Alberto's Profile

Hi Sarah,

Excellent post! I have always been impressed by how JetBlue could provide such an excellent service at a low cost.

It is very interesting to see how they have been able to build such a big brand equity by targeting price sensitive customers who tend to be less brand loyal.

The question I have is whether the introduction of the Mint program was an opportunity they found out in the development of their business or it was something that they wanted to do since the origin of the airline. Whether it is one case or the other, the introduction of JetBlue Mint makes me think that the company wants to enter the long haul market in the near future. Maybe flying to other continents by themselves or by becoming part of one of the major global alliances.

Excellent post!

I totally agree with the idea that SLC’s approach to agriculture is needed to maintain the current population growth rate. Furthermore, it may actually be the only way in which agriculture can nowadays be profitable in many parts of the world, stagnant revenues and rising costs make agriculture not attractive for small farmers any more.

My main concern is about whether the soil can maintain such a high yields, it seems that they have been in business for a few decades now so they may have faced the problem of soil exhaustion. I would be interested in knowing more about how they keep yields so high; whether they make intensive use of fertilizers, crop rotation or some other techniques.

Interesting post Gil!

The fact that the World Cup will take place in December (first time it does not happen in June/July) due to the climate conditions of the host country may have some consequences. In the first place it is going to disrupt most of the domestic leagues and other major football competitions (i.e. Champions League). Moreover, it is also going to impact the World Cup itself, apart from the time of the year it will celebrate, its length will also be affected (reduced to only 28 days). After reading in your post that 90% of its revenue comes from event organization, I am wondering whether FIFA is taking high risk in organizing this World Cup.

Great questions!

EasyJet is targeting business passengers while still offering them the same seating class as for economy travelers. EasyJet focus its value proposition to business travelers around time savings. Its main strength resides in the fact that it flies to more primary airports on the top 100 European routes than any other carrier. They also offer other advantages to business passengers as for example: boarding the plane among the first, going through fast-track security lines at certain airports, changing to earlier flights for free, generous baggage allowance, no extra booking fees, free route changes and unlimited free date changes under certain conditions. In my opinion, EasyJet is trying to attract business travelers of small and medium enterprises that are price sensitive, not too much concern about comfort during flight (typically EasyJet flights are under 2 hours) and that greatly value the flexibility to make last minute changes to their flight plans.

Operating intercontinental flights would be very difficult for EasyJet as it will have to radically change its operations. The point-to-point model would no longer be possible, it would have to use a hub-and-spoke model. Flying between hub cities would imply that its fleet cannot have a single aircraft type any more so many of the cost saving (i.e. those related to maintenance or personnel training) would not be realized. Similarly, ensuring high employee utilization would be challenging in this new model as its flights would highly be concentrated around certain peak hours. Norwegian Air is an example of a low cost airline that has recently decided to start intercontinental flights. Norwegian had to buy a new aircraft type (the Boeing 787) exclusively to support their long haul operations. It is going to be interesting to observe how the airline competes in this new arena.