JetBlue Airways Corp (NASDAQ: JBLU) Q4 2019 Earnings Call Transcript 

JetBlue Airways Corp  (NASDAQ: JBLU) Q4 2019 Earnings Conference Call

January 24, 2020

Corporate participants:

David Fintzen — Director of Investor Relations

Robin Hayes — Chief Executive Officer

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

Dave Clark — VP of Sales and Revenue Management

Steve Priest — Chief Financial Officer

Scott Laurence — Head of Revenue and Planning

Analysts:

Jamie Baker — JP Morgan Securities Inc. — Analyst

Savanthi Syth — Raymond James & Associates — Analyst

Brandon Oglenski — Barlcays — Analyst

Catherine O’Brien — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Colleen Cunningham — — Analyst

Joseph DeNardi — Stifel — Analyst

Michael Linenberg — Deutsche Bank — Analyst

Myles Walton — UBS — Analyst

Dan McKenzie — Buckingham Research — Analyst

Duane Pfennigwerth — Evercore Partners — Analyst

Hunter Keay — Wolfe Research — Analyst

Presentation:

Operator

Good morning, my name is Levi, and I would like to welcome everyone to the JetBlue Airways Fourth Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today’s call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. I would now like to turn the call over to JetBlue’s, Director of Investor Relations, David Fintzen. Thank you. Please, go ahead.

David Fintzen — Director of Investor Relations

Thanks, Levi. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our fourth quarter 2019 earnings call. This morning, we issued our earnings release, our investor update and a presentation that will reference during this call. All of those documents are available on our website at investor.jetblue.com and have been filed with the SEC. Joining me here in New York to discuss our results are Robin Hayes, our Chief Executive Officer; Joanna Geraghty, our President and Chief Operating Officer; Steve Priest, our Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us for Q&A are Scott Laurence, Head of Revenue and Planning; and Dave Clark, VP of Sales and Revenue Management. This morning’s call includes forward-looking statements about future events.Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements due to many factors and therefore, investors should not place undue reliance on these statements. For additional information containing — concerning factors that could cause results to differ from the forward-looking statements. Please refer to our press release, 10-Q and other reports filed with the SEC. Also during the course of our call, we may discuss several non-GAAP financial measures for reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to GAAP measures, please refer to the tables at the end of the earnings release, a copy of which is available on our website.

And now, I’ll turn the call over to Robin Hayes JetBlue’s CEO.

Robin Hayes — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Dave. Good morning, and thank you for joining us everyone. I’ll start with my thanks to our amazing team of almost 23,000 crew members. Next month, we will celebrate our 20th birthday and I could not be prouder of the accomplishments of the JetBlue family over two decades. Our spirit of teamwork and founding values continue to shine. I mean 2019 alone we received 24 domestic and international awards. These include recognition from JB Power and TripAdvisor to name just two. None of this would be possible without our crew members who deliver our mission to inspire humanity in everything they do.

Over 20 years, we have become force for good in our industry, serving customers in some of the most important markets across the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America, we have worked hard to improve our balance sheet, expand and strengthen our network and have made investments in our fleet to improve margins and returns. More recently, we focused our efforts to reset our cost structure and return to our roots as a low cost airlines. Our low-cost structure enabled us to continue to offer a differentiated product and service and low fares to our customers.

Since our inception as an airline that JetBlue model has had a positive and lasting impact on the US airline industry raising the bar for improving service, while also benefiting customers with lower fares. In 2018 — 2019 I’m sorry, we took further strides towards making JetBlue, a better and stronger airline, and in bringing this year to a close, I’d like to highlight just a few of the accomplishments of our team. We beat the midpoint of our 2019 initial cost guidance and completed our structural cost program exceeding the original goal we established back in 2016. We rolled out Fare Options 2.0, the next iteration of fare bundling. We made significant progress in the cabin restyling program, which is improving both customer satisfaction and returns. We took delivery of our first six A321neo added our longest route ever and we are looking forward to taking our first A220 by the year end.

We strengthened our focus such as I made some difficult, but important changes to our network to add relevance to our leisure and business customers. We ramped up JetBlue Travel Products laying the groundwork for the next period of growth. We added two new members to our Board of Directors, and I would like to take the opportunity to welcome Vivek Sharma, who brings an extensive background in technology and digital leadership. We continue to invest in our most valuable asset, our crew members. I am proud that our crew members have earned a total of 250 college degrees, so our JetBlue Scholars high education program launching in 2016. Last year, we also announced that we are expanding the program to include master’s degrees.

Lastly, we continue to protect our culture as we grow and we are working on expanding JetBlue’s University campus in Orlando and have some very exciting 20th anniversary celebrations planned. We remain committed to the touches — the touches that made us special for 20 years including our industry-leading crew members stock purchase plan, our community connection program and our peer-to-peer recognition programs. In 2019, our crew members reached an incredible milestone volunteering 1 million hours of service over the past eight years. Our crew members have given their time to help communities recovering the natural disasters and encourage STEM education through the JetBlue foundation. Our crew members champion the causes they care about by volunteering with organizations, they are passionate about.

All of these accomplishments contribute to the building blocks as we look to deliver $2.50 to $3.00 earnings per share this year. Our progress towards our 2020 goal has not been without hard work. I’m humbled with how our crew members have risen to meet each obstacle we’ve accounted — we’ve encountered along the way. Just to mention a few examples, we successfully overcame the pressure from lower capacity headwinds on our unit costs and cycled through our first pilot deal offset revenue challenges and still delivered on our 2019 cost goal.

