jetBlue Airways works to reverse negative unit revenues as investors continue pressure for rewards

jetBlue Airways is adopting some of the language used by its competitors in 2015 as the passenger unit revenue performance of most US airlines during that time was negative. jetBlue was an industry stand-out in that metric for most of the year but posted a decline in 1Q2016, and is guiding to another decrease in 2Q2016.

jetBlue's message to investors is that it is managing profits, margins and ROIC. But it is also trimming capacity in weaker markets, and stressing that its 2H2016 capacity growth is not a pronounced change, which should allow unit revenues to trend in the right direction.

Although jetBlue is steering investors to look at its top-line profits and ROIC performance, there is at least a degree of pushback over shareholder returns. But the company remains focused on building balance sheet strength before undertaking a significant shareholder reward programme.