About JetBlue
JetBlue Airways Corporation stylized as jetBlue.
JetBlue was founded by David Neeleman in February 1999,and was named as “NewAir.” It is an American low cost airline and the 5th largest airline in the United States. JetBlue has its headquarter in the Long Island City and its main base at John F. Kennedy International Airport. As of March 2016,it is known that JetBlue serves 97 destinations in the U.S., Central America, and South America, the Caribbean and Mexico. and is one of two in the U.S. with a four-star rating from Skytrax.
JetBlue was one among solely a number of U.S. airlines that created a profit throughout the sharp worsening in airline travel following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The airline sector knowledgeable JetBlue’s market presence by beginning mini-rival carriers: Delta Air Lines started Song and United Airlines launched another rival called Ted. Song has since been disbanded and was reabsorbed by Delta Air Lines and plug-ugly reabsorbed by United.
In Oct 2005, JetBlue’s quarterly profit had plunged from US$8.1 million to $2.7 million for the most part thanks to the rising fuel prices. Operational problems, fuel costs, and low fares, JetBlue’s hallmark, were transportation its money performance down. additionally, with higher prices involving the airline’s various amenities, JetBlue was turning into less competitive.
JetBlue toughened its initial ever quarterly loss throughout the fourth quarter of 2005, once the airline lost $42.4 million, enough to form them unprofitable for the whole year of 2005. The loss was the airline’s initial since going public in 2002. In December 2006, JetBlue, as a part of their RTP arrange, removed a row of seats from their A320s to lighten the craft by 904 pound (410 kg) and scale back the in flight crew size from four to 3 (per FAA regulation requiring one steward per fifty seats), so compensatory the lost revenue from the removal of seats, and more lightening the craft, leading to less fuel burned.
In January 2007, JetBlue came back to profitability with a fourth quarter profit in 2006, reversing a quarterly losswithin the year-earlier amount. As a part of the RTP arrange, 2006’s full year loss was $1 million compared to 2005’s full year loss of $20 million. JetBlue was one among the few major airlines to post a profit therein quarter.
Objective
The strategic intent of jetBlue was to reach out to customers and offer a low discount airline carrier with the comforts of home. Also recovering from the loss of revenues was a major objective.
Approach
JetBlue has been using social media as a platform to engage with the customers much before other brands.
JetBlue makes good use of different forms of advertising media which include print, online, and television ads as well as advertisements on popular social media sites such as Hulu.com and YouTube.com.“If you wouldn’t take it on the ground, don’t take it in the air” is another slogan that jetBlue came up with, poking fun at competitors with hidden fees, little, or no amenities and JetBlue doesn’t consider this an acceptable level of customer service.
Here is a video of jetBlue offering its customers free flight to a collectively chosen destination which was called ‘Reach Across the Aisle’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPurzKVTlU4
It isn’t necessarily important for an airline company to pay more attention on social media, but JetBlue does realize that it is important to engage with happy customers, as well as assure quick problem-solving to customers who are not very happy or seem dissatisfied with their service. JetBlue emphasizes on responding not just to customers who @mention them, but also to customers who talk about the brand in general but didn’t tag it in the post. This means that the company’s social media team is one step ahead and likely monitoring keywords and relevant hash tags so they respond to more customers —that could be a key strategy that company should be using
Results
JetBlue is known to be one of the most entertaining and responsive air carriers on social media, as the content always concentrates on the brand message in addition to being light and witty. This is probably the reason for JetBlue having 2.03 million followers on its twitter handle , 11,75,040 likes and 26,58,076 visits on facebook.
Even with the fluctuations in foreign currency and lower surcharges from international market, jetBlue has still managed to stand strong and immune. In the first half of the year the airline achieved a constant in its unit revenue.At the beginning of the year 2015 the company saw its stock go up by about 56% and then reached a new 52-week high in the last month
Learning
The times have changed and people are very much hooked to social media. Social media provides long term relation with the audience and keeps them associated and updated about the brands. It can very well be utilized by the people for queries and feedback. Hence the digital marketing campaigns can successfully make use of the social media to catch the attention of people and grow with time. JetBlue airways is one good example.
Image source: jetBlue.
