Series: Premium Airline Cabins - How often does the hype match the reality?
The news stories in the industry all seem to sing the same refrain, low cost is out and premium is in. More and more travelers are likely to splurge on a premium cabin–influenced by viral social media posts, celebrity endorsements, and popular clickbait articles by big media and credit card points blogs. But how often do travelers board their planes and feel cheated with a bait and switch? How often does the glossy marketing match the actual experience?
It’s no secret that airlines are hungry for premium cabin revenues, and the marketing of these products match their fervor. However, sometimes what is unsaid is the most valuable in deciding when to splurge on that premium cabin. The average traveler doesn’t know what to look for–and carriers are counting on that.
In this series we will be isolating these carriers’ hard product (meaning the physical seat itself), what version is most commonly marketed, how many versions of their long-haul business class exists, and what percentage of their fleet correctly reflects their visual marketing materials.
JetBlue - Mint
There’s no doubt JetBlue is arguably the most unique carrier in the US. Some might say they have an identity crisis. Their unique background is necessary context to understand their entry to a long-haul business class product.
Since their discovery by the airline mO.G.ul David Neeleman in 2000, JetBlue has carved out a market of super loyal fans mostly on the East Coast (they launched with a hub in JFK.) The carrier was a breath of fresh air in a rather uninspired market of nearly indistinguishable airline options.
Jetblue diverted from the status quo and offered an impressively consistent product. The carrier operated new and efficient Airbus A320 family aircraft which featured leather seats for all passengers, a single-class but generous economy cabin, and a tv with hours of content and live television in every single seat. These amenities and a fun and irreverent tone in every interaction, made JetBlue popular with leisure travelers and ultimately with business travelers who leaned younger than those choosing legacy carriers.
Most of JetBlue’s routes were 3 hours and under. Given this relatively shorter flight time and already generous economy seat pitch, the airline resisted a domestic first class, even if it meant relinquishing premium travelers to their competitors. At the time, the product was nice enough for most business travelers for the flights they were operating.
Somewhere in the early 2000s, legacy carriers began to start differentiating their long domestic flights, mainly transcontinental (East Coast to/from West Coast). For example, United started marketing a United P.S. service. The service operated from JFK to Los Angeles and San Francisco. The P.S. moniker stood for “Premium Service.” The service promised lie-flat business class seats on all LAX/SFO flights out of JFK with multi-course meal service and tv screens in every seat on the aircraft and even wifi access.
Giving these ~2,200 nautical mile trips a feeling of an international business class proved to be a lucrative value proposition for the airline and had other airlines hurrying to match or beat the competition. Jetblue was watching and plotting. Was this their best opportunity to launch themselves squarely into competition for these premium paying passengers?
Ultimately, JetBlue decided the time was ripe, and in September 2013, they announced their first plunge into offering premium cabin seating with their Mint-branded lie-flat business product. Like Delta did in unique-labeling their lie-flat product as Delta One, the newly created Mint branding reflected an industry leading lie-flat seat on transcontinental routes beginning in mid 2014. The industry disruption was released as a refreshing green drop in the sea of JetBlue.
It has been 12 years since JetBlue unveiled their first premium seat, what has changed since that first announcement and how well does the experience match what they market? Read on to see if JetBlue’s founding consistency extends to their best seats.
The O.G Mint
Those with a keen eye will note that these lie-flat seats sport a configuration that means not every passenger has direct aisle access, something of a standard today. Still, for the time, this cabin was cutting edge, having only 6 of the 16 seats in the cabin lacking this amenity. Where Jetblue made unique seat upgrades were functional touches that travelers immediately noticed. Some of the most noteworthy were:
Adjustable firmness cushions
Massage functionality in the seat
“Wake Me Up for Service” indicators, allowing one to sleep without missing a meal.
A 6’ 8” long lie-flat bed, making it the longest lie-flat product in the domestic US
The Landing...
The JetBlue Mint seat immediately made a splash and the attention grabbed many new premium travelers from the now-underwhelming legacy US carriers. It quickly expanded from only transcontinental to include seasonal service to luxury island and sun destinations as well as to cities that weren’t yet served by lie-flat service for transcontinental flights (like Fort Lauderdale and Seattle).
The success in the launch of JetBlue Mint is now definitive. Mint today fetches high fares, comfortably charging $1000+ to $3000 one way from JFK to LAX booked one month in advance. The positive results of this product heavily influenced a big upcoming operational decision that would introduce Mint 2.0.
