David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue, is not worried about competition when his new airline, code-named Moxy, takes off in 2021.
And he’s almost smug about it. Referring to the competition, he told Skift:
There are some things structurally they cannot do.Because I own Azul, Azul can handle me in Brazil. They can feed me … they can do all the stuff that they’ll never do for anyone else because I control the company…I doubt we’ll have a single route that has any competition.
Indeed, Neeleman does own Brazil’s Azul Airlines and serves as its chairman. Here’s his plan for Moxy:
- Airbus A220-300 will be core of fleet
- Will fly from secondary U.S. cities to South America and Europe
- Example: from Northern Florida to Brazil or from U.S. cities like Scranton, Pennsylvania
- No telephone number to call agents (use app instead or request agent callback via online chat)
- No check-in agents at airports (web check-in only)
Citing that Marriott uses the word Moxy for its Millennial-focused hotel chain, Neelaman also conceded that his new airline likely won’t be called Moxy.
Interestingly, he held out the possibility of first class, though it seems highly unlikely, noting that the A220-300 can accommodate “first class, lie-flat business class, extra legroom seats, and coach class” if it wanted to.
> Read More: Coming Soon? Moxy Airways
CONCLUSION
It’s not like airlines have never tried the secondary city model to Europe. WOW Air is a prime example. But feeding his Azul network to capture new South American markets from the United States sounds like a winner to me. It has been a long time since a serious new U.S. carrier entered the U.S. market. I am looking forward to it.
image: Campus Party Brasil / Flickr
The thing these airlines don’t understand is that there’s a lot more demand to *leave* the USA — especially to Europe — than there is to *go* to the USA.
Sure, you can leave the US from podunk airports but how are you going to come back wo/Customs and Immigration? LOL
Many of these “po-dunk” airports have CBP.
Scranton, Pennsylvania to Europe….. Good luck with that.
I had the same idea. Matthew and I must just have different views on what a secondary US city is. To me it would be Pittsburgh or St. Louis. Scranton is a third or fourth tier city and would never be able to sustain a flight to Europe.