JetBlue’s popular Mint business class disrupted rivals

No US airline has disrupted the premium market recently more than JetBlue Airways, the first carrier to bring (somewhat) affordable lie-flat seats to domestic routes. While the product has been more successful than JetBlue executives expected, don’t look for it to expand to all routes. JetBlue only wants to put it on longer flights where customers will reliably pay for it, executives said. “Once you get to about 2,000 miles, I think we’re in good shape from there,” said Marty St. George, the airline’s executive VP of commercial and planning. “Under 2,000 is a little bit challenging. We’ve had a lot of customer demand to fly in places like New York to Palm Beach, New York to Fort Lauderdale. But we think it’s just too short a flight actually to justify that square footage of cabin.” JetBlue began flying its 16-seat premium cabin, called Mint, in 2014, putting it on the two obvious routes — New York to San Francisco and New York to Los Angeles — as a strategy to try to turn the flights from revenue laggards into top performers. Almost immediately, the economics on the key transcontinental routes changed for every airline, as industry-wide advanced purchased fares dropped considerably. Travelers could buy business class for as little as $599, a steal when most carriers charged at least $1,000. Entry-level fares are a higher now — often about $759 — but across all carriers, they’re far cheaper than pre-2014.<br/>