the rest. The airline fleet of JetBlue is very precisely selected. From its new Airbus A321 to its Airbus 320, JetBlue prides itself on comfort and luxury. Other perks offered by JetBlue include lower priced airfare compared to that of its competitors and in-flight entertainment options that succeed its competition. Internal weaknesses include a

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 objective of this research paper is to describe how the 21St Century utilized concepts , such as corporate social responsibility in relation with triple bottom line, to shift the airline industry into becoming a forward-thinking industry embedding sustainability into their core of business operations to create shared value for business and society. I will define corporate social responsibility and areas of social responsibility in the airline industry at the beginning of the paper and proceed with how it ties into the bottom line concept. Next, I will give brief examples of airlines such as JetBlue Airways, and British Airways how they apply these concepts into their mission. In conclusion, I will express my own thoughts about how different generations based their purchases and career decisions on these concepts.

David Neeleman found JetBlue in 1999 with the mission “to bring humanity back to air travel". This goal is achieved by creating a company that offers comfortable, friendly travel at low fares and by this to differentiate themselves from the mass.

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 airline in the United States by market share (Martin, 2012). Another trend is towards low-cost carriers. In the US, Southwest has been a long-running success and JetBlue a strong new competitor, but in other countries this business model has proven exceptionally successful. The third major trend is the upward trend in jet fuel prices, and the increasing importance that this puts on hedging fuel prices and capacity management (Hinton, 2011).

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 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.

JetBlue Airways Corporation was formed in August 1998 as a low-fare, low-cost but high service passenger airline serving select United States market. JetBlue's operations strategy was designed to achieve a low cost, whilst offering customers a pleasing and differentiated flying experience. JetBlue has had a successful business model and strong financial results during that period, and performed well in comparison to other airline companies in the US during the period between 2000 and 2003. It had been the only other airline apart from Southwest airlines, to have been profitable during the aftermath of the September 11, 2001

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.

Jet-blue Airways is American low cost airline head quartered near New-York city. It’s foundedin August 1998 by David Neeleman with Joel Peterson as a chairman and David Barger as apresident and CEO. By late 2006,like some other airlines, JetBlue faced some softening demand and high cost due to the increase in fuel prices. Barger realizes that JetBlue needs to take further steps to slow its rate of growth. Barger was not sure about the reductions across E190 and A320. The E190 showedpromising growth opportunities and challenges for JetBlue. At the same time, the A320 wasconsidered as proven plane that had succeededover past 6 years. Most of the airline industries were using hub-and-spoke system and point-to-point services. Due to this service, South West Airlines showed consistent profits. After September 11th, the airline industry experienced trouble due to attack. Looking at the history of Jet-blue, it started with just 10airplanes in 2000 and by 2011 the company planned to have 290 planes in service. To support customers, Jet Blueprovided

•Neeleman offered passengers a unique flying experience by providing new aircrafts, simple and low fares, leather seats, free Live TV at every seat, pre-assigned seating, reliable performance, and high-quality customer service. JetBlue focused on point-to-point service to large metropolitan areas with high average fares or highly traveled markets that were underserved. JetBlue’s operating strategy had produced the lowest cost per available seat mile of any of the major U.S. airlines in 2001—6.98 cents vs. 10.08 cents.

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.