As of Tuesday, JetBlue is operating between 10% and 15% of its normal schedule. “Look we’ve hit the bottom,” JetBlue CEO
Robin Hayes said in an interview with CNBC. “We’re bumping along the bottom and we don’t really see much yet by way of change to that.”
Hayes sees the slowdown continuing through May and June. “We’re hunkered down right now and we’re sitting it out,” he said.
Protecting passenger health
JetBlue doesn’t know how long it will take before service begins to take off again, Peterson says. He points out the airlines have a new level of safety they must provide passengers and employees in a post-coronavirus world. “We've got to make sure that they're safe from a health standpoint,” he said.
One option, in place now, is keeping the middle seat empty to separate passengers. Passengers can expect more room in the short-term, Peterson says. Further out, he added, the airline may start screening passengers, “check their temperatures, make sure that flight attendants can use masks and gloves, take longer to sanitize planes, make sure that our air filtration systems are state of the art.”