JetBlue continues to see benefits and growth opportunities from its hybrid business model

Since its inception more than 12 years ago, JetBlue has undergone a fundamental shift in its business model to become one of the few carriers to achieve true hybrid status: low fares with frills. It has firmly entrenched itself in luring business travellers through a small corporate sales force and built up its network in Boston to largely cater to the more lucrative corporate traveller. This shift in strategy was primarily undertaken to even out the dramatic peaks and troughs JetBlue experienced with its leisure-focused model, and was also accompanied by a push into Latin American and the Caribbean to introduce markets with a strong base of visiting friends and relatives traffic (VFR) that JetBlue concludes is somewhat recession proof. At the same time, it has aggressively added interline partners that help to boost its passenger numbers and smooth out the revenue troughs it can experience during slow travel periods.

But that strategy is not without critics. JetBlue's growth rates during the last few years have raised eyebrows when most carriers have constantly refined their capacity growth to near zero or have actually shrank their supply.