I’m pleased to say that as a small thank we will be paying a $500 bonus to each crew member in recognition of their efforts towards meeting these important goals, and that expense is included in our fourth quarter results. 2019 saw some unexpected revenue headwinds, particularly with an unusually volatile year in our Latin and Caribbean markets. I want to pause for a moment. On behalf of our crew members and leadership team, our thoughts are with all of those impacted by the recent Puerto Rico earthquakes including some of our crew members, customers and their families. For the past three years, we’ve seen the hardship that followed [indecipherable] I’d would like to thank those in our operation and support centers for volunteering your time helping in the relief efforts.

As we have done in the past, we are working closely with the authorities and community to support short-term needs and help in the recovery. Following a natural disaster, it is common to see a lingering demand impact even in nearby — even in nearby areas that were not damaged. History suggests that bookings will normalize, but we expect to RASM impact in the first quarter. While events such as this — while events such as this one have masked some of the progress we have made in our building blocks, we are confident in our plan to grow our revenues. We expect over two-thirds of our revenue initiatives to mature throughout the year and that progress is reflected in a significant sequential improvement in RASM growth in our first quarter guidance. We are mindful that this year, we anticipate that — we are mindful that this year we anticipate facing heightened competition in both Boston and our Florida markets. But, we believe Fare Options 2.0 will be a key contributor to support our RASM growth and a tool to compete more effectively. We again anticipate double-digit growth in ancillary revenue per customer as our loyalty program continues to mature and we expect to make some exciting announcements related to our travel products subsidiary in the near future. The continuing progress we’ve made in our cost base is the best evidence of our determination to deliver improved — improved results in our building growth. This year we expect to deliver negative CASM, ex-fuel growth and we will execute the final year of our[Phonetic] 91% cargo growth commitment.

We expect to deliver on our cost goals in 2020 once again, even with the meaningful NEO delays and our order book. I can’t emphasize enough how challenging the delays have been to our crew members and customers during the past year. Our teams have been outstanding in adjusting plans and finding solutions to offset most of the negative impact from lower capacity. We have put together a contingency plan to further protect our cost achievement from potential additional delays, including an agreement for used aircraft.

With regards to the trade dispute between the US and the European Union, we are working to address the impact for the 10% tariff imposed by the US government, our new aircraft delivered from Airbus facilities in France and Germany. JetBlue has filed comments with the US Trade Representative noting the tariff and any increase or expansion of the scope of the goods covered by the time will negatively affect aircraft deliveries to the detriment of JetBlue, the airline industry and customers. JetBlue supports a fair international trading structure, but believe that tariffs would ultimately impact our ability to grow our business, lead to higher fares for customers and drive less competition. We’ve urged the US government to reach a fair trade deal with the EU. Protecting our business requires us to act on climate change, I mean you’re both the financially successful and more sustainable business.

We are the first major US airline to announce carbon-neutral domestic flights, we have also procured sustainable aviation fuel for flight out of San Francisco, giving us early access to this lower carbon fuel and we believe position us — positioning us to move faster on supply in the future. We’ve also taken other actions with the long-term sustainability and future of our business. We continue to protect both — we continue to protect and diversify our talent pipelines expanding our gateway select pilot program and extending our recruiting efforts with a hiring strategy that honors and supports our veterans. Our JetBlue Foundation also helps create a path, for underrepresented students underrepresented students interested in a career in aviation. Our strategy on these issues is published annually using the SASB and TCFD standards. We are proud to be among the first companies worldwide to disclose using these standards enabling stakeholders to better understand a long-term risk and return profile.

Looking into 2020, we are thrilled to see our plan coming together. Despite some temporary headwinds, and then involving — and then evolving competitive environment, our improved operation and enhanced revenue tools are enabling us to compete more effectively in the future. We are pleased with our business is responding to the actions we’ve been taking on our network and this year we expect to continue to reaping the benefits of our commercial actions. This gives us confidence in our ability to achieve our full year target and deliver a pre-tax margin above industry average.

Thank you again for our crew members for your passion over the past two decades. Over to you, Joanna.

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

Thank you, Robin. First, I’d like to also recognize the hard work of our crew members who have delivered a safe and reliable operation this past year.

Turning to slide 6, and our capacity outlook. During the fourth quarter, our capacity grew 6% in the upper half of our guidance range of 4.5% to 6.5%. Our full year capacity grew 6.6%, also in the upper half of our original growth plan of 5% to 7%. This was due to improved completion factor and shifting the timing of our cabin restyling program to make up for NEO delays. We saw improvements in key operating metrics in 2019.

