JetBlue orders 100 jets, may add routes By Barbara DeLollis, USA TODAY Fast-growing JetBlue Airways announced Tuesday an order for 100 more jets=20 to power a low-fare invasion of dozens more routes by 2011. The New=20 York-based airline =97 known for low fares, a hip style and innovations such= =20 as live TV on its jets =97 said it will be the launch customer for the=20 100-seat Embraer 190. Embraer is a Brazilian company that also makes=20 smaller jets for regional airlines. The order is a departure for JetBlue,=20 which now flies 162-seat Airbus jets in mostly big-city markets. With the=20 smaller Embraers, JetBlue can profitably enter routes with fewer=20 passengers. CEO David Neeleman says that JetBlue could lower fares 45% to=20 66% in some smaller markets. "This is a whole different strategy," Neeleman= =20 said. "This is more like JetBlue Junior." JetBlue said the order is worth=20 $3 billion to Embraer, although launch customers for a new aircraft model=20 typically receive attractive discounts. The first seven Embraers will=20 arrive in 2005. The 3-year-old airline could grow from 42 jets now to 290=20 by 2011 =97 slightly more than US Airways has =97 if it takes delivery of= all=20 the Airbus and Embraer jets it has ordered. JetBlue ordered 65 more Airbus= =20 jets two months ago. Unlike many airlines, JetBlue is profitable.=20 First-quarter net income was $17.4 million, up from $8 million a year ago.= =20 JetBlue's shares lost $1.63, or 4.7%, to close at $32.98 Tuesday. Airline analyst Ray Neidl of Blaylock & Partners in New York says the small= =20 jet strategy carries some risk. A second aircraft type will increase=20 expenses for maintenance and flight crew training at the same time that=20 JetBlue is absorbing costs of launching routes that might not be profitable= =20 immediately. Yet, Neidl says, the move offers JetBlue more growth=20 potential. JetBlue's ideal markets now have at least 600 passengers a day=20 each way, and there are about 300 of those, Neeleman said. The number of=20 possible routes triples if JetBlue considers those with 200 to 500=20 passengers a day, he said. "You can go crazy thinking about all the places= =20 we could fly," he said Tuesday at a Merrill Lynch conference in New York.=20 JetBlue, with concentrations of flights at New York's Kennedy Airport and=20 Long Beach, Calif., now flies to 22 cities in the USA and Puerto Rico.=20 Neeleman would not identify any new routes Tuesday. Most of the 100-seat=20 jets will be used for new routes, but some will be used to add more daily=20 flights on routes served by Airbuses. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.natalielaughlin.com/ TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************