JetBlue Airlines 2004 Annual Report Download - page 3

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We expect our fleet to grow to a total of 433 aircraft over the next eleven years; which will include
233 A320s and 200 E190s. As we prepare to take delivery of our E190s, we remain focused on
controlled growth and ‘keeping our airline feeling small’ as we ready ourselves for the receipt of a new
aircraft approximately every 10 days, a rate of growth that will continue for the foreseeable future.
To support this rate of growth, we’ve been hard at work on a variety of infrastructure projects. The
extensive efforts of many will culminate later this year in the opening of a new hangar at JFK to
maintain our fleet, a hangar in Orlando to install and maintain satellite TV and radio, and the JetBlue
University training center, also in Orlando. The training center will become our center of excellence to
train pilots, flight attendants, technicians and many of our customer service crewmembers.
We continue to work aggressively on another important cornerstone of our future: our new
terminal at JFK. We expect to sign a lease in the next several weeks with our partners at the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey, or PANYNJ, to commence the building of a new Terminal 5,
adjacent to our current home at Terminal 6. While we continue to focus on function over form as a
low-cost, low-fare airline, our experienced team is working hard to ensure that the latest in security
enhancements, and the amenities and functions that today’s traveling public expects of a modern
airport terminal are all in place when we inaugurate our new home in 2008. The new terminal will be
built on 74 acres of land and plans call for a total of 26 gates versus our existing 14 gates. This 600,000
square foot facility will incorporate the most modern architectural attributes to facilitate efficient
airside and landside operations, including significant upgrades to roadways, parking, and a connector to
the JFK AirTrain. Despite these improvements, the new Terminal 5 will respect the historic significance
of the Aero Saarinen-designed building that is in place today, celebrating the history and spirit of our
industry. The total project is expected to cost $875 million and will be financed by the PANYNJ.
We are proud to call New York our home. We’re now the largest airline operating at JFK, which
itself is the busiest of the three PANYNJ airports—JFK, LaGuardia and Newark—based on
enplanements. Traffic in New York City airports is now back at levels last seen prior to the events of
September 11th. We are profoundly grateful for the support and loyalty that our customers in New York
have shown their hometown airline.
As a rapidly growing company in a capital intensive industry, we recognize the importance of a
strong balance sheet and are committed to a prudent approach to debt management. Consistent with
this philosophy, we maintain one of the most attractive debt-to-total-capital ratios of any major U.S.
airline, and believe we have more cash and short-term investments per operating aircraft than any
other major U.S. airline. As one of the few airlines with access to capital at attractive terms, we
recently seized on the opportunity to improve our balance sheet through the issuance of convertible
notes, which raised a total of $243 million. We currently have $650 million available in cash and
short-term investments, which gives us the flexibility to move quickly to take advantage of any
opportunities that may arise. Additionally, our solid financial performance permitted us to tap the
capital markets last year for more than $900 million of aircraft financing at desirable rates. All of our
2005 aircraft are financed, and the first thirty E190 deliveries have also been financed with our business
partner, GE Capital.
Of course, we know that the most important ingredient in our growth plan and the key to
delivering ‘‘The JetBlue Experience’’ is our crewmembers. As we focus on growth and keeping the
intimate feel of a small company, we’ve built a recruitment plan to support the hiring and training of
eight crewmembers per day. We’ve spent the past year preparing for this important inflection point to
ensure that we are as successful in recruiting the best crewmembers as we are in competing for
customers. Last year, we received over 120,000 applications to work at JetBlue yet we hired just 2,700.
We believe it is incredibly important that JetBlue be known as a company of choice for our
crewmembers.
As in previous years, our roadmap for 2005 is our Flight Plan, where all internal goals are based
on the 3Ps—People, Performance and Prosperity. We are committed to keeping our crewmembers
informed and abreast of expectations and goals for the year. Setting and managing expectations is
important, but so too is driving accountability among leadership while respecting the company’s values: