A JetBlue Airways plane prepares to take off from the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on January 31, 2024 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
JetBlue Airways shares fell greater than 25% on Tuesday, the largest one-day percentage loss because the company went public greater than 20 years ago, after the carrier’s financial outlook disillusioned investors.
The Recent York-based airline forecast its unit costs, excluding fuel, will rise as much as 7% this 12 months from 2024. In the primary quarter, it said it expected this metric to rise as much as 10% this quarter year-over-year.
It estimated revenue could are available in as much as 0.5% lower to as much as 3.5% higher this quarter over 2024. Larger competitors Delta and United have been forecasting higher revenue growth, an indication of those airlines’ strengthening pricing power.
JetBlue is in the midst of a plan to cut back costs by culling unprofitable routes, deferring latest aircraft and drumming up revenue with higher-priced seats. CNBC reported Friday that JetBlue has offered senior pilots voluntary early retirement packages. JetBlue cut costs by $190 million last 12 months, the corporate said Tuesday.
“This can be a multiyear strategy, and it is not linear, and we’re focused on the long run here in getting JetBlue back to sustained profitability,” CEO Joanna Geraghty, who took the highest job last 12 months, said during an earnings call on Tuesday. “So it should take just a little time.”
Geraghty added she was pleased with the carrier’s progress, which puts it on the right track so as to add as much as $900 million to pretax profit 2027.
The carrier expects its 2025 revenue to rise between 3% and 6% on flat capability. The impact of a Pratt & Whitney engine recall will probably be worse this 12 months, grounding numerous the corporate’s Airbus jets within the “mid- to high teens, up from 11 grounded aircraft last 12 months,” CFO Ursula Hurley said on the earnings call Tuesday.
JetBlue is in the midst of a plan to cut back costs by culling unprofitable routes, deferring latest aircraft and drumming up revenue with higher-priced seats. CNBC reported Friday that JetBlue has offered senior pilots voluntary early retirement packages.
JetBlue lost two antitrust cases that blocked two of its growth strategies. In 2024, a federal judge blocked JetBlue’s planned acquisition of Spirit Airlines, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November, and in 2023, JetBlue lost a case over its regional partnership with American Airlines.
“We might note that the present management team has hit their numbers, but in a market where airlines are seeing solid earnings growth, JetBlue hasn’t been in a position to keep pace,” wrote Melius Research analyst Conor Cunningham. “JetBlue still must aggressively ramp unit revenue all year long to get to sustained operating profit – all possible, it just is tough to underwrite given the drag in 1Q.”
JetBlue’s fourth-quarter loss narrowed to $44 million, or a lack of 13 cents per share, down from a lack of $104 million, or a lack of 31 cents a share, in the identical period in 2023. The carrier reported revenue of $2.28 billion, down 2.1% from a 12 months earlier.