The Marketing
If an everyday traveler lO.G.ged onto JetBlue’s website today to see what the Mint experience looked like, they would not see a single photo from the original Mint seat. The described features begin with something called the Mint Suite. Are they talking about the alternating row with 1 seat on each side and a door from their launch product?
Like Delta, the marketing goes on to talk about soft product touches including bedding, meals, amenity kits, and even headphones! But from the pictures, it looks like JetBlue has retired and replaced the O.G. JetBlue Mint.
Have they? Not quite.
The airline lives in marketing nuance, only writing the following of the Mint seat itself:
The New "Mint Suite"
Into the late 2010s, JetBlue was looking for their next big splash to disrupt the market. The airline recO.G.nized the impact they made in the longer transcontinental market, and Mint was central to that success.
Enter the Airbus A321neo (new engine option). JetBlue has been loyal to the Airbus A320 family of aircraft since their founding in 2000. When the plane maker announced a major upgrade to the aircraft type, with new and more efficient engines that would permit them to fly further, the airline took a leap.
That leap would take them across the pond, entering for the first time a new and fiercely competitive market, transatlantic. The news of the expansion came in April 2019 and would be made possible with the purchase of brand new Airbus A321neos.
The transatlantic market is different from transcontinental though. Jetblue would be competing with international and domestic carriers who often flew larger, wide-body aircraft across the ocean. Doing so provided more space and options for these carriers to entice luxury-minded travelers with impressive lie-flat business products.
Anticipating this additional challenge, JetBlue returned to Thompson Aero to move on to a more advanced JetBlue business seat, one they would call the Mint Suite. The seat would use the frame of the new Vantage Solo, a successor to the Vantage seat used for the O.G. Mint.
The biggest improvements travelers would notice with this upgrade are that this new seat offers direct aisle access to every passenger, the screen is notably larger at just over 17”, and it features the most braggadocious of all the business class seat features globally, every seat has a door.
This seat style is called a herringbone, and was once a standard for long-haul wide-body aircraft business class. It was found on Air New Zealand, Virgin Atlantic, and Air Canada. However, the single-aisle long-haul aircraft benefits from a refresh of this tried and true design.
The seat style also includes a different style seat for the first row of the plane, just like Lufthansa’s newest seat does. The extra space of the bulkhead has been used to create a larger suit to sell at a premium. JetBlue calls this seat the Mint Studio. The extra space the studio gives even includes a second seat to have a fellow traveler join you (though it is only sold for one passenger):
The Mint Studio is sold as a seat selection up charge. After purchasing a Mint Suite, the Studio is available for $299 extra on transatlantic service. This upcharge is honestly below industry average for the new trend of the big up front business class seat and could be a good value for a traveler requiring more space, or interested in getting work done with a colleague before landing.
The Landing...
The Mint Suite clearly builds on what worked so well for O.G. Mint and goes head to head with some existing premium transatlantic products. It is undoubtedly an improvement on the already impressive Mint and has been lauded by influencers and road warriors as an excellent option to hop the pond. Since launching to London from JFK and Boston in 2021, the airline has added Amsterdam, Dublin, Edinburgh, Madrid, and Paris with this cutting edge seat.
How Often does the Dream Match the Flight?
JetBlue Mint is undoubtedly a major player in the lie-flat business product on the markets it serves. Both seat variants offer competitive or market-leading comfort and amenities. When Mint was first introduced, it was also an incredible value, starting at $599USD one way transcontinental. Today it consistently starts at well over double that and is regularly 6x more than that. In the market, this seems to be an acceptable price for the quality of the product.
Still, the Mint Suite outshines the O.G. Mint, and Jeblue knows this by choosing to exclusively show images of the new seat in their Mint advertising. But how often to travelers booking this product board their plane to see the Suite instead of O.G. Mint?
Jetblue currently operates 55 Airbus A320/neo variants with Mint, and 20 of those carry the new Mint Suite, giving travelers a 36% chance of experiencing the product pictured. Jetblue will continue to take delivery of a couple new aircraft. Of their Long Range A321neo which all have Mint Suite, they are expecting two more.
Their standard A321neo has 33 more on order, but it is not clear how many of these will carry Mint (Jetblue operates most of their fleet without Mint for their shorter, less premium-heavy flights). Additionally, JetBlue hasn’t made any announcements of plans to ultimately phase out O.G. Mint from their existing cabins.
A savvy traveler can identify which seat type their aircraft will have from the seat map. As mentioned, the O.G. Mint has alternating 4 across (2 x 2) and 2 across (1 x 1) seat selection every other row. The Mint Suite features 1 x 1 seating for the whole Mint cabin.
