JetBlue Airways Corporation ($JBLU)

All right. Folks, we're a couple of minutes behind schedule. So let's kick things off with JetBlue. For those of you in the room, I'm joined here by Marty St. George as President of the company; Ursula Hurley, no stranger to this audience, JetBlue's CFO; and of course, Joanna Geraghty there at the end, oh, up at the podium, even better. Good to see you, and thank you very much. Let's kick things off. JetBlue.

Great. Thank you. Great seeing everybody. First, Mark, Jamie, thanks for having us back. We really appreciate being here. There's obviously a lot going on. We are very pleased with how JetBlue is executing under our JetForward program, but eyes are on the macro context and what that's going to look like. I first wanted to talk a little bit about our first quarter. We updated guidance this morning, reflecting accelerating demand, strength into Q1 and pleased with sort of that environment, also progress on CASM. There was some CASM impact due to the storms, Hernando and Fern, which drove some reductions. Net of the storms, however, our underlying RASM improved by 2 points and our CASM ex improved by 1 point, which I view as strong execution on the part of the team. Obviously, oil is extremely volatile right now. We don't know how long it's going to last. So the team and I are focused on controlling what we can, which seems to be the theme for the last several months, if not slightly longer. On Slide 3, we talk a bit about the initiatives. So JetForward is absolutely working. In 2025, we delivered $305 million of incremental EBIT and really pleased with some of the underlying performance of the initiatives that we've laid out. We saw positive RASM in 2025. A number of major initiatives are planned for this year. And ultimately, we believe our overall customer offering will be among the most competitive, the most attractive and rewarding it's ever been with the goal of driving sustained RASM growth over the long term. This, coupled with our cost performance, and God willing an improving macro environment should get us towards our goal of operating profitability. JetForward is working. We have laid out here all the initiatives and the sort of the status of where we are on delivery. With our first pillar, reliable and caring service, we've seen an 8-point improvement year-over-year in Net Promoter Score and a 17-point improvement year over 2. We are now back at the top of the industry with our Net Promoter Score number, which is really reflecting those early indicators of underlying performance. In addition, in 2025, we met every single one of our operating and on-time performance goals. Our products and perks pillar, we've outperformed on EvenMore, the premium card, BlueHouse, our new lounge at JFK, the customer scores are second to none, and we accomplished the best business class product in J.D. Power this year. In terms of the best East Coast leisure network, 20% of our network was in ramp in year 1 and 2025. We are reclaiming our Fort Lauderdale leadership position. And Blue Sky was announced and early parts implemented in 2025. And then finally, securing our financial future, the fourth pillar. We retired our 190s, a nice move on that front, modernize our fuel processes and then obviously seeing some nice cost savings associated with improved operational performance. 2025 delivered, as I said, $305 million of incremental EBIT. 2026, we are on track for another $310 million of EBIT, all driving a return to $850 million to $950 million of incremental EBIT through 2027. Turning to Fort Lauderdale for a moment. This is a generational moment for JetBlue. A great opportunity. We've already announced 20 new routes and a significant uptick in high-demand frequencies. Access to international customs has been our priority there. We've made some progress. We're going to continue to focus on that. We now have the most lie-flat seats in transcon markets out of South Florida. And when you look at Florida overall, Miami, West Palm, Fort Lauderdale, that's where we see the premium customer, and that's where JetBlue is focused. It's Florida's biggest premium market. Customers are not surprisingly responding extremely well to the JetBlue product in Fort Lauderdale. RASM is up low single digits on capacity that is up double digits. Blue Sky. 2025, we announced Blue Sky and implemented reciprocal loyalty, and we've got a number of