JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jamie Baker: Thanks for all that cadence. And second quick question. American and United both clear that their 2023 forecasts do assume that revenue and GDP recouple to pre-pandemic levels. As a younger growth year airline, I’ve never really framed JetBlue against this particular measure, but I do wonder if it’s something you look at internally when coming up with your forecast for the year?

Dave Clark: Good morning, Jamie, this is Dave. I’ll take that one. GDP is an important component in our revenue forecasting so we certainly use it. And for 2023, we have a pretty cautious forecast along with the consensus estimates back there, where we actually have a recession, a mild one for the consensus in the first half of the year and relatively slow growth throughout. But we have not — we’re still looking at a year-over-year basis. We have not pegged our revenue forecast to relinking what we saw pre-COVID. And if we did, there’d be quite a — or if we see that, there would be quite a bit of upside on revenue. So what you’re seeing from JetBlue is just year-over-year GDP combined with the JetBlue-specific revenue initiatives, continued contribution from the NEA, ramp-up of loyalty around JetBlue Travel Products. Those alone get us to our — the forecast and guidance.

Jamie Baker: Okay. That’s very helpful. I’m glad I asked. Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. Next question comes from Catherine O’Brien at Goldman Sachs. Please, go ahead.

Catherine O’Brien: Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks very much for the time. So slightly altering what I wanted to ask, based off your latest response to Jamie, Dave. So you just mentioned that part of what’s driving that revenue outlook is improvement in NEA, JetBlue Travel, loyalty, et cetera. Can you just give us how many points of tailwind you think that might be into 2023?

Dave Clark: Good morning, Katie, and thanks for the question. I don’t have the exact, in front of me, points of tailwind. We’re certainly talking low single digits, so just to give you a general idea of it. The NEA has become measurably margin positive over the past half year, which is terrific. It was more of an investment in the first early days, but it was measurably positive back half of last year and we expect that to continue to accelerate. Probably less than 1 point, but certainly measurable on that front. And then the other piece I just talked about as well is the other big input into the GDP — excuse me, into the revenue forecast is competitive capacity. And as we think about how competitive capacity ramps up throughout the country as we recover, keep in mind that over half of JetBlue’s flying is in slotted airports.

And that capacity all came back last year, when they used a rule — use or lose rules came back into effect. So in those slotted airports, which are half of our flying, there’s capacity limitation that might have a disproportionate impact on the competitive capacity we see this year versus the industry at large.

Catherine O’Brien: That’s great. And maybe just a related follow-up on the Northeast Alliance. So I might be oversimplifying this, but American just called out on their call, they don’t expect any further recovery from contractual corporate travel over this year. And to my understanding, Northeast Alliance is mainly aimed at better serving corporate clients out of Boston and New York. Can you just walk us through where the upside from the Alliance comes to JetBlue if contractual corporate revenue is expected to stay at current levels? Thanks so much for the time.

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