Bienvenidos, Cancun!

Early this morning, I celebrated the start of our new nonstop New York/JFK-to-Cancun, Mexico service with some of our great crewmembers and honored guests from the Mexican Consulate and Mexican Tourism Board. In fact, this log entry will probably be posted while I’m in the air on my way to Cancun, our 48th destination, where we will have another celebration!

The image you see to the right is our destination poster for Cancun. Ever since we started operations in February 2000, we have welcomed new cities to our network with their own, original destination poster. The artist, John Wilkinson, has designed every one of posters, perfectly blending icons of the city with JetBlue’s brand.

We will begin service Dec. 19 from Newburgh, NY to Fort Lauderdale, FL, and on Jan. 4, 2007 we will begin service from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to both New York/JFK and LA/Long Beach.

Check out our route map – there are a lot more dots on the map compared to this time last year! If you don’t see your favorite destination, feel free to tell us where to fly! We look forward to sharing more original artwork with you throughout 2007, as we keep adding destinations to our route map.

-David

Thanksgiving Wishes - From Our Family to Yours

More than 50,000 people will fly JetBlue this holiday weekend to spend Thanksgiving with their family and friends. We are truly honored to be a part of your celebration. We try to make your travel experience as fun as the destination, with free TVs at every seat and unlimited snacks and beverages, and this year, if you are traveling on JetBlue on Thanksgiving Day, you won’t even miss the traditional football games. We’re showing the Miami Dolphins at Detroit Lions game at 12:30 p.m. ET (on CBS) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Dallas Cowboys game (on FOX). You can watch the games – or any program you want – from the comfort of your all-leather seat. And yes, you can recline! We like to bring all the comforts at home to your flight.

I was at JFK International Airport (our home base airport) Wednesday morning, doing my best to help our crewmembers serve our customers, and it was wonderful to have the chance to talk with everyone. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is typically the busiest travel day of the year, and our crewmembers at JFK were making sure everyone zipped through check-in and security. Every customer I met was in high spirits, ready for the holiday and happy to be flying JetBlue.

I was reminded yet again how wonderful JetBlue crewmembers are. We started JetBlue in order to bring humanity back to air travel, and this spirit was bountiful at every JetBlue airport and on every JetBlue flight. On behalf of the JetBlue family, we wish you a very happy Thanksgiving, and we look forward to bringing you home from your holiday.

-David

Energy Independence is Our Responsibility

This week, we exercised our responsibilities as American citizens and cast a vote for the candidate of our choice to represent us in local, state, and federal government. But our responsibility does not end with casting a ballot – I think it goes much deeper and broader than that. We have to get smarter on the big issues facing us as a country, and get involved in finding solutions.

One of the themes of this year’s mid-term elections was energy independence, and how beneficial it would be to our national security to diversify our energy sources. I have been frustrated by energy issues as a business person for a long time, given how much fuel we consume. My interest is in developing a more predictable and efficient energy supply that is less prone to speculative market fluctuations. With a more reliable, domestic energy source, and along with that, a less volatile cost to energy-dependent companies like JetBlue, the consumer will benefit from lower prices.

My frustration with our dependence on foreign oil as a primary energy source finally led me to get smart on the issue. Last year, I started learning everything I could on a specific alternative energy that would, I believe, greatly benefit the American economy: converting coal into liquid fuel. The technology has already been proven – the barrier to creating a home-grown energy source is the cost of building coal-to-liquid facilities. But the result would be a viable source of energy that costs less than $45 a barrel – or $1.15 a gallon. (Compare that to imported sources of oil, costing $60-ish price per barrel, and you can appreciate the enormous cost reduction potential.) If the government can take a leadership role on developing an energy plan, complete with funding to create coal-to-liquid facilities, American consumers, especially people who rely on air travel for business or leisure, will greatly benefit.

I can’t speak for all American companies, but in the railroad, trucking and airline industry, prices are set by the company with the lowest costs. Very few industries actually aim to mark down their prices like we do – and personally, I believe air fares should be lower. I think more people should travel, and more people would be able to travel if the fares were lower. But we have to price our flights to cover the cost of business. Lower fuel prices – and a less volatile, domestic energy source – would let us lower prices, and still make JetBlue a profitable company.

I mentioned earlier that I’ve spent the last year getting smart on this issue. I was honored to work with Congressman Rick Boucher (from Virginia) and John Shimkus (from Illinois), who co-sponsored a bill earlier this year that would provide funding mechanisms to ensure the production of at least six coal to liquid production plants. Read the text of the bill here. I encourage you to tell your elected representatives to support this important piece of legislation.

-David

JetBlue Makes Gift-Giving Easy

(I’ve heard so many people say “I can’t believe it’s November already!” in the hallways at our main Support Center today. The end of the year always seems to sneak up on us. For airline people, this means two things: Expect winter weather to set in, and get ready for the holiday travelers. We have to plan carefully for winter weather - we have to make sure the de-icing trucks are ready to go, and we also revisit our weather contingency operations plan just to make sure our customers aren’t delayed unduly.

We prepare a little differently for holiday travelers. Thanksgiving is the most-traveled holiday of the year, with most people flying on the Wednesday before and the Sunday after the turkey extravaganza. We make sure we are fully staffed at our airports and that all available pilots and flight attendants are ready to fly our customers to their celebrations, and home again.

We’re so good at preparing for the winter season’s weather and influx of holiday customers, but if you’re anything like me, you could probably use a little help preparing for the actual holiday gift-giving. This year, we are offering a JetBlue Gift Card to make your shopping easier. This is the perfect gift… As the giver, you can take all the credit for choosing something everyone can love – who doesn’t like to travel? And the recipient can use the Gift Card to the destination of their choice. JetBlue will serve 50 destinations by Jan. 4 (with the start of our new service to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport – from both LA/Long Beach and New York/JFK), so the choice may not be too easy after all.

Another thing everyone at JetBlue is good at is giving thanks for what we have. In this spirit, I would like to thank the crewmembers of JetBlue for making your experience special, and worth coming back for. And on behalf of everyone at JetBlue, thank you for visiting our website today.

-David