initiatives that we are ready to implement this year. It's going to be a big year for JetBlue and Blue Sky. Our goal with Blue Sky is to drive relevance for JetBlue. It's to help with scale. A TrueBlue customer should have little reason to go outside of the JetBlue-United partnership looking for flights. We've accomplished, as I mentioned, reciprocal earn and burn. We launched interline cross-selling about 1.5 months ago, and it is tracking better than expected. The top JetBlue markets booked in united.com are to and from United hubs, places where JetBlue has historically not had a significant footprint. So it's doing what we intended it to do. Later this year, you'll see customer perks launch and Paisly, non-flight ancillaries will be offered through the Paisly platform on united.com. We're going to start with cars, then hotels, and we'll continue from there. This is an opportunity for JetBlue to demonstrate that the Paisly platform can work with another airline with the hopes that we can carry this through to other carriers. Domestic first class. We are building a strong product portfolio across not just the premium customer, not just the top-end customer, but all customers. Since JetForward launched Blue Basic in 2024, we introduced the bag as part of the product offering, and you can purchase Blue Basic now with TrueBlue points. We introduced preferred seating in 2024. And EvenMore just a year ago, we launched it with new customer features. And then through 2025, we optimized it for merchandising, made it a fair option and you can purchase it with TrueBlue points. Domestic first will launch in 2H. It will be on 20%, we expect to launch 20% through the end of the year on our non-Mint fleet. We'll be starting with the A320 fleet first, the 162-seat aircraft. And then in 2027, the vast majority of the domestic first product will be completed. Our premium exposure will go from 25% to 27%, but the seat count will remain relatively unchanged. And we've also made the recent decision to move from not just 2 to 3 rows of first-class seats, but 3 to 4 rows of first-class seats, recognizing the increasing trend for the premium customer. To describe how we feel about just the entire suite of product offerings covering all these customers, we're extremely pleased with how they are performing and look forward to domestic first launching in the second half of the year. This all leads to what we like to call a flywheel. Strategic initiatives reinforce each other, and they ultimately should drive sustained revenue growth and loyalty. The key idea here is each improvement accelerates to the next improvement. Once the momentum builds, it becomes self-reinforcing, driving higher RASM, higher loyalty, higher customer retention and better economics over time. In its simplest form, better operations equal happy customers. Satisfied customers become more loyal. More network relevance gives customers more reasons to fly JetBlue and our better product drives stronger revenue. Paisly ultimately means more wallet share from those customers. Customer loyalty truly becomes a growth and revenue engine for the company. And then finally, everything culminates in our 3 financial priorities: delivering positive operating margin, restoring JetBlue to a sustained operating profit on our improved operational performance, our product, our network, all designed to improve our margins structurally. Ultimately, generating free cash flow. We've strategically reduced our capital profile by $3 billion since 2023. Our upcoming CapEx profile is less than $1 billion annually. And then restoring the balance sheet once we achieve free cash flow. There are ultimately 3 takeaways from this presentation. Number one, JetForward is working, and we see it working. All of those early indicators demonstrate that. Number two, strategy is compounding. It's compounding as we think about driving relevance and driving revenue benefit across the customer profile, but we need the macro backdrop to cooperate with us. We are hoping for that stability. I think we're pleased with where we saw the first quarter coming in and the acceleration through the first quarter. Demand is strong. The environment is strong. We are doing the hard work to improve the underlying business. The flywheel is in motion. And with a more stable macro environment, we should see a drive toward sustained earnings. So with that, Jamie, maybe over to you.

