Reference no: EM133089130

The Five Elements of Strategy at JetBlue

To experience how you might apply the strategy diamond, let's consider an entrepreneurial success story. The major U.S. airlines lost over $7 billion between 1998 and 2002. David Neeleman, however, confounded the experts when he decided that despite the industry's horrendous performance, the time was right to step down from his executive position at Southwest Airlines to launch a new airline. JetBlue took off on February 11, 2000, with an inaugural flight between John F. Kennedy International Airport and Fort Lauderdale airport. Today, the airline serves more than 50 cities around the country and in the Caribbean and intends to expand further. If you follow the financial fortunes of commercial airlines you will know that JetBlue has obviously done something right. Even after suffering some recent setbacks that have severely affected profitability, it is second only to Southwest Airlines in profitability over the past three years.

To begin applying the Strategy Diamond to JetBlue, let's quickly review JetBlue's vision, which is to "bring humanity back to air travel" through product innovation and excellent service. It intends to be a low-fare, low-cost passenger airline that provides high-quality customer service. Using the Strategy Diamond, review the JetBlue web page and recent annual reports to inform your analysis of this case study to understand why it was successful.