JetBlue plans so as to add a brand new first-class cabin, with bigger seats and extra legroom, to its home flights within the coming years.
Particularly, the brand new top notch can be retrofitted onto JetBlue’s Airbus planes that don’t presently embrace its top-tier Mint class, JetBlue’s model of enterprise class, which is thought for its spacious lie-flat seats and premium meals service. The prevailing Mint seats are restricted to a handful of routes, together with transatlantic flights and choose transcontinental flights, resembling New York to Los Angeles. In a word to workers, JetBlue’s president, Marty St. George, mentioned Mint “can’t be duplicated on shorter flights”—thus, this forthcoming top notch is the work-around.
Dubbed “Junior Mint” or “Mini Mint,” the brand new seats can be much like the front-of-the-plane seats supplied by American, Alaska, Delta, and United on home flights, with a two-by-two configuration, providing extra depth, width, and a deeper recline. On the airline’s A321neo, A321ceo, and A320 plane, there can be three rows of the brand new seats, whereas the A220 planes may have two rows. There’s no phrase but on the precise seat dimensions nor info on how a lot they may value to buy, however the modifications are anticipated to begin rolling out in 2026.
At the moment, JetBlue’s home flights’ most premium seating selection is the “Even Extra Area” seats, which have 4 or 5 further inches of legroom, relying on the plane. Nevertheless, as soon as reconfigured with top notch, the jets would possibly provide much less legroom for these seated in financial system—the service is thought for offering essentially the most legroom in coach. Air journey and loyalty professional Ben Schlappig of the One Mile at a Time weblog opined that the transfer is a brilliant one for JetBlue, even when it should imply placing a little bit of a squeeze on financial system seats.
“The demand for premium merchandise is powerful, and I don’t see that altering anytime quickly,” wrote Schlappig, including that “JetBlue operates in numerous premium markets whereas not providing a first-class product; for instance, there’s big demand for this between New York and Florida, which is a giant marketplace for JetBlue.”
In accordance with Schlappig’s current publish, right here’s an instance of what the brand new configurations would imply for the remainder of the airplane. The service’s Airbus A220s, as an example, presently has 140 financial system seats. As soon as redone, it might function 143 seats, together with 8 first-class seats and 135 economy-class seats. To do this, JetBlue might want to cut back the pitch (the house between one level on an plane passenger seat to the identical level on the seat in entrance of it) from 32 inches to 30 inches. JetBlue wouldn’t verify this breakdown.
“Buyer demand for premium choices is stronger than ever,” JetBlue wrote in a press release shared with Afar. “Home first, paired with Mint, our up to date EvenMore, and upcoming lounges, will guarantee we now have the premium choices that leisure clients need from a model they love.”
It’s the newest transfer in JetBlue’s playbook to alter its monetary fortunes (the service hasn’t posted a revenue since earlier than the pandemic however mentioned its current modifications ought to add greater than $800 million in pretax revenue from 2025 by means of 2027) since its plans to merge with low-cost service Spirit Airways have been blocked by a federal choose in January who discovered that it violated the Clayton Antitrust Act, which prohibits mergers and acquisitions when “the impact of such acquisition could also be considerably to reduce competitors.”
This yr, JetBlue additionally raised its baggage charges twice (together with with the introduction of dynamic pricing), dropped some unprofitable routes (like New York to Milwaukee and Jacksonville to Fort Lauderdale), and expanded service in Europe (resembling new routes from Boston to Madrid and Edinburgh). The brand new top notch, coupled with the opening of its first-ever lounges at New York’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport (JFK) and Boston Logan Worldwide Airport (BOS) in 2025, signifies that JetBlue is hoping to draw passengers who’re prepared to pay a bit extra for an elevated journey expertise.
Throughout the trade, carriers have been increasing the variety of premium seats supplied lately as clients’ need for roomier seats has grown. In 2023, Emirates added premium financial system seats for the primary time, and earlier this month Frontier Airways shared plans so as to add first-class-style seats to its plane. Equally, airways like United and Alaska have elevated the variety of premium financial system, enterprise, and first-class seats throughout their fleets.
