JetBlue Removing Seats to Cut Costs

JetBlue Airways Corp., a low-cost carrier that is slowing growth to curb spending, will remove a row of six seats from its Airbus SAS A320 jets and eliminate one flight attendant from each plane to trim expenses.

The change, which gives some passengers more leg room, will save $30 million over five years in fuel and labor costs, JetBlue said Thursday in a statement. The planes will have three flight attendants, instead of the current four, and less weight from fewer seats will reduce fuel use.

JetBlue's move puts the company closer to its goal of trimming annual spending by $120 million to stem losses. The New York-based airline is scaling back expansion plans this year after costs escalated and competition held down fares.

"This is an employee reduction, not a seat reduction," said James Corridore, a Standard & Poor's analyst in New York. "It's the reduction in personnel that would be the real benefit."

JetBlue plans to move some of the attendants to the 14 aircraft it will add to its fleet next year and offer "voluntary time-off packages" to others, spokesman Bryan Baldwin said in an interview. It hasn't been determined how many attendants will be affected, he said.

"We are not anticipating that's going to be a big issue," he said.

Shares of JetBlue fell 33 cents to close at $13.82 Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock has fallen 10 percent this year.

Removing seats on the 96 A320s will increase to 36 inches from 32 the pitch, or distance from one seat back to another, for rows 1 to 11. Pitch for rows 12 to 25 will remain at 34 inches. The changes will begin in January and finish by March.

The work will be done during overnight maintenance at a "very, very small cost," Baldwin said, declining to be more specific. Baldwin also declined to say how much revenue JetBlue may lose with fewer seats.

"The potential for lost revenue from taking those six seats out was far outweighed by the cost savings," he said. JetBlue won't charge more for seats in the rows with more leg room, Baldwin said. "This is seen as a huge benefit in cost savings for us."

JetBlue's program echoes a move made in 2000 by AMR Corp.'s American Airlines to pull seats from its planes to provide more room for passengers. American, the world's largest carrier, reversed that decision three years later and restored 12,000 seats to its fleet because of the lost revenue.

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