I’d like to highlight our improvement in completion factor. We are now among the best in the industry. A special thank you to our tech ops team for their tremendous efforts to strengthen our operation. In 2019, we had almost 70% fewer maintenance related cancellations compared to 2018. These are great accomplishments considering our high aircraft utilization model and the fact that almost three quarters of our operation touches congested airspace more than any other US carrier. Turning to capacity growth. For the first quarter of 2020, we expect our year-over-year capacity growth between 1.5% and 3.5% with a full year capacity guidance range between 5.5% and 7.5%. Quarterly capacity growth in 2020 reflects our current expectations of Airbus deliveries as well as additional seats from our cabin restyling program. Our forecasted fourth quarter — first quarter growth is unusually low for us and our annual growth is over 2 points lower than our plan from our 2018 Investor Day. By further controlling costs, we’ve been able to mitigate, most of the impact from lower capacity. We’ve also identified opportunities to mitigate potential additional aircraft delays and recently signed an agreement to lease used A321s which we expect to begin later this year. Our capacity guidance for 2020 assumes that only 11 of our 14 contractual NEOs will be delivered by Airbus in 2020. Moving to our network plan. We plan to continue taking targeted capacity actions to both strengthen relevance in our focus cities and adjust to revenue pressures in parts of our network. All of this work continues the reallocation efforts, we started almost a year and a half ago. For our crew members network changes include some difficult decisions to close, not just routes, but also Blue cities. In doing so, we’ve been able to focus our growth plan on our focus cities. Some examples include adding relevance to our Boston customers with 15 daily flights to DCA and 10 daily flights to LaGuardia. We now offer the most non-stop flights between Metro New York and the LA Basin. This year, we also expect to continue expanding our successful mid-cabin in our transcon markets. We are confident in our network actions and are encouraged by the improving performance of our leisure and VFR international markets, which continue to produce strong margins for JetBlue. We anticipate tactical capacity adjustments will support a quarter-over-quarter improvement in Latin and Caribbean unit revenues. We are pleased with the performance of our business markets, driven by strong demand trends and we are happy with the progress in our transcon franchise. Turning to slide 7, and the revenue outlook. Taking a step back, 2019 saw some unique challenges in our Latin and Caribbean markets. We made tactical adjustments and are seeing a sequential improvement from the fourth quarter into the first quarter of 2020, and our domestic markets, we are pleased to report that 2019 RASM meaningfully outperformed the industry on a state adjusted basis. Regarding the fourth quarter, our RASM decreased 2.7% versus last year, in line with our December update range of minus 3.5% to minus 1.5%. During the fourth quarter close in bookings for the Thanksgiving peak were not as strong as we originally expected. By region, our international RASM reflected a sequential improvement from our early capacity actions despite compressed competitive pressures in some markets. As expected, we saw a sequential decline in our domestic RASM driven by added capacity. For the first quarter, we expect strong sequential improvement in RASM in both our domestic and Latin markets resulting from our capacity actions, our revenue initiatives, easier comps and lower scheduled growth. Our first quarter guidance of 0% to 3% includes a headwind of approximately 1.5 to our system RASM due to earthquakes in Puerto Rico. We remain committed to the island, but given the most recent booking trends we are temporarily really reducing capacity to protect RASM we would anticipate storing this flying as demand recovers. I’d like to thank the various teams across JetBlue, who were involved in executing and delivering Fare Options 2.0. We are pleased with the early performance and are seeing tangible benefits in the first quarter, which we expect will continue to ramp as the year progresses. We are also excited about further progress in our commercial building blocks. These include the maturation of our network reallocation efforts, JetBlue Travel Products and added growth from ancillaries including loyalty. At the end of 2019, our ancillary revenue per customer reached $34 growing 14% year-over-year. This accomplishment includes another outstanding year of growth in our co-brand credit card. We continue to see momentum from customers signing up for the card and earning and using TrueBlue points in our network and with our partners. Ancillary revenue performance was also driven by our efforts to optimize the pricing of checked bags and even more space seats. This year we expect to continue optimizing the pricing of ancillaries and adding initiatives that promote self service such as change and cancel servicing fees. We also plan to make investments in our reservation platform and upgrade our revenue management system. We continue to work in each building block both to protect and to grow our revenue base. When normalized for Easter and Passover holiday shift, we expect that our network in pricing actions to strengthen our markets and it will result in our best quarter-over-quarter RASM acceleration since 2016. Looking beyond the first quarter, we anticipate that our initiatives will continue to ramp contributing to our earnings progression each quarter. In total, we believe that our revenue building blocks will add approximately 3 points of RASM growth throughout 2020. Again, a huge thank you to our amazing team across JetBlue for delivering a safe and solid operation and for continuing to deliver a great experience to our customers. With that, I will turn the call over to Steve. Thank you, Joanna. I’ll start on slide 9, with some highlights from the fourth quarter. Revenue was $2 billion of 3% year-over-year. Adjusted pre-tax margin was 10.9% or 50 basis points from the fourth quarter of last year. Both GAAP and adjusted earnings per diluted share were $0.56. Our effective tax rate this quarter was 27% and 26% for the full year. Before going into details on our cost execution, I’d like to acknowledge the outstanding job of our crew members. We have to succeed our cost saving initiatives in 2019. Despite the number of meaningful headwinds, the efforts of our teams over the past couple of years are helping reset our cost base and we will setup JetBlue to success in 2020 and beyond. This year, we delivered adjusted EPS growth of 23% higher than our peer average. This accomplishment has set us up nicely to deliver even on current consistent — consensus estimates, the best EPS growth in our industry in 2020 significantly outperforming our peer group. Moving to slide 10, CASM ex-fuel for the fourth quarter was flat in line with the midpoint of our guidance range. Our reported figure includes a special bonus for our crew members as an acknowledgment of the outstanding efforts in 2019. If we exclude the bonus expense, our underlying CASM ex-fuel declined 9.9% year-over-year beating our guidance. In 2019, CASM ex-fuel grew 9.8% beating the midpoint of our initial full-year guidance of 0% to 2%. Again excluding the bonus, CASM ex-fuel grew just 9.5% for the year well ahead of our plan. I could not be prouder of the determination of our crew members and leaders to deliver our cost targets as we return to our low-cost routes. For the first quarter of 2020, we expect CASM ex-fuel growth to range between 1.5% and 3.5%. For perspective, the year-over-year progression in unit cost this quarter is mainly driven by unusually low scheduled capacity growth given the timing of 2019 deliveries. In addition, we have scheduled maintenance events during the trough period, the results of expenses shifting into the quarter. Turning to our outlook for the remainder of the year, our dated 2020 CASM ex-fuel guidance is now between minus 2%, 0%. We are pleased that despite the capacity constraints tied to the NEO delays, our 2020 goal is very much in line with the original CASM ex-fuel goal, we announced our last Investor Day. Furthermore, our 2020 plan reflects our commitment to deliver on our 3-year CAGR goal of zero to 1%. Moving to slide 11. Since 2018, we have communicated, our CASM ex-fuel guidance for the first half and second half. In both 2018 and 2019, we are the delivered or have exceeded our guidance even at the timing of expenses shifted within the year. For either perspective, we finished 2019 with one of our best CASM, ex-fuel performances in a decade even while site into our first pilot contract. In 2020, we expect to deliver a negative CASM ex-fuel having full for the achievements in 2019. The shape of the CASM ex-fuel for the first and second half of the year is driven by three factors. First, stretch a cost savings manifesting through the P&L. Second the timing of maintenance expense. Finally, our most impactful is simply the cadence of capacity growth throughout 2020, as you work through NEO delays on the cabin restyling program. Moving to slide 12. We are not progress, this will be our last semi-annual updates on our structural cost program. We are pleased to report cumulative run rate savings of $314 million above the high end of our $250 million to $300 million target that we set at our 2016 Investor Day. As expected this quarter, we made further progress across the four pillars, writing [Phonetic] from additional improvements in contractual terms with our business partners, technology deployments and efforts to further increase productivity across JetBlue and throughout the report that we are in the final contracting stage that the V2500 SelectOne engines maintenance [Indecipherable ] following the NEO and V2500 pre-select monthly agreements announced previously. This rounds out our efforts to reshape our long-term engine maintenance contracts, which have been instrumental and exceeding our structural cost savings target. Looking forward, structural cost is now a way of life for JetBlue and our work is obviously never done. We expect to continue to offset inflationary pressures on our cost structure. I look forward to the benefits of our NEO and A320 fleet programs as we move into the next decade. Turning to slide 13. We ended the fourth quarter with 259 aircraft taking ownership of our six A321neo in late December. We now anticipate a maximum of 11 NEO deliveries in 2020 and are expecting our first A220 delivery by the year end. We have restyled 53 A320s as of today and to restyle the balance of the fleet by early 2021. We continued to manage our restyling schedule to minimize the impact of lower capacity resulting from timing of aircraft deliveries. Turning to slide 14. Our balance sheet continues to be one of the strongest in our industry, and that’s a [Indecipherable] ratio sits well within our target range of 34% year-end, and we are proud to manage JetBlue to investment grade metrics. During the fourth quarter, we repaid $65 million in debt and issued the public WTC, the $772 million. Our price diversified debt sources is opportunistic and takes full advantage of our strong balance sheet as we reinvest in our business and return excess cash to our owners. In the fourth quarter, we entered into an agreement to repurchase $160 million of shares as part of the current $800 million authorization from the Board. This authorization is part of the capital allocation building blocks discussed on the Investor Day. We closed the year with $1.3 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments equating to 16.4% of trailing 12-month revenue. Our cash position at the end of the quarter is temporarily higher than our 10% to 12% target given the fewer aircraft deliveries in 2019 resulted in some CapEx shifting to 2020. Moving to slide 15, for an overview of our guidance for the quarter in 2020. We expect another outstanding year on cost execution to support margin improvement as we execute our commercial building blocks. As we move towards the annual EPS goal of $253 our guidance for the first quarter ranges between $0.10 and $0.20 in earnings per share. Before we begin the Q&A session, I would like to highlight some changes, we’ll be making to our guidance process. Starting this quarter, we will no longer file monthly traffic reports. I’m sure you’ve noticed a reformatted investor update this morning and starting in April, we plan to provide an update ahead of each Earnings Call. As normal course of business, we anticipate providing the market and update on RASM during the quarter. I’d like to again thank our crew members for helping create further value for our customers and owners, the future of their hard work and engagement is showing in our cost progression. We believe that keeping our momentum for the last [Indecipherable] continue to drive up our margins and benefit all of JetBlue. We remain absolutely committed to delivering our EPS goals and I look forward to executing what we believe is the best earnings growth story in our industry during 2020. We will now take your questions.

