JetBlue's Struggle Continues: Facing Challenges in Revenue and Outlook

JetBlue stock is facing steep sell pressure in early trading as the company missed revenue expectations and posted a much bleaker outlook than expected.

What Happened

While JetBlue's revenue just barely came up short of expectations at $2.35 billion for the quarter, they allowed costs to get out of hand and generated a loss of $0.39 per share, which was over 50% deeper than analyst expectations. These losses came from a wide range of issues, ranging from costs to weather delays. The hits just keep coming for JetBlue as the company plummets toward their lowest valuation since 2011.

It Gets Worse

With the U.S. trial against JetBlue's acquisition of Spirit Airways set to begin in the coming days, the company is desperate for a win as operational issues keep eating into earnings. With nothing but bad news on the horizon, investors are fleeing the stock. To make matters worse, JetBlue now anticipates that their full-year losses will potentially double The Street's expectations as fuel costs are rising in Q4.

Why It Matters

In this environment, you're either perfectly managed or you're getting crushed. JetBlue is adding a fair share of bad luck on top of their general inefficiencies for the year. While the company has attempted to optimize operations, those efforts really haven't paid off. With a darkening outlook, JetBlue has fallen as much as 8% in early trading.