Interview: JetBlue CEO Hopes He’s Found a Balance Between Coach and Premium

JetBlue is gambling that its new Mint premium service in the front of its new Airbus A321s on New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco routes in 2014 won't alienate passengers in the rest of the plane. For JetBlue, the rollout of Mint premium service marks an airline brand at a crossroads, similar to Southwest in a certain way when the latter unveiled an ad campaign earlier this year trying to portray itself as a grownup airline that's more than "bags fly free." JetBlue realizes that it needs to evolve and better serve business travelers, particularly those from small-to medium-size businesses. As JetBlue CEO Dave Barger puts it in the interview below, "what got us here won't get us there." Balancing the tightrope between "what got us here" and getting to the next level, Barger tells Skift that he doesn't want employees even using the term "coach." Indeed, at a press event at JetBlue headquarters in New York City yesterday, the "core experience" was the favored way to