As JetBlue (JBLU) toes the line between a mainstream airline and a low-cost one, the NYC-based carrier has not always had a business class.
It launched Mint, which is what JetBlue calls its premium travel fare, in 2014 on select routes. The airline’s version of business class was later expanded to more planes and flights over the coming decade.
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Veronika Bondarenko
JetBlue’s new Junior Mint: Here is what it is
At the moment, the Mint fare is available on JetBlue’s cross-country flights between cities like New York and Los Angeles, transatlantic routes to London and Paris as well as certain destinations in the Caribbean. The planes equipped with the lay-flat seats are the Airbus A321 and A321neo (EADSF) .
This week, JetBlue President Marty St. George sent employees a note saying that the Airbus planes not equipped with lie-flat seats will be retrofitted to have two or three rows of wider armchair-style seats similar to premium economy on airlines such as Delta (DAL) .
St. George said the airline has “explored the idea of ... playfully calling it ‘mini-Mint’ or ‘junior Mint.’”
The idea is to offer a premium fare class on flights that are too short or otherwise not equipped to have a full business class with lie-flat seats.
Related: JetBlue just cut more flights to cities people want to get to
New seats to have ‘more legroom and deeper recline’
“JetBlue’s new first-class seats will look similar to what other airlines offer at the front of their domestic planes,” the carrier later confirmed in a statement. “The seats, which will start to arrive in 2026, will be wider than those in the back, arranged two-by-two featuring more legroom and deeper recline.”
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JetBlue said that it is keeping further details on what Junior or Mini Mint will look like “under wraps for now” as the airline works them out in the coming years.
“Let’s keep our competitors guessing,” St. George wrote in the employee memo.
Despite several optimistic quarters, JetBlue is currently in a period of serious cost-cutting; it exited markets such as Kansas City and New York’s Newburgh entirely last June while also trimming its service to European airports like Paris Charles De Gaulle (CDG) and London’s Gatwick Airport (LGW).
It has also, when announcing a surprise profit of $25 million in July 2024, said that it will delay the delivery of 44 new A321neo planes initially slated to start arriving between 2026 and 2029 to 2030. This is expected to reduce capital expenditure between 2025 and 2029 by approximately $3 billion on top of raising fees for things Iike checking baggage and getting seat selection through a higher fare class.
The biggest criticism of drastic efforts to trim costs and bring in new revenue has been the way this will pan out for economy customers who increasingly feel like they are getting pushed into paying more to have a basic comfortable experience.
“Reconfiguring planes and buying new seats is expensive, and JetBlue is slashing costs,” Gary Leff writes for the aviation website View From The Wing. “But perhaps the biggest takeaway is that squeezing these seats in is expected to mean less legroom in the coach cabin.”
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