Business Travel News recently conducted an interview with Robin Hayes, President of Jet Blue.
Two questions asked of Robin specifically mentioned their premium transcontinental product, Mint. Currently, Mint service flies from JFK to both LAX and SFO, but it could be soon expanding to another Northeast market – Boston.
Are you looking to make any of your markets strong corporate centers like Boston?
Not for now. There’s still some growth in Boston. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood is another area of growth for us, and that’s a nice mix of leisure and business travel. Things like [premium-class product] Mint have been phenomenal in terms of making us more attractive to large New York- or Los Angeles-based corporates, and now San Francisco, where we just started. When we designed that product, we designed it around the leisure market and the small and medium-sized companies, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised how much large corporate business we’ve seen on Mint.
How do you intend to grow Mint?
By next February or March, we’ll have eight on L.A. [routes] and up to five on San Francisco. Given the phenomenal success we’ve had on Mint, I see potential markets like Boston-San Francisco and Boston-LAX. You bet we’re thinking about it, based on what we’ve seen. The most complimented feature is our flight attendants, who have done an incredible job.
From the looks of it, Jet Blue is eyeing expansion in Boston, to now provide a premium product to both San Fransisco and Los Angeles. To Los Angeles, Jet Blue currently operates 3 non-stops daily – so adding a Mint product on each, or some of these routes, will provide an alternative to Business travelers wanting a flat-bed seat product.
I still think American Airlines provides the best transcontinental product, but I know many are a fan of Jet Blue, and will be welcome of this possible expansion.
Jamie Larounis is an avid traveler, blogger and miles/points educator. Traveling well over 100,000 miles a year and staying in hotels for over 100 nights, he leverages miles, points and other deals to fly in first class cabins, and stay in 5-star hotels. The Forward Cabin shares his experiences, musings, reviews, tips, tricks, resources and industry news with you, the fellow traveler.
It’s about time an airline took BOS seriously. I worked at both UA & US in BOS for 13 years total. At UA, we tried to tell corporate to investigate the possibility of p.s. on BOS-SFO (and maybe BOS-LAX) but were continuously blown off. BOS is a huge market ignored by legacies because it’s not a traditional hub city. They basically let B6 have the whole thing. Oh well, this is good news for all the folks up there!