Initial Thoughts: Jetblue A321Neo Mint New York-Los Angeles
Intro
I recently had the opportunity to fly the relatively new Jetblue Mint onboard a flight from New York to Los Angeles. I have long been a fan of Jetblue Mint, and other than American Airlines First Class, have decided that this was* the best way to cross the country. Well, my thoughts have changed, as the soft product on this flight was diabolical.
While I will have a full review in the future, these are my initial thoughts on the product.
The Ground Experience
Jetblue has always lagged behind the other transcon carriers in one regard (yes, even Alaska Airlines): they have no lounges yet. While Jetblue will hopefully be opening their own lounges sometime in 2025/2026, access won't even be granted for transcon passengers.
However, the Jetblue check-in is a nice addition, as it is tucked away off to the side. I have found the agents at the Mint desk to be a lot nicer than the regular check-in desks.
Seeing as there are no lounges, I figured I might as well grab a slice of pizza before getting on board. Okay, I understand Jetblue not offering a lounge to Mint passengers (not really, but stay with me here), but how about offering a 20$ food voucher or something? It's not the cost of buying food, it's more the point in my opinion.
To make matters worse, our inbound was delayed over an hour which meant I was sitting at the airport for no reason, with no lounge...
The Hard Product
With a decently late inbound, it wasn't until about 45 minutes after the scheduled departure time that boarding began, with Mint passengers being offered to board first.
Stepping onboard I was mesmerized by the cabin on this A321neo. I have to give credit to Jetblue on the hard product as each 16 of the seats featured beautiful coloring, plenty of room, and fantastic features.
I was seated in 8F for today's flight, and have to say that I would sit here again if given the opportunity. The only thing that I would worry about is if there was a baby seated in the first row of economy.
The high-definition screen, the lamp, and every single piece of this seat was carefully thought out. Except one...
They locked the sliding doors on the A321Neo. Due to a number of reasons, Jetblue locked the doors on their A321Neo which is extremely annoying as if the door is there, you should be able to use it...
A big letdown Jetblue...
The Soft Product
To start off: no PDB. A mint condition would have been nice...
The soft product of Jetblue is what really let me down on this flight. The past 6 flights I have taken with Jetblue I was treated to some stellar service and fantastic food. Well, not on this flight...
The first big letdown of this flight is that Jetblue reduced its menu from 5 options (3 hot, 2 cold) to 4 options. Yes, this isn't the end of the world, but I have to wonder why...
By the time the flight attendant (we'll get into this next) got to my row, they were out of the chicken, and I just ended up having a slice of pizza. The pizza was fine, nothing special, but not bad for a plane.
Oh did I mention? It took 2 and a half hours to get a slice of pizza on a flight that ended up being 5 hours. That is absurd... It took an hour to get my first drink???
Service
I am one who rarely complains about service, but from the second we got onboard this flight attendant (which will remain nameless) was very unfriendly. Here are a couple of notes:
I said "Hello, good evening" when getting on board, and he just looked away
When asking for my order, he just said "What do you want"
Service took an hour for drinks, and 2.5 hours for a slice of pizza
When I asked for some cheese and crackers from Economy, he tried to charge me 😅. Eventually, I asked another nicer flight attendant who was happy to help.
After sleeping for the next 2 hours, we ended up somehow arriving early in Los Angeles after a flight time of 4 hours and 40 minutes (wheels up to wheels down). This actually ended up being the quickest flight I have taken flying West due to some extreme winds helping us out.
Stepping off the plane, I bid the flight attendant goodbye, of course, there was no response.
Disclaimer: I am a huge fan of Jetblue as a whole, and think they have a decent Mint product and economy product. However, I am part of the Jetblue Reddit forum and have heard plenty of complaints in the past six months about the service in Mint (within the USA, not Europe or the Caribbean). If Jetblue wants Mint to succeed, they need to address this issue. I get people have a bad day, but for some reason, it just seemed like the FA didn't want to be working for Jetblue in the slightest.
Final Thoughts
This was my first time flying the new Jetblue Mint Suites on the A321neo, and I have to say that the seat/cabin is nothing short of exceptional. However, other than the bedding, I found Jetblue to be quite bad on this flight (sorry to put it harshly). The food wasn't up to the usual Jetblue standards, no pre-departure beverage, and to put the cherry on the top, the service was diabolical. I honestly have had better service in a holding cell (don't ask, a story for another time 😅).
Would I fly Jetblue again after this? Not unless the price was much lower than the competitors. Sorry ❤️.
Full review coming soon!
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