JetBlue Publishes Its Financial Performance For 2020

American low-cost airline, JetBlue has today announced its financial performance for the last quarter of 2020, just as the feature figures for the whole year. Generally speaking, the aircraft lost more than $1.3 billion throughout the year, yet there were some bright parts in the report. Day by day money consumption has decreased massively, presently down to under $7 million each day, and cost-cutting combined with money-raising has seen the airline end the year with more than $3 billion in the bank.

Year over year, the capacity of aircraft flying in Q4 was down 47%, which was about what JetBlue was expecting to fly. The airline achieved a reduction in operating expenses of 38% year on year, driven by not only less flying but also a firm push towards improvements in operations and management of external spending.

However, the CEO of JetBlue, Robin Hayes, remains very hopeful about the rest of 2021 and said he was proud of what his team achieved in 2020. Stating that he ‘could not be more confident in our future,’ he commented,

“2020 was a year like no other, as the COVID-19 pandemic challenged our industry in ways we have never seen before. The very foundation of our business model – our culture, our passion for customer service, and our focus on safety – continue to guide us as we march towards recovery.

“As we moved through 2020, we meaningfully reduced our cash burn, and are starting to shift our focus to rebuilding our margins. We remain cautiously optimistic that demand trends will improve later this year. More importantly, this crisis has made us a more agile, creative, and resilient airline, and we believe our initiatives will allow us to emerge with structurally better margins.

The President further added that, for the first quarter of 2021, the airline expected to see a revenue decline of between 65 and 70% compared to 2019. Nevertheless, she remains optimistic about the nearest future, observing that the willingness to travel is present which is why the airline is putting things in place to help its guests cope with the ever-changing rules and requirements more easily.