David Fintzen — Director of Investor Relations

Thanks everyone. Lady, we are now ready for the question-and-answer session with the analysts. Please go ahead with the instructions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Dan Pfennigwerth with Evercore. Your line is now open.

Duane Pfennigwerth — Evercore Partners — Analyst

Hey, good morning. Thank you. I wanted to ask you firstly on sort of your revenue forecasting process and how you grade your own execution over the second half of 2019. Can you just let us know how you — how you back test it and to what extent does the revenue forecasting process change based on what you learn along the way.

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

Sure. Great. I’ll have Dave Clark answer that question for us.

Dave Clark — VP of Sales and Revenue Management

This is Dave. Good morning, thanks for the question. We’ve done a lot of work, focusing on our accuracy and part of that’s been studying [indecipherable ] the back to 2017 versus the rest of the industry, our analysis showed we’re doing quite well versus the industry art of that’s been studying December of 2019, clearly we’re not satisfied with the forecast performance in the last six months, we’ve been putting significant focus on process improvement including how to account for some of the changes on our network and our mix competitors. We’re doing some things like adding additional variables and being more granular where we need to, for example, we’re no longer treating every ASM of competitive capacity the same. Lastly, we’re also running in parallel, a new forecast using machine learning, it’s not ready for prime time yet, but it’s something we’re working on we envision implementing in the future. So, it’s been a focus and we look forward to improvement.

Duane Pfennigwerth — Evercore Partners — Analyst

Thanks. Thanks for that color. And just for my follow up, could you summarize the fee increases or the fee changes that you rolled out in the fourth quarter and how much of this impacted the fourth quarter? In other words when do we hit true run rate on the fee changes even outside. Thanks for taking the question.

Dave Clark — VP of Sales and Revenue Management

And just for clarity, we rolled up fee changes last week optimizing back these with self-service, as well as a change [Indecipherable] service fee. In the fourth quarter, we rolled out Fair Options 2.0, which will ramp significantly during the quarter. We got a little bit of a benefit in the fourth quarter, we’ll get a good bit in the first quarter is quite a ramp up, but then that will continue to progress throughout the course of this year. If you look at the initiatives as a whole, which might be the most helpful way we expect 3 points of RASM during the year — the full year and that breaks down to low-to-mid 2 points in the first half and then mid to high 3 points in the second half of the progression.

