JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ:JBLU) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Andrew Didora : Okay. That’s all I had. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Stephen Trent, Citi.

Stephen Trent : Good morning, everybody. And congrats as well to Robin and Joanna once again. Most of my questions have also been answered, but I was curious about your labor force comments and appreciate what you’ve said, how are you guys feeling about your supply of mechanics? And I’m just trying to think through maybe who might be departing and where you might still have a big lead? Thank you.

Joanna Geraghty : Sorry. Yeah. So you said who might supply of mechanics, sorry, apologies. Yeah. So we have a healthy pipeline of mechanics. We’ve spent a lot of time building out gateway programs so that we can actually provide opportunities for crew members and other departments to obtain an AMP license on e-commence JetBlue mechanic. We also have programs with local schools, aviation, high school and others to name a few. So we feel great about sort of our pipeline for mechanics. We’ve also seen a slowing of attrition across all work groups, which has been nice. I think we’re through that COVID cycle where it was just a much more challenging period where we were doing a lot of hiring. So that’s all balanced out. So we’re in a good place there.

Stephen Trent : Okay. Great. Appreciate that. And just 1 very quick follow-up. I believe you mentioned a shift towards adjusted EBIT margin as we move forward. And we just wanted to understand a high level sort of what your view is on that. Thank you.

Ursula Hurley : Yeah. So we provided estimated full year 2024 guidance on an adjusted operating margin perspective. We said that we would be approaching breakeven. We think this is a valid metric or helpful metric in regards to where we are and driving the core business to profitability. So that was the essence of honing in on operating margin. Obviously, we will progress what we provide guidance to as we navigate and get this business back to sustained profitability.

Stephen Trent : Okay, appreciate that. And thanks for taking my questions.

Operator: Our next question comes from Scott Group, Wolfe Research.

Scott Group : Hey, thanks. Good morning. So I wanted to just clarify one thing on the cost guidance. So I thought you were saying that absolute CASM stay sort of flat throughout the year, which I think would imply something higher than the 5 to 9, but maybe I’m just taking some of that comment a little too literally. So just any color would be helpful.

Ursula Hurley : Yeah. So what we highlighted in the deck is we said roughly flat absolute CASM ex-fuel throughout 2024. So from a pure CASM ex sense perspective, that’s what that means. So flat throughout the year. The year-over-year comps will improve beyond the first quarter. That will result in the up to mid-high single digits on a full year basis. So Q1 is an outlier in terms of a year-over-year comp.

Scott Group : Okay. And then I’m wondering, maybe it’s just too early, but do you guys have any visibility to second quarter unit revenue yet, right? So I mean, you guys, a lot of other airlines talking about domestic inflecting positive in Q1? I’m just trying to understand, is this a real inflection? How much of this is maybe an easier comp for March and earlier Easter. Do we have visibility that this positive RASM continues into Q2 or maybe it’s just too early?

Dave Clark : Hi, Scott, this is Dave. I’ll take that one. We do feel very good about our unit revenue momentum that we’ve built that it will continue going into Q2 and throughout the year. A couple of ways to think about this one is just as we look ahead to the spring and summer, it’s still early. We don’t have a lot of bookings, but the ones we have are at a higher load factor build and a higher fare year-over-year. So what we do have on the books is certainly positive in Q2 and Q3. Secondly, just at a higher level, as we ramp through the year between our revenue initiatives ramping up throughout the year and in the comp, which is much more difficult in the first half of the year than the second half of the year. We expect both of those to drive significantly meaningful revenue improvement in year-over-year unit revenue as we go through the year.

Scott Group : Helpful. Thank you, guys.

Operator: Our final question comes from Chris Stathoulopoulous, Susquehanna International Group.

Chris Stathoulopoulos : Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I’ll keep it to two. Robin, congrats and best of luck, and Joanna, congrats on the promotion. Just my first question, if you could give — I think you might have said this on the last call, but any color on these high-growth markets as it relates to geography. I think you said high growth accretive and leisure and VFR markets where those are. And then two, on your TransAtlantic products, if you could comment on what you’re seeing with respect to competitive capacity at fairs and just summarize your — I guess, your value proposition here were kind of how you see this evolving, particularly as the network carriers here continue to emphasize that market. Thank you.

Joanna Geraghty : Sure. I’ll take the Caribbean VFR piece. So this is one of our core markets. It’s foundational to who JetBlue is. It’s an important part of JetBlue Travel Products and our growth in those markets. And so while there is increasing capacity in those markets. It remains foundational and fundamental to JetBlue, and we do drive some nice margins from those locations. In terms of TransAtlantic, 4% of our seats. So it’s a relatively small footprint. We’ve got a great value proposition over there with Mint and our core product. And maybe I’ll let Dave kind of pick up from there.

Dave Clark : Sure. I’ll just add, we’re getting — continue to get really strong feedback both from customers on the product as well as our operational reliability. And it’s not only about the individual markets, too, but they had quite a bit of relevance to our New York and Boston focus cities, adding in these major European destinations as part of our larger network portfolio. So — we’re very pleased with the ramp-up that we’ve had and see multiple benefits strategically with these markets.

Chris Stathoulopoulos : Okay. Thank you.

Operator: That concludes today’s questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Koosh Patel for any closing remarks.

Koosh Patel: Thanks, Travis. That concludes our fourth quarter earnings call. Thank you for joining us, and have a great day.

Operator: And again, that will conclude today’s conference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.

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