JetBlue Rolled Out Its Most Clever Feature Yet. Anyone Who Has Ever Flown Will Immediately Love This

JetBlue announced its earnings earlier this week, and it didn’t go well. The company is struggling to increase revenue and forecasted that it will continue to struggle for the next quarter. As a result, the company’s stock plunged almost 20 percent and has since continued to slump. 

JetBlue is in a tough situation. It called off its proposed merger with Spirit Airlines after it was blocked by a federal judge. It has also had to deal with a recall related to the Pratt & Whitney engines on some of its planes. The company has been trying to cut costs in an effort to get back to profitability, but that, too, has been a challenge. 

JetBlue did announce something everyone who has ever flown can get excited about: an upgraded inflight entertainment system. Called BluePrint, the new system will allow customers to log in and receive content recommendations, save their progress and pick up where they left off on their connecting flight, save favorites, and access content from partners like Peacock. The best feature, however, is the ability to watch the same film or TV show at the same time with up to five other people on the flight. 

JetBlue is calling it “Watch Party,” and it’s one of the more clever airline announcements I’ve seen in some time. It also solves one of the most annoying things about traveling with other people–that dance to try and start a movie at the exact same time, and then hope no one needs to pause. 

To be fair, JetBlue isn’t the first airline to roll out better entertainment features. Last year, Delta began to roll out its Sync platform, which allows members of its SkyMiles loyalty program to log into the inflight entertainment system and resume playing a movie where they left off on a previous flight, or do other things like order drinks. 

But, in JetBlue’s case, the watch party feature is unique and especially clever. If you’ve ever flown with a family member or friend–or a group of friends–you know that this is a game-changer. Everyone who has ever tried to press play to start a movie at the exact same time as their travel companion understands that this is so much better. It’s also kind of a no-brainer and surprising that it took this long.

After all, airline inflight entertainment systems are just displays with little computers and software telling a server onboard that you want to watch something. There’s no reason that software can’t tell the server to send the same thing to more than one of those displays. 

There’s a lesson here: Sometimes, the smallest changes can elevate the customer experience. If you run a company, your job is to always consider your customers’ overall experience and identify pