US airline JetBlue could radically lower the price of business-class travel across the Atlantic, says airline CEO Robin Hayes, giving the strongest signal yet that the discounter may jump into the world’s busiest aviation market.
“We look at the obscene fares that carriers are charging in that market and we think we can bring price discipline,” Hayes said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
While the company hasn’t taken a decision, “we think it’s a good opportunity, and when the time is right to take advantage, we may very well do that.”
Martin St. George, JetBlue's vice president for commercial and planning, said Wednesday that a trans-Atlantic flight would likely run between Boston and London.
“I think London is now the biggest market we don’t serve out of Boston,” St. George said at the Cowen Global Transportation Conference. JetBlue has a strong corporate presence in the U.S. city, he said, and companies have told the carrier, “Can you just look at London because this is what we’re paying, your service is fantastic.
JetBlue would look to bring its Mint premium offering to bear on the North Atlantic. Hayes said that since its U.S. rollout in 2014, the service with lie-flat beds has helped to halve the cost of transcontinental business-class flights.
