5Q With JetBlue's Dennis Corrigan May 19, 2011 JetBlue Airways vice president of revenue management Dennis Corrigan last month took on the additional title of vice president of sales following the departure of longtime sales executive Noreen Courtney-Wilds. Corrigan now is responsible for sales, distribution and revenue management, and will continue reporting to chief commercial officer Robin Hayes. Courtney-Wilds left JetBlue "to spend more time with her family," according to a carrier statement. Corrigan this month told BTN senior editor Jay Boehmer that JetBlue's initial, web-based corporate program, CompanyBlue, might get some new enhancements "but the vast majority [of corporate accounts] want JetBlue in the global distribution systems." He also explained how the carrier's new reservations system, SabreSonic, essentially is "running on all cylinders." It enables JetBlue to more nimbly adjust airfares, price its Even More Legroom seat perk by market based on customer demand and consider additional optional services. "Beginning late last year and into this year, there have been a lot more revenue-driving projects underway," he said. "[Security] screening is another one of them. We'll announce later this quarter, or early in the third, private security lines—essentially a fast pass." Additional excerpts from Corrigan's discussion with Boehmer follow. What are JetBlue's next steps in the corporate market? First and foremost, it's to continue to build out the network—we just launched Boston-Newark. It's all about your network portfolio. When you look at Boston, we hit the 100-flight milestone and we serve more destinations than any other carrier. There's still plenty of headroom in Boston and places to grow. Tell me about negotiated corporate contract structures: Are they percentage-off discount arrangements or flat-fare programs? We are willing to work with the corporation in the way they want to work us. You name it, we probably have it: everything from your standard percentage-off discount to flat fares. We are focused on growth, so we're trying desperately not to be hard to work with. Even if a corporation wants to talk about back-end deals, we're happy to have those discussions as well. How many corporate clients does JetBlue have and is that number growing? We do look at number of corporations under contract and revenue, and we are seeing the numbers grow. We haven't released those numbers, but what we have said is our corporate customer base is in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 percent [of JetBlue's total traffic and revenue], and it's higher than that in the Boston market. Both leisure and business are growing. Regarding refundable fares, do you offer more fare types now? We went into a number of markets, primarily business-oriented markets, with a fare class and made it more refundable. In many cases, it simply was to make us competitive. We haven't made it fully [available] across our system, because there are so many times, given our fare structure, when leisure customers are purchasing. What we offer in Boston-Baltimore needs to be different from what we're offering from Boston-Orlando. We're just now getting enough data around this so we can decide if we're happy with what we see and decide if we need to put more into the markets where we have it or start spreading it out. Where's the ideal place to sell Even More Legroom? Our philosophy is wherever customers want to buy it, we'll sell it. Curious to me, we saw more purchases further out, right at the point of ticket purchase—more than I would have thought. We even see small, but not insignificant, onboard purchases. Our flight attendants can sell that with their handheld devices. Wherever customers want to purchase, we want to be there for them. We've talked to our GDS partners about [selling Even More Legroom in those channels]. I don't think we have any philosophical opposition, but we want to understand how it plays into the overall distribution economics. |
The flight may be free, but canceling can cost you, and it's about to cost you more.
Continental Airlines said this week that it's raising fees for redepositing frequent-flier miles passengers use to book trips they then cancel.
Beginning June 15, the redeposit fee will be $100 for gold elite members, $125 for silver elite member and $150 for general members. Platinum elite members still won't need to pay for redepositing miles.
The current fee to redeposit miles is $25 for gold, $50 for silver and $75 for general members.
There is no charge for changing the date or time of a reward ticket as long as the origin and destination cities stay the same and the change is made at least 21 days in advance.
United Airlines, which merged with Continental Oct. 1, also announced changes to its frequent-flier program. The two are flying as separate carriers until they obtain a single operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration, probably later this year.
They already have begun integrating many of their systems, however, and the moves this week are aimed at aligning their frequent-flier programs, said Rahsaan Johnson, a United spokesman.
The changes to United's Mileage Plus program will lower redeposit fees for some passengers.
United now charges most of its members $150 to redeposit canceled miles. After June 15, the fees will mirror Continental's, varying from $100 to $150 depending upon membership status.
United also will start charging $75 to book awards tickets within 21 days of a flight, as Continental does now. That had been free for United Mileage Plus passengers.
United will decrease its fee to change origin, destination or connecting cities to $75 from $150 — again reflecting Continental charges for the same changes.
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