Duane Pfennigwerth — Evercore Partners — Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Hunter Keay of Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.

Hunter Keay — Wolfe Research — Analyst

Hey, thanks. The, it looks like 3 more A321s were pushed out of 2020. Obviously you guys, you know, you know and you give us your best guess based on what you know now, but what is your conviction level Robin around actually getting those 11 and if you were to sort of say 50-50 it could go down, I don’t know how you would kind of bracket in the rest of that. And then just to be clear. Are you leasing 3 used A321s or more and is Airbus paying for that. Thank you.

Robin Hayes — Chief Executive Officer

Good, good morning. Hunter. Thanks for question. I think I Steve is very close to someone start that one over to him.

Steve Priest — Chief Financial Officer

Good morning. As you are aware of our materials, the the Airbus post agreement outlines 14 NEOs fits 2020 you’re right with — we are planning the business on 11th. We have, as you can imagine, an extensive relationship with Airbus and continue to be in close cooperation with us to understand that production delays, so that we can go forward and understand that. So as it stands at this point in time, we have confidence in the guide you know that can obviously evolve as things go forward. I’ll reflect back to 2019. We had exactly the same conversation with Airbus, we anticipated a maximum of six aircraft in 2019 and we got six aircraft in 2019. Specifically with regards to additional food and contingencies that we’ve put in place as you heard in our prepared comments, we have gone ahead with an agreements to lease for used aircraft to go forward for 2020 to help us with any contingency plans should things move. I’m obviously not going to get into any details of commercial agreements with Airbus, but I’m pleased a. with the dialog we are having with them b. they the transparency that’s going forward and c. see that we have put good Michigan’s [indecipherable] in place should anything change.

Hunter Keay — Wolfe Research — Analyst

Okay. Steve, thanks. That’s helpful. Sorry, I didn’t hear the fourth what you said. And then just another one on the 321. One, how are the production delays potentially impacting your expansion plans to Europe. Is there a need? Is there a potential circumstance where you would need to use those planes domestically, and can you update us on where you are on obtaining slots? Thank you.

Steve Priest — Chief Financial Officer

Okay. Again, I’ll pick up the craft side of things. And then I’ll get Joanna, to give an update on the wider perspective with regard to slots. We remain confident on our plans to continue to grow relevance in both New York and Boston, with the European expansion growth amount plan is underway and again because of the close cooperation with Airbus, we are confident with the delivery timeframes around the A321. So I’ll hand over to Joanna to give about perspective in terms of our perspectives in terms of slots, et cetera.

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

Great. Thanks, Steve. Good morning. We continue to work multiple paths around slots in a number of London-area airports. We’re confident that our London plans can work in any number of airports and we’ll update you, when we have a bit more information to share.

Operator

Your next question comes from Jamie Baker of JP Morgan. Your line is now open.

Jamie Baker — JP Morgan Securities Inc. — Analyst

Hey, good morning everybody. I mean, Joanna I’m sorry to ask modeling question and I know you talked about sequential RASM improvement in revenue initiatives going, going forward as the year progresses. But the revenue growth rate and I’m shifting from RASM the revenue here. In the first quarter, you’re guiding to kind of a 4% plus top line outcome, but this rate needs to more than double in the second half to hit $2.50. I know you see nthat sort of revenue growth in the past, but could you better break it down into the buckets that help you get there.

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

I’m going to take to truly here your hiccup that’s required. Yeah. So I think I’ll first start with capacity, if you look at capacity throughout the year, you should expect stronger revenue in the first half naturally, because capacity is lower, capacity coming in in the second half will pressure — pressure revenue as you think about the revenue building blocks. So, as Dave mentioned, we have 3 points of contribution associated with our revenue initiatives. We started off the year strong with good improvement from Q4 into Q1. And as we think about the rest of the year, we have good momentum on those initiatives. Dave mentioned about 3 points of benefit with low to mid-twos. In the first half and then further ramping into the second half of the year with high-to-mid 3 for a total of the — total 3 points. So, do you think about that in the broader context we started strong and we’re on track to continue throughout the year to deliver that $250 to $3 of EPS.

Jamie Baker — JP Morgan Securities Inc. — Analyst

Okay, that’s helpful. So that implies to revenue growth rate, second quarter is your year-on-year.

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

First, I’d say the first half is stronger than the back half of the year.

Jamie Baker — JP Morgan Securities Inc. — Analyst

Okay. And Steve, just a quick one on the revised guidance standards, how come I mean they’ll get me wrong. I’m not critical the decision. I’m just curious if it was something you heard from your owners if it’s just about, kind of going with the flow, just wondering what the thought process was.

Steve Priest — Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Thank you and good morning, Jamie. I’ll just cover a couple of items. The first thing is we reviewed this as we continue to shift towards an EPS guide as we saw it go through this and considered where we are, the core reason behind this is to drive more alignment and I guidance process with the cadence of the industry and we will obviously continue to bring the same level of transparency to analysts and our owners. And maybe just say this opportunity to just to give a little bit more clarity the new cadence you can expect. This morning, as you probably noticed we be much of our investor update, which includes EPS guide. We will give an update on RASM in the mid-quarter which is an example, make him like for this quarter in early March. We will continue to give a final updates on RASM best with broader investor update for the quarter, that is actually closing. I’m so we’ll package out up together. So on the following earnings call we can spend more time thinking about forward-looking guidance.

And then, as a result of that, the overall traffic report ends but investors and analysts are not losing any information so primarily, Jamie, it’s ensuring alignment with regard to the cadence for the rest of the industry.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Savi Syth of Raymond James, your line is now open.

Savanthi Syth — Raymond James & Associates — Analyst

Hey, good morning. Just first question is just some clarification around the fleet. When do you expect those kind of A321s that were delayed in kind of 2019 and 2020 to kind of show up? And also just on the used aircraft is that beyond kind of the fleet plan that you have on the presentation and other kind of short-term leases there, or should we expect them to be in the fleet for kind of more than a couple of years?

