Vision and mission statement competitive analysis

Vision, Mission, Competition

The new mission statement for JetBlue is "To become a top 4 airline in the United States, differentiated by exceptional customer service."

The new vision statement will be "JetBlue will lead the renaissance in American air travel, restoring the industry to the days when people looked forward to flying."

The mission statement is specific with respect to market share, and geographic scope, and it also provides a pathway for how JetBlue hopes to get there. Service is one area where an airline can be truly differentiated, and while JetBlue is also a low cost airline, it knows that delivering great customer service improves brand loyalty, and often does not cost that much extra.

The vision statement is bold -- and visionary -- and can be inspirational in nature. By tapping into the forgotten romance of air travel, both customers and employees can be inspired by this vision. The vision also ties into the mission statement quite well, because service really defined that era.

Competitive Analysis

JetBlue has positioned itself as a low cost carrier but has also adopted the mantra of returning dignity to air travel. Thus, JetBlue makes two unique customer appeals. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive, which is good. Higher efficiency in things like ticketing, check-ins and baggage handling are both cheaper and they are associated with better service. For JetBlue to meet the objective stated in its mission statement, it will also need to expand its scope to be more nationwide. Right now, it is one of the larger airlines that can be said to have a regional focus, being smaller than Southwest but larger than Alaskan.

The current JetBlue hub is JFK, with focus airports at Fort Lauderdale, Logan, Long Beach, San Juan and Orlando. The company is thus woefully underrepresented in the middle of the country. If it can find a focus airport in that area -- Wayne, Midway, or a smaller center -- JetBlue can rise to the ranks of being a truly national carrier. As it stands right now, the company is successful with its strategy within its region, but it needs to expand its region to continue growing.

Operationally, JetBlue is a mid-pack competitor in terms of cost and efficiency (Hazel et al., 2014). That will make it difficult for JetBlue to differentiate on its operations, hence the need to focus on service. Ideally, a low cost carrier will support that strategy with a very high efficiency level. JetBlue needs to tighten up its operations, and perhaps even develop more scale efficiencies, if it wants to truly compete as a low cost carrier over the long run. In that market, an airline actually has to deliver low ticket prices.