News and notes from around the interweb:
- JetBlue is ordering more planes with premium seats and will decide by end of next year whether to start transatlantic flights
- The US is opening a Global Entry enrollment center in London to facilitate the signup of UK citizens.
- Not stopping with sacking the Turkish Airlines CFO for political reasons, post-coup Turkey has purged 211 airline employees, with the airline offering that
the employees’ contracts were terminated due to operational necessity, inefficiency, poor performance as well as providing support to the movement of U.S.- based cleric Fethullah Gulen.
- JetBlue Executive Vice President Marty St. George on why he doesn’t like Basic Economy fares: it’s not a good idea to spend time figuring out ways to make your product worse for customers.
“We still want to make sure that when a customer walks on a JetBlue airplane, no matter where they sit, they will have the best experience of any airline,” St. George said. “A strategy that dumbs that down and impacts the value proposition is on the surface not very attractive to us.”
- Malaysia Airlines orders up to 25 Boeing 737 MAX 8s
- Virgin America shareholders approve Alaska Airlines merger.
JetBlue, 6 miles per dollar for basic FF members, 34″ vs 31″ legroom, these are compelling reasons to change to an airline that looks down its nose at devaluiing the consumer with cuts and clawbacks that are beginning to paint the majors in some sort of Monty Python skit lampooning sneering corporate waddlers begrudging any customer who doesn’t pay HUGE for the slightest comfort.
We are going to see to it that you receive every ounce of ridicule and humiliation you deserve, CEO’s of Delta, AA, UAL and any others who spend their days trying to make flying less comfortable. Which business school did you go to exactly to learn this? Trump U?
The two airlines that have clarity about this business are JetBlue and Alaska. Marty could not have summarized this better!