Steve Priest — Chief Financial Officer

I’ll pick that. Good morning, Savi. So specifically, we look at this with Airbus, on a year-by-year basis and are going to the next level of quarter-by-quarter basis as we work through this. And so, as a reminder, we had, had 85 Airbus neo orders on in the order book and we go through the annual progression and so Airbus to continue to deal with their production challenges. But as I said, it’s good that we continue to get the visibility. We can forecast accordingly. So for me at the moment is about we [indecipherable] this year by year versus worrying about when will they ultimately come because obviously certain things I’m moving to the right. While we’ve — we’ve actually done in terms of our plan. As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we have assumed the delivery with 11 of the 14 NEOs in 2020. I’m, but it is right of us to be prudent and look around the corner and think about what’s happening, and so we have put this agreements in place for the for least used aircraft, which you know, if we see further delays, a further challenges to our business. It gives us some contingency as we go forward. So that’s really how you should think about that and I hope that’s clear.

Savanthi Syth — Raymond James & Associates — Analyst

And just so is the, is the kind of the 4 that come in, that’s in addition to what’s in the fleet plan in the slide deck. Correct?

Steve Priest — Chief Financial Officer

That is correct.

Savanthi Syth — Raymond James & Associates — Analyst

Okay. And then just a another fleet question just on the cabin refresh. Could you provide an update on kind of how many were completed at the end of ‘ 2019 and just how you’re thinking about it for the rest of the year?

Steve Priest — Chief Financial Officer

So as of now, we’ve completed 53 of our cabin restyling plan, as you think about the overall plan. We expect to complete the entire plan by I’d say early 2021. The original goal was the end of 2020, but due to the Airbus delays, we’ve had to adjust the styling scheduled to partially back fill those delays, so that we can maintain our capacity commitments.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Brandon Oglenski of Barclays. Your line is now open.

Brandon Oglenski — Barlcays — Analyst

Hey, good morning everyone and thanks for taking my question. So, Joanna. I want to come back to your response. A couple of earlier where I think you said first half revenue trends should o actually be stronger than second half. Were you referring to RASM or yields or were you talking about top line concentrate?

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

I was talking about RASM. Okay. And not to be too nuanced here, but it does seem like to hit the EPS range, which is significantly higher than your earnings level, let’s call it in the first quarter, you do need to see likely favorable yield contribution even with that higher growth. So, I think you were talking about 3 points of tailwind in the first half, maybe closer to 2 points of tailwind in the back half, how much contingency have you built in there for term fee delays because I was just kind of things and other here [indecipherable] [Technical Issues]. Sorry, you were just bringing up a little bit but — but I think I caught what you’re saying. We — I think I’d point you back to the initiatives as we step into 2020. They continue to ramp through the year, we should think about them in terms of the network reallocation, which remains on track with benefits continuing to come in our Fare Options 2.0 and remember that launched system-wide in early December. So, that will continue to ramp through the year and then obviously growth in ancillaries.

Jamie Baker — JP Morgan Securities Inc. — Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question Catherine O’Brien with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Catherine O’Brien — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Hi, everyone. Good morning. So, quite jJust another question on the restyling efforts. I guess, obviously there could potentially be some risk if there are further delays but I guess, how confident are you in that current schedule. And then can you help us frame the benefit of those modifications to CASM ex-fuel efficiency this year? Thanks.

Robin Hayes — Chief Executive Officer

Hello, Catherine, I’ll pick that up. Just to sort of add to Joanna’s comments that is so we are 53 today. We continue to sort of ramp up. We’ve increased the number of lines that we have on the restyling program, which is great. The other thing I would say is that the we consciously decided to try and align the restyling effort with heavy maintenance checks on the FAMs [Phonetic] as best as we could and so, obviously if you did a full heavy check on the aircraft undoing restyling the amounts of time is higher. So, what we’ve seen as we cycle through some of that is a physical time per restyling efforts and has reduced on a number of lines that we’re pushing through, has increased. So, we continue to get such a good momentum. I think the one thing I would say about the great work, the team has done is we’ve reviewed, we saw strategically about how we’ve continued to approach restyling and with the NEO delays we sort of taken a little bit of a pause — a short pause in 2019 as we go forward and we’ll continue to reassess that as we go forward, but we remain confident in the plans we have in place, the momentum that’s going because it’s great both not only for customers but also from driving margin for JetBlue. Specifically thinking about CASM, ex-fuel and the dynamics of the numbers, you should think about restarting providing about 2 points of capacity for 2020 when you do — when you look at your models. And in terms of the ASMs that that will provide in addition to the incremental shelves that come into the business.

Catherine O’Brien — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Great, thanks. And then, is there a point where you will see compensation from Airbus on the ongoing delivery delays I guess like if that’s true, is there any downside risk to your CapEx — CapEx figures? Thanks.

Robin Hayes — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah Catherine. Obviously, it will be inappropriate for me to comment on and i think our commercial discussions that we have with Airbus on an earnings call, we continue to engage with them, our continuous priorities is to — to make sure we maintain the integrity of our schedule, we deliver for our customers and we get the aircraft on to so JetBlue is property, but at the same time, obviously this has been an incredible challenge for JetBlue, as we’ve navigated this over the last couple of years and we continue the commercial discussions with Airbus.

Operator

Your next question comes from Helane Becker of Cowen. Your line is now open.

Colleen Cunningham — — Analyst

Hey guys, it’s actually Colleen Cunningham in for Helane. Just on Puerto Rico. I know it’s early days there, I mean you talked about a 50 basis point headwind occurring in 1Q. Just curious if your expectation is for that sub-linger into at least 2Q at this point. I’m just trying to get a sense that you know for how long that may — that may be impactful. And I know that you, you talked about making capacity adjustments. Just curious on there, the incremental capacity is going.

