The JetBlue-Sabre romance was in full bloom for all to see yesterday.
In JetBlue's second quarter earnings call, President and CEO David Barger credited Sabre, which began hosting the airline's reservation system early this year, for enabling the airline to introduce 11 price points based on customer demand to its Even More Legroom product. Previously there were fewer price points and they were based on route length rather than customer demand.
Barger said the enhancements to Even More Legroom should generate $10 million in incremental revenue in the second half of 2010.
And, CFO Ed Barnes announced that beginning Sept. 1 JetBlue will introduce pre-boarding to Even More Legroom customers, a move designed to render the "program even more attactive to business customers."
JetBlue also revealed it will establish an agreement with its sixth interline partner, El Al.
JetBlue implemented an interline agreement with American Airlines this week, and earlier during the second quarter established an interline pact with South African Airways.
"The Sabre platform is allowing us to better scale our business including more seamless integration with airline partners and better connectivity to global distribution systems," Barger said. "While we began to realize some benefits of this more robust system [SabreSonic] back in February, we continue to see even more revenue growth as we add functionality to the Sabre platform."
Barger also said Sabre enabled the airline to tap into "higher yielding business traffic through the GDS channels and enhanced pricing capabilities."
The Sabre platform also aided the airline in adding several classes to the airline's fare structure, a boost to JetBlue pricing and revenue management capabilities, he said.
JetBlue says it incurred $2 million in Sabre-related one-time expenses during the second quarter.
Despite all the plaudits for Sabre, the airline has experienced some hiccups in the transition to the new reservations system.
Barnes said JetBlue had lower change-fee revenue in the second quarter because it has waived certain change fees for passengers in connection with the SabreSonic implementation.