Great. I appreciate it. Boy, where to start. So how do you assure us that you win in Fort Lauderdale? You have competitors that have designs on that facility, some weaker than others. But when we think about -- I take the simplistic view of the airline industry that it really comes down to real estate and dominating important markets. Where can JetBlue get in terms of an S-curve for lack of a better measure in Fort Lauderdale?

Yes. Maybe I'll start, and then Marty, feel free to chime in. So we've regained our leadership position there. We now have more flights in Fort Lauderdale than we had pre-COVID. And we continue to think there is meaningful opportunity to grow in Fort Lauderdale. There is a large terminal expansion project planned that we are very much a part of it. Our focus right now is on access international gates. Our VFR markets perform extremely well out of Fort Lauderdale. And so that's our priority. By the way, it works with our Blue Sky partnership as well and very much deliberate moves around the lie-flat product, which is very difficult for some of our competitors in the Fort Lauderdale market to match, and we see strong profitability flowing through that. Marty, do you want to add anything?

Yes. The only thing I'll say is I think we are unique in that we very proactively and happily serve both sides of the K-shaped economy. We offer more lie-flat seats out of South Florida than our biggest competitor down in Miami. And we also compete very, very strongly with the ULCC competitor in Fort Lauderdale. And I think fundamentally, the JetBlue value proposition is unique, and it has done extremely well in Fort Lauderdale. You may remember when we guided -- we guided fourth quarter and first quarter, we originally said we were going to have a headwind because of the significant amount of capacity we added very late in the game within 90 days, and the headwind is less than half of what we thought it would be. The customers are absolutely responding. And to me, success breeds success, which is why we continue to grow, and we will continue to grow as facilities become available.

And I know you haven't -- you're not ready to give us full disclosures on the domestic first-class product. I really hope you brand it junior Mint and there's a sign field reference there.

Breaking news, we're not branding it or mini Mints.

You could have gotten like Seinfeld -- David, Alexander, you could have danced like he did with the McDLT.

You would be the only one who would recognize it.

Oh well. Other airlines have had to give away their best product before -- walk before you can run. Give it away before you can monetize. How confident are you that you could just skip that giving it away process and go right to monetization? Because that's unusual.

Yes. I mean we did that with Mint. So with Mint, when we introduced it, if you look at the other carriers, so much of their lie-flat product and first-class product were about upgrades in their loyalty program. And while we now have a component of that in our own loyalty program, the idea with Mint was we did not want to give it away because we want customers to purchase it, but we also want to have affordable fares. So that customers who might not normally be able to access a first-class lie-flat product could do so. And I think we've been incredibly successful if you look at the Mint over the last few years. We intend to do the same thing with our first-class product, our domestic first-class product. With EvenMore customers want a better product than what we can deliver right now. We see it and what they're willing to pay for EvenMore, particularly in a number of very important markets to us. And so we're going to follow the exact same approach we followed with Mint and trying to protect that.

Well, let me push back on that a little bit because maybe you didn't give Mint away, but if I remember, $699 was -- I mean, yes, sort of did. I mean it wasn't free.

Not when the others are free though.

But it was deeply discounted relative to where...

Deeply discounted, but with the path. And I think if you look at it today, particularly during periods of high demand, it is not $699.

Okay. Yes, clearly not. And in terms of LOPA, the decision to go to 3 to 4 rows of a better product, which I assume is a 2x2 product to be near 2. Was there any consideration given to going back to 150 seats and shedding the fourth flight -- I mean, I know CASM would have naturally risen with a lower denominator, but you also would have shed ahead. Was that ever on the table?

Marty, do you want to take?

No point was that ever considered, no.

Why?

I mean, fundamentally, I mean, having done this math many times.

The revenue benefit drives as much better.

The extra 12 seats, there is benefit from the extra 12 seats. If we do the math of it as far as the cost to an incremental crew member. It tends to be once you get above like 155, 156, it does pay, and it clearly pays. So there's no -- our goal is to make sure that we try to maintain the existing unit cost performance of the airplane as best we can. And frankly, I'd say based on the success we've seen from the Mint product and we've seen in EvenMore, I think the portfolio of products we're offering, we're really excited about. And that includes having a very great coach product, too.

Listen, we've got a couple of those 150-seater still flying around today and the economics of them are very different than what we've seen in the...

Fair point. Fair point. On the demand strength that you're seeing in the first quarter, could you give a little bit more color, geographies, price points? I mean, are you seeing it across the board? Is it just the peak of peak -- over the last couple of years, we've heard so much about the peaks getting peakier and the troughs getting -- not troughier isn't the word, but weaker. Is that...

A weaker number.

You do. Okay.

No, I'd say that when we talked about our fourth quarter results, we talked about accelerating demand going through the fourth quarter. And we use that strength to guide our first quarter. And you can see with the -- absent the storms, a 2-point up guide today, that strength has actually accelerated. I think what we're most excited about is we're seeing it in peaks and troughs. And that's -- I think it's one of the reasons why I'm only speculating. I only know about JetBlue, but you've not seen a lot of aggression as far as kind of capacity right now, because this is the most strength we've seen in the troughs in a couple of years. So I think from that perspective, we obviously have contingencies laid out depending on what happens with fuel. But I think given the demand environment right now, I think we feel very good about it. And it really is across the board. I've heard one of our competitors call out transatlantic. Our transatlantic is very small, and we're happy with how transatlantic is doing right now. I think if we are much bigger, it might be a different story. But domestically, I'd say transcon, Florida have both done well. I think they'll probably the -- if I had to put something out as a laggard, it's probably Caribbean, but it's still really good, just not as good as domestic and Florida.