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

Sure.

Colleen Cunningham — — Analyst

Thanks.

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

Thanks. So I mean, to start with Puerto Rico remains a important part of our network. It’s been a significant margin contributor and we see these pressures from time to time in Puerto Rico and the rest of the industry. I think if you look at last year and some of the changes we made in put to Cana [indecipherable], we’ve demonstrated that we will not shy away from taking temporary capacity adjustments to right size the current market and demand conditions. That said, we remain very committed to Puerto Rico, we do expect to make temporary capacity adjustments in the short term, it’s difficult to forecast the impact to Puerto Rico, if you look at history with NASA and during it would tell you that this this could linger other examples have these situations coming off much sooner. So, we’re watching it closely. We’re doing our best to forecast what we think the impact is and taking tactical adjustments to — to mitigate the demand environment as needed.

Colleen Cunningham — — Analyst

Okay and then just on the network, maybe to continue not just so you made a lot of adjustments. And I know you made some more and long, but just curious if like if that’s been rationalized enough at this point or maybe you can kind of talk to your process, of how you adjust your network longer term. Thank you.

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

Sure. So every city and every route has to earn its way into our network. The reallocations that we have done over the last year and a half are on track and we continue to see the benefits of those changes coming in. Our focus is on growing out our key focus cities, including Boston in Fort Lauderdale. And we will adjust the network to ensure that we are meeting, not only our capacity commitments, but also our strategic — our strategic focus city plan.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Joseph DeNardi of Stifel. Your line is now open.

Joseph DeNardi — Stifel — Analyst

Yeah, thanks. Good morning Steve or Robin, you guys have clearly had the earnings guidance for this year out there for a while and you’ve stuck by it despite a lot of — lot of changes. Can you just talk about, given that we’re a little bit closer to it is the high end or the low-end more within reach for you all. Thanks.

Robin Hayes — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Thanks, John. I’ll take that as [indecipherable] to answer your question, it really, but no, look, I think that I’m very pleased. There were a lot of skeptics a few years ago, our PAT our delivery on our cost commitments. And I think that we have continued to demonstrate that we have laid out exactly what we said that we were going to do. I think the benefits on restyling and network on track fair options. It’s very early, but we’re very pleased with what we’re seeing and as Dave mentioned, we have the team and Revenue Management and our data science team who has sort of monitoring that daily to make sure that we are getting all the benefits we expect from Fair Options and more. I’m very pleased with the sequential change in the RASM from Q4 to Q1. Actually, I haven’t seen a number like that at JetBlue in terms of the change other than the Easter Passover holidays since 2016 and again if it wasn’t for the Puerto Rico impact which has been very significant, we would be looking at a 2.0 guide into Q1. And we continue to see the revenue initiatives ramp up. And so, I think that gives me a lot of optimism. Now, obviously there are risks that we don’t control, what we can do in those risk emerge is doing and we can to mitigate them, but I think we’ve talked about that today, on some of the actions that we’ve taken in Puerto Rico. And I also, we’ve seen some of our initiatives outperform as well.

So as we sit here, all of those things together, give us confidence in the $250 to $300 [Phonetic] number. There were some tailwinds that would help us there also some headwinds that could create some pressure so industry capacity growth has been something that has been talked about, we talked a lot about the macro revenue environment. I mean, again, there were a lot of pressure on that, on the last call, we believe our revenue initiatives will allow us to deliver positive RASM, even if the macro number is negative, but clearly there is a risk there. So, as we go through the year and we get a better line of sight on some of those things that we don’t control both headwind and tailwinds will — we’re tightening the range, we’ll adjust the range to keep everyone sort of up-to-date, but I’m very confident where we are now and even a consensus, which everyone knows is below $250 to $300. We’re going to have industry-leading earnings growth in 2020 by some mile. And so I want here, I can tell you, I want to, here is very, very focused on the $250 to $300 and we’re giving everything we’ve got. And I think we’ve seen that on many of initiatives that we’ve rolled out today.

Joseph DeNardi — Stifel — Analyst

That’s helpful. Robin. And then maybe just a question for Dave or Scott, if I exclude the revenue initiatives from the first quarter guide. It is pretty weak even with lower capacity growth. So, why is an underlying just kind of core pricing power given what seems to be kind of healthy demand, infact that your own capacity growth is pretty low industry growth is relatively modest. It kind of suggest that just underlying program is great. There is some erosion or that the accretion from these initiatives, it isn’t as great maybe you think.

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

Yeah, I mean I think I just say that there is sequential improvement as you look at Q4 to Q1 and the progress we’re making there and then Q1 into Q2, we’re pleased with the improvements and the revenue initiatives just add to that. And as they ramp up through the year, they will contribute to that sequential improvement.

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Linenberg of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Michael Linenberg — Deutsche Bank — Analyst

Hey two quick ones here. I guess maybe, Robin and Steve. I want to say Robin, it’s admirable that JetBlue, as a company is planning to be carbon-neutral for 2020 and I’m just curious, it would seem that there is some cost associated with that, and yet you’re maintaining the $250 to $300. So one, any sort of a sense that you can give on what the potential cost of being carbon-neutral even round numbers. And then from a CASM, ex perspective I presume anything that’s tied to carbon fuel et cetera, finds its way into the ex-part of the cost equation. Is that the right way to look at it?

