JetBlue executives on a Tuesday earnings call mentioned the carrier's "momentum" heading into 2025 seven times, calling it "incredible," "significant," "sustained" and "great."
The airline, however, reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $44 million, and a full-year net loss of $795 million. While the quarterly figure was an improvement over the $104 million loss reported for the same period a year prior, the full-year loss exceeded the $310 million loss reported in 2023.
"2024 was a period of transition for JetBlue," CEO Joanna Geraghty said. "At the onset of the year, we introduced a new leadership team who worked expeditiously to launch our standalone strategy plan, JetForward, last July. This plan is fundamental to achieving our goal of returning to sustained profitability. Though we weren't profitable for the year, we made progress in 2024, with operating margin expansion during the second half of the year."
Still, though JetBlue is mainly a leisure carrier—and executives during the past year have stated many of its network changes are to focus more on that segment, especially since the unraveling of the Northeast Alliance with American Airlines—the carrier's corporate demand has been "great," said JetBlue president Marty St. George.
"If you look at our corporate demand right now, the last two or three quarters, we've been setting records as far as the amount of money we're getting from our corporate accounts," St. George said. "That being the case, corporate is still a really small part of JetBlue's revenue base. We're talking a nine-digit number, a low nine-digit number. So, it's not a gigantic number. [But] we are seeing great numbers."
St. George added in response to an analyst question about the corporate segment that the carrier does not see itself as a "big corporate carrier," and that there has been no significant change to its business mix. St. George pointed to JetBlue's limited corporate volume as a reason for its recent shuffle of U.S. capacity.
"Frankly, I think that's part of the reason why the [15 cities] that we closed actually weren't working for us, because we're carrying a lot of great leisure customers in places like Minneapolis, San Antonio, and we really weren't penetrated in the business market," St. George said.
When asked about the possibility of an NEA replacement, Geraghty said JetBlue was "having conversations with a number of carriers right now to discuss the potential for future partnership. The judge in Massachusetts obviously laid out a framework that would be acceptable under at least the prior administration. But there's nothing to announce now."
JetBlue Q4, FY2024 Metrics
JetBlue reported fourth-quarter passenger revenue of $2.1 billion, down 3.1 percent year over year. Total quarterly revenue was nearly $2.3 billion, about 2.1 percent less than a year prior. Full-year passenger revenue was more than $8.7 billion, a 4.3 percent decline year over year. Total revenue was down 3.5 percent from 2023 to nearly $9.3 billion.
Fourth-quarter capacity declined 5.1 percent year over year and was down 3.5 percent for the full year compared with 2023. The average fuel price was $2.47 per gallon for the quarter and $2.75 for the full year.
First-quarter guidance projected capacity to be down 2 percent to 5 percent year over year. JetBlue expects full-year capacity to be flat.
The carrier also launched perks on Tuesday for its new "EvenMore travel experience," including dedicated overhead bin space, complementary alcoholic beverages and Tiny Tate's chocolate chip cookies. "These updates go live today and position us well to compete with the premium-economy options our domestic peers offer," St. George said.
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