Looks like somebody in the front row has a question, and can't make a him out.

Yes, I do. Okay. Ursula, Jamie and I spent last week in San Diego at ISTAT, where I had your Treasurer, Melinda on my capital markets panel, but we also met with several lessors, all of which said, you've been in the market with some -- what you had previously disclosed some plans to maybe raise some aircraft-related debt and that it had gone very well. I know you haven't announced anything there, but just what can you tell us about that base case plan to raise capital for this year? I still think there's a lot of confusion because people look at where the loyalty bonds trade and assume your next borrowing is going to be at -- well, they're at 11% right now. That's I hope not where you're borrowing money at. So maybe you can give some clarity to that, where you stood with your plan to raise capital this year, and whether or not that plan has changed because of the last couple of weeks?

Yes. No, thanks, Mark, for the question. So as a reminder, we target liquidity as a percentage of trailing 12 months to be around 17% to 20%. So in order to maintain that level of liquidity throughout this year, we're targeting as a base case to raise $500 million. Obviously, we're very focused on the cost of capital. So we have been in the market with an RFP. We're intending to use aircraft to finance that $500 million or in process at the moment. In addition to that, we are running through a multitude of different fuel scenarios. So I think it's too early to call yet as to how much more liquidity we'll need. As a reminder, we ended 2025 at 27% liquidity as a percentage of trailing 12 months. So we do have an adequate level of cash at the moment. In addition to that, I mean, as a reminder, we do have $6.5 billion in unencumbered assets. 30% of that is aircraft and engines. About 20% is loyalty and another 20% is slots, gates and routes. So we have a lot of flexibility. I think that's important. And clearly, given our leverage metrics and our interest expense level, we're very cognizant of the type of debt that we raise and what markets we tap just given the cost of funding. So I feel good about where we're at. We're going to remain agile. We have a lot of options going forward.

And fair to say that, that in-process $500 million that the rates on that debt are hundreds of basis points inside of where your loyalty bonds.

Correct. They are much more competitive than the loyalty bond.

And you would expect if you were to raise incremental capital beyond the $500 million, that it would be at a similar cost to what you're currently raising right now?

That's the intent, yes. As a reminder, I mean, the loyalty debt raise that we did in late 2024 was to provide us a runway to get the company healthy again and to execute on JetForward. So I consider that a very unique point in time where we leveraged a great asset, obviously, not at the level -- interest rate level that we would ideally like. So that has served us well over the last 18 months in providing that runway, and we're going to try to be super thoughtful around all cost of funding as we progress forward.

And remember, we're going to pay back $800 million this year.

Yes, we do have a convertible debt maturity that comes due in April. So the intent this year was to pay down $800 million and raise $500 million. So we believe that we've hit peak debt levels as we navigate forward.

Anybody from the audience? So I have a cost question for Marty, which relates to JetBlue, but it's also sort of an industry observation, and this is something that came up during some of our panels that we held yesterday afternoon. Just the phenomenon of rising airport costs, L.A. was cited yesterday as an example, New York, obviously, very, very expensive. I'm less familiar with the expenses in Fort Lauderdale. But what seems to be happening is that the coasts are getting increasingly expensive. And I'm still trying to sort out what the future role for ultra-low-cost carriers in the United States might look like, just given the current impairment of that business model. And I've begun to wonder if airport costs in and of themselves end up driving some of that money-losing capacity off the coasts and more towards sort of the mid-continent airports that tend to be less expensive. Maybe that's sort of where some of the more impaired franchises and JetBlue doesn't -- I'm not putting you in that category, to be clear. Maybe there's sort of a geographic migration towards the center of the country. Is that something -- is that even feasible? Is that kind of how you see things potentially playing out? And how do higher airport costs influence how you deploy your network?

Well, it's a great question.

Kind of a broad -- yes.

