Jetblue Airways Marketing Mix

JetBlue Airways Corp. is one of the major American low-cost airline and one of the best examples of a succeeding business because of excellent customer service based on low operating cost relative to the superior product offering (offer a product superior to competitors at affordable prices). JetBlue is established in 1999 by David Needleman and commenced operation only February 11, 2000 with new Airbus A320 aircraft operating between Buffalo and Ft. Lauderdale (Nasdaq 2011). In 2001 during the sharp decrease in airline travel that followed the terrorist attack company could survive the competition of the major airlines and even become one of the airline companies that made a profit (Denison Consulting 2005). Nowadays, JetBlue is the largest passenger carrier in the United States operating 115 Airbus A320 and 45 EMBARE 190 - the youngest and most fuel-efficient aircrafts serving 66 cities with an average of 650 daily flights throughout US and eleven countries in the Caribbean, South America and Latin America. JetBlue has the idea to "bring the humanity back to air travel", including friendly, customer-service oriented staff, new aircrafts, with leather covered seats, build-in flat-screen monitors with in-flight movies, over 30 channels of DIRECTV, and 100 channel of XM satellite radio without any additional charge, providing the excellent service product in airline industry with reasonably priced optional upgrades and offering the simple and low fares (JetBlue Airways 2011).

3.1 Marketing mix

Marketing mix a framework describing the combination of marketing tools that the marketers blend to create a desired response in the target market (Kotler 2011). It is made up from everything the firm can do to stimulate the demand for its product. Traditionally the marketing mix is made up 4 main elements: product, promotion, place and price.

3.1.1 Product

Author Elliot (2009) defines product as anything that company offers to the market to satisfy customer requirements. In the marketing mix, the product variable is related to making an offering that anticipates and meets the needs and wants of consumers. Because the product is main element of the marketing mix - marketers should carefully design product strategies to achieve marketing goals. Product strategies consist of product quality, packaging, branding, support services, product variety and features which benefit the target customer wants.

JetBlue offers its customers air transportation with its productivity, in-flight features and customer service. If we look upon the productivity of the JetBlue, we will come to know that the company buys only 2 planes types (JetBlue Airways 2011), which allows keeping its planes in the air more time, reducing the ground time, holding the highest in-air average in the airline market. JetBlue terminals provides kid's play area, work spaces, cozy lounge zones, retail stores, excellent restaurants with high end dishes, making travelers feel themselves comfortable during the waiting. On boards it installs in-seat LCD monitors as a key product feature during the flight with 36 channels of DirectTV or over 100 channels of Sirius XM Radio (Wikinvest website 2011). Additionally, it covers seats with leather, add more legroom inches comparing to the average airline seat, accompanying with best selected beverages and snacks, and all of these are free of charge. Due to these features, time in JetBlue aircrafts seems shorter because there is more to do during the flight. With the regard to the customer service, JetBlue concentrates at attracting and motivating a talented personnel, how fit company's values, such as caring, integrity, passion, safety and fun. The values then provide motivated, productive employees who focus on customer satisfaction and exceed their expectations (Dodds 2007)

3.1.2 Price

Elliot (2009) explains the term price as the amount of money firm charges for its offerings. Certainly, the price has to match the customer's willingness to pay in order to obtain the product. Otherwise, all the marketing efforts are useless. Additionally, pricing strategies usually adjust prices the business will take from resellers and wholesalers, before fixing prices for the end user. Cost, demand or the competing products' prices with the consumer's feelings about the product's value may be the base of pricing strategies.

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