JetBlue Fights Talent Flight, Keeps HQ in New York
Though you may not have known it, for the last few months, New Yorkers and Orlandoughboys (what do you call people from Orlando?) have been fighting over who would get the headquarters for JetBlue Airways (JBLU). The decision has been made, and JetBlue has decided to stick with New York. This is a move that puts talent over costs, and it's absolutely the right one.
JetBlue's headquarters has been in the New York area since the airline began, but it was rapidly outgrowing its space. It had some functions in Connecticut and others in Queens, yet it wasn't enough. They needed a new space so they went looking for options.
Over the years, JetBlue had rapidly grown its presence in Orlando. It located its crew training JetBlue University there, and it's LiveTV subsidiary was located just an hour away in Melbourne. It has also recently grown into a larger operational base with new Caribbean flights popping up as of late. So Orlando was a natural place to look as an alternate.
While I'm sure some of this was just an attempt to play the two areas off each other, that's only possible if the threat is credible. And in this case, it was. With large operations in both areas, either could have supported a headquarters, but the right decision was made. New York is the heart of this airline.
What could Orlando have offered? A great deal of incentives, I'm sure. Oh, and an incredibly low cost of living means that there could have been a ton of cost savings. While cost savings are important, these kind of cost savings wouldn't be nearly as important if the team didn't want to move.
JetBlue's management team has done a fantastic job running the ship lately, and part of the reason is good bench strength. Even though airlines don't pay incredibly well, being in New York was enough of an incentive for many. And they have a lot of strong talent all through the ranks. My guess is that a very large percentage of those people wouldn't make the move to Orlando. And the ones that did likely wouldn't be thrilled about it. That's not the kind of thing you want when you're trying to run a company.
Besides, JetBlue has been synonymous with New York since the beginning. The airline only exists because it was able to get early slot exemptions at JFK which allowed it to run a robust domestic airline at the airport. So it is quite fitting that they are not only staying in New York but they'll be comarketing with the famous I "Heart" NY slogan.
The new building looks to be a fantastic spot. It's the old Brewster Building in Long Island City, just over the Queensborough bridge from Manhattan. There is easy subway access into Manhattan and out to the AirTrain to get to JFK. The building itself is quite fitting as well. It was actually used to build airplanes long, long ago.
So JetBlue is staying in New York, and it's without question, the right move.