According to this clock, we have 11 minutes left, and I could spend all minutes talking about that. This is very -- this is a passion point for us. And I don't want to call out specific airports, but I think that in general, the airport world is less conscious of who the ultimate customer is. The ultimate customer is the person who is flying. And when an airport creates a palace with $30, $40 cost per enplanement, there is no such thing as a free lunch. That ultimately is paid by customers. That impact will ultimately come in fares and then elasticity. And frankly, we are much, much smaller at LaGuardia than we were 4 years ago because it's a $40 airport for us. And the fountain is really pretty, but I don't -- I think people would rather have low fares than a really nice fountain. And it's funny, there's a -- for those -- because we're a low-cost airline, we go to the airport and we take the bus. And when you walk from the bus, you walk past the wishing well, that's right next to the airport for those of you who have seen it. And I'm like, I don't know who pay for the wishing well, but the answer is I paid for the wishing well, and my customers pay for the wishing well. And I don't think we need a wishing well personally. But fundamentally, to the second half of your question about capacity, capacity goes where the demand is. And the coasts tend to be very, very strong markets. And again, back to the comment we made earlier about serving both premium customers and the bottom leg of the K, these are big populous areas. So unfortunately, that price will get paid by customers. There will be less flying because you can stimulate less, and I think that's very sad. But frankly, it's one of the reasons why we're so focused on controlling costs in so many other places. But frankly, I guarantee if you had not even a private ballot, but a public ballot from the airlines about their view of palatial airport projects, it would not go well for the airports as far as I'd vote.

If I can just add, I mean, I spend a lot of time on this topic and meeting with the different port authorities, really trying to emphasize the point that you want competition and you want whether it's low-cost or ultra-low-cost competition. And I think what Europe has done with some of the different terminals where you have sort of lower-cost carrier terminals and more full service, I think, is a model potentially that could apply in the United States. We also have some airport authorities, Massport, being one that really works with the business to try to find creative solutions for how to protect that lower-cost carrier flying to drive competition within the airport. At JFK Terminal 5, there's not a fountain. And we're very mindful we operate that terminal. So it's a slightly different arrangement, but really focused on how do we not drive meaningful airport costs in. So that we can provide affordable fares for customers across the entire spectrum. And we've got a large base of customers that goes out of JFK and they don't care about fountains, nor to most of our customers.

Narita is another example of where they kind of wall off the discounters. Presumably, you would rather reside in the more premium of -- if we end up having a bifurcated terminal reality at any airport, you'd skip...

We want an affordable terminal. It's very difficult to pass on an incremental $30 to a customer because you've got a fountain and a cool play area.

Yes. Okay. Fair enough. Another one for Mark.

So Marty, for you maybe. And when we think about Blue Sky and the partnership with United, as your domestic product evolves to look more like their domestic product where you have true first class, where you don't have Mint, obviously, the premium economy and so forth, does that provide -- how should we think about the road map to ramping up benefits from that partnership? Is there a whole another leg up when you introduce domestic first class from the United partnership perspective? Or is that not something we should sort of be factoring into our math?

Well, I mean, we've factored all the benefits into the math that we presented in JetForward. And there will be mutual customer benefits going to be launched later this year. So I do think that is part of our vision of what we expect Blue Sky to include. But fundamentally, and I say this often, Blue Sky is fundamentally a TrueBlue partnership. And we're creating utility for JetBlue points that did not exist before. And we've had an incredible partnership with our friends at Barclays for the JetBlue credit card, extremely good growth, growth much higher than the revenue growth of the airline. But we do see at some point in the future without improved utility for TrueBlue points, we did see threat to the thought that whether that card could continue to grow at the rate that it was. And frankly, with the partnership with United, we are now in a situation where a JetBlue customer in Boston or New York or whatever can earn or burn anywhere in the world. And frankly, I think it is a -- this partnership in so many ways is a great example of a win-win for both parties. United had something specific they wanted. We had something specific that we wanted, the math worked. And so far, we're very, very happy with how it's performing.

As a follow-up to that, can you remind the audience what you can and cannot discuss with United as part of the partnership?

