JetBlue won’t seek deal to compete with Southwest, CEO says; choosing to grow alone

JetBlue CEO: No deal to compete with Southwest

NEW YORK — JetBlue’s CEO says his airline doesn’t need to combine with another carrier to compete with Southwest.

In an internal memo obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, CEO Dave Barger said growing too fast through an acquisition could jeopardize JetBlue Airways Corp.’s financial stability.

The 10-year-old airline, which is based in New York City, was mentioned by some analysts as a prime candidate for a combination after Southwest Airlines Co. agreed to buy AirTran Holdings Inc. for $1.4 billion on Monday. Those airlines are JetBlue’s main discount rivals. Analysts suggested possible suitors for JetBlue included American Airlines, which is operated by parent AMR Corp., or Frontier Airlines.

Barger noted in his memo that carriers “that grow through merger may be bigger, but they’re also distracted by their own integration issues, and they usually take their eye off the customer. This gives us another opportunity to win by playing our game even better.”

The executive said he recognized JetBlue will face increasing competition, as Southwest gets bigger in some of the key markets in which the airlines compete.

Still, he says the news doesn’t change JetBlue’s plans to grow on its own, especially in Boston and the Caribbean.

“Our plan has proven to be the right path forward,” he wrote. “We could easily double our size overnight but at what cost to our balance sheet, our culture and brand? We’ve worked too hard for those assets.”

Barger said he was visiting with German airline Lufthansa, JetBlue’s biggest investor, when the Southwest deal was announced.