Robin Hayes — Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Mike. I appreciate the question and I will get to it, but I’d like to just maybe use this as an opportunity to kind of explain what we’ve done and why we’ve done it. I mean we do look at sustainability through a lens of long-term shareholder value creation. I think that, but the airline industry, this issue percent a clear and present danger if we don’t get on top of it and I’ll seem to be out ahead of it. We see that in other geographies and we should not assume that those sentiments I come to the US. And so it’s very important that airlines get on the front foot of this, which is why we did what we did. And you know, frankly, as part of sort of our border yes the commitment across of course many and I talked about some of those in my comments. So, that’s why — that’s why we did it. I do think it’s going to become a cost of doing business, for the industry. In terms of specifically actual a question around the offsets, then I’m not going to get into that, I will say that it’s fully factored into our EPS guide. I mean in terms of where it sits in the line, it’s treated as part of our fuel cost, so it won’t be in the ex-fuel CASM line, it will be in the fuel guidance. So, as we will continue to roll out quarterly fuel guidance then it will be included in that, but again the the cost of the investment of this is factored into the EPS guide that we provided.

Michael Linenberg — Deutsche Bank — Analyst

Great. And then just a quick. My second question, just if you were to sort of characterize how do you think about your relationship with Norwegian or are they just another sort of Interline partner or they is something more than that. And the reason I ask is that when they announced that they had definitely you it with a full-page press release lots of superlatives about JetBlue, it looked like it was something big and yet I’m not sure if it is all that big. I’m just curious about how you would characterize that relationship. Thank you.

Robin Hayes — Chief Executive Officer

I like press releases Mike that [indecipherable] JetBlue. Scott, do you want to take that your question?

Scott Laurence — Head of Revenue and Planning

Sure, this is Scott. So, we did move forward with an LOI, and we are in discussions about the partnership, but we have over 50 partners, and we look forward to working more closely with Norwegian.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Myles Walton if UBS. Your line is now open.

Myles Walton — UBS — Analyst

Thanks, good morning. Steve, I think you talked about finalizing the the engine contract and I just wanted to be clear, is it a full year benefit to 2020 or is is going to be signed sometime in the first half and annualized into 2021?

Steve Priest — Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, good morning Myles. Firstly, I wanted to say a big thank you to the team at JetBlue, particularly that the fleet treasury and tech ops team who’ve done a magnificent job I have, last 2.5 years in terms of aligning and renegotiating all of our engine contracts. This was the final piece of the jigsaw in terms of both our airframe and engine maintenance contracts to to help JetBlue navigate through the next few years. This — this contract specifically covering half of our engines on our existing CO fleet will bring benefits throughout the 2020-year so you should think about that when you are baking in your models. And then just a clarification on the retirement, I guess it’s not retiring any in 2020. Should we think about them ratably retiring though the ’20s come in, in 2021 yeah. I think the way that you should think about this is as a one-for-one replacement as the A220s coming based on our us discussions with Airbus, particularly Airbus Canada and how we take things forward. We remain confident in the delivery of our first A220 at the end of this year. Obviously, we will take a couple of months again to service as we go through that in the first aircraft come into the fleet. But then you are going to have a short transition time between and A220 coming in and A190 going out for a number of months. So, as they come in we’ve shared with you the order book that we have and you can so I think as that as a one-for-one replacement as a 2, one is coming, the A190 just go out.

Myles Walton — UBS — Analyst

Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. Your last question comes from Dan McKenzie from Buckingham Research. Your line is now open.

Dan McKenzie — Buckingham Research — Analyst

Hi, good morning. Thanks. Two questions here, first of all Fair Point 2.0 all based on what I’m seeing the segmentation component. It doesn’t look like it’s being dynamically priced at this point. So, the question is, are there IT limitations from that prevent you from doing that?

Joanna Geraghty — President and Chief Operating Officer

Sure. Thanks for the question. Maybe I’ll just start with fare options you know on what we’re seeing in terms of the progress so far. So, as I mentioned rolled out in December, 95% of the boot basic fares are now available across our network, we are off to a good start, benefits will continue to ramp and we are, as we see it so far exceeding expectations in terms of the upsell and the buy-up rates, it will continue to evolve as we step through the next few months in terms of a variety of factors around just dynamic pricing, but also as we learn more around how fare options works in different markets. The team will get smarter in terms of of how we offer — how we offer the different the different bundles. And Dave, is there anything you’d like to add?

Dave Clark — VP of Sales and Revenue Management

Just that we’re very pleased with the rollout and this year the big focus will be how do we optimize all of the biopsy, the [indecipherable] extra of the seat pricing. Looking at both traditional and new methods to optimize those as because of the year.

Dan McKenzie — Buckingham Research — Analyst

I see, okay. And then going back to one of the big revenue drivers for this year, $34 per passenger in ancillary revenue growing double-digits and please correct me on that. But what are the components that are driving that growth exactly I mean a big things, of course, but what are the other big drivers that are in there?

Dave Clark — VP of Sales and Revenue Management

Yeah, sure. So, maybe I’ll step [Phonetic] has been loyalty is the largest driver behind the double-digit growth. Then you could think of bag fees, we’ll see an increase in bag fees this year, largely associated with fare options in the unbundling of bag fees and then there is a contribution from JetBlue Travel products as well into our ancillary revenue numbers. So, overall very pleased with the growth. Yes, 34 customer up 14% year-over-year, we expect as we step into 2020 to see strong growth throughout the year as well.

Robin Hayes — Chief Executive Officer

And that concludes our fourth Quarter 2019 Conference Call. Thanks for joining us. Have a great day, everyone.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Disclaimer

This transcript is produced by AlphaStreet, Inc. While we strive to produce the best transcripts, it may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies. This transcript is provided as is without express or implied warranties of any kind. As with all our articles, AlphaStreet, Inc. does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company’s SEC filings. Neither the information nor any opinion expressed in this transcript constitutes a solicitation of the purchase or sale of securities or commodities. Any opinion expressed in the transcript does not necessarily reflect the views of AlphaStreet, Inc.

© COPYRIGHT 2020, AlphaStreet, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, redistribution or retransmission is expressly prohibited.