Yes. I mean the Northeast Alliance with American made it pretty clear that you can't coordinate schedules and you can't share revenue. So we have a standard interline agreement, a kind of standard frequent flyer -- reciprocal frequent flyer agreement, and that's kind of the framework. And then obviously, Paisly is the other piece of it.

Have you given any thought to immunization? I mean we're in a different regulatory climate than when the NEA was broken up. I don't know the time and expense associated with that, but why not take a run for it. I mean you seem to be really enjoying the NEA while it lasted in that level of close communication.

Parts of it.

Yes. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Expand.

Yes. I mean parts of it worked. I think LaGuardia was a challenge as we thought about sort of some of the network changes we needed to make. And that, I would say, was not perhaps the smartest part of the partnership. Right now, we're focused on implementing Blue Sky as designed. Down the road, is there opportunity to think more creatively? For sure. I think -- but let's see where this current partnership takes us. I'm really pleased. We've got a number of big IT steps we need to take this year, and the team needs to stay focused on that and then delivering on the other JetForward initiatives.

Longer term, assuming you achieve breakeven this year, generating cash in 2027, what -- how do you think about earning the right to grow? I mean you've certainly moderated your growth rate considerably in the post-COVID environment. You've pushed out the order book. But longer term, if you're standing on the financial legs that you hope to, what metrics are you going to look to in determining whether you should expand your footprint.

Yes. I mean I'll start and then Urs, feel free to jump in. So I think we've done a really nice job moderating the order book, so that we are focused on getting that balance sheet back to health. Once we start paying down that debt, we're obviously going to face a decision around the order book and where -- and two, who we want to go with, because there's going to be some nice opportunities there. Listen, Fort Lauderdale, if we had a lot of extra planes, that would be great, but we've got to source and grow Fort Lauderdale with the fleet that we have, because we are focused on trying not to drive more capital expenditures. And so it's really going to be about balance sheet metrics that will drive that decision, hopefully, over the next few years. And we think there is plenty of opportunity to grow some of the existing cities that we have, particularly those down south given the performance that we're seeing.

Okay. And back for a moment to the product that will not be called junior Mint. Is there a card kicker associated with that? I mean I think about Southwest really evolving their product offering, and there was definitely a loyalty angle to that and enhancements to the cards to carry more benefits. Once you have that better product, is your current card portfolio sufficiently suited to that?

So I don't want to make any news today about what we'll be launching with mini, junior Mint. But I will say that our goal is to make sure that this is a product that meets the needs of our customers. I think that not only will there be benefits for our own customers and our card customers, it will be benefit to United customers because that's part of what this partnership should be. Again, more news on that as we get to launch. But fundamentally, it's very clear from us from all the research we've done and what we're seeing in the industry, there is very, very strong demand for this product. And we are really excited about it. It's why we added a row to multiple airplane types for this exact reason.

Are there any other changes to the LOPA, like do you have to add ovens back? Are you going to have hot meals or anything like? It's just a seating initiative.

It's just seating. And I think we're being very creative with how we address the additional customer offerings that will come with the first-class products.

And then last question, unless we have any from the audience, people still feeling shy. Yes. Okay. So the last question, Delta, as expected, leaned into moats, which is something they talk about. United has been discussing that for the last year or 2. I asked Robert Isom about it. What do you really think are the differentiating qualities of your franchise that -- not that passengers should focus on, but the investors and potential investors in the room should focus on?

Yes, I think there's a few areas. Maybe I'll start first with liquidity and our unencumbered asset base, which provides JetBlue with I think something to stand on, particularly during more volatile time frames like the one we're in now. As Marty pointed out, we are on both sides of the K-curve. And I know others talk about we are focused almost singularly on that premium customer. While we are investing meaningfully in the premium customer, we are not forgetting the customer who sits in our Basic seats and who sits in our EvenMore seats. And I think that positions us uniquely because we have great loyalty among that segment. And then maybe our network, strong Northeast Florida presence with a very resilient VFR demographic. And our VFR customers, customers who travel to the Caribbean and some of the islands, they are extremely loyal to JetBlue and tend to be extremely resilient during periods of economic uncertainty.

Okay. That's great. Joanna, Ursula and Marty, thank you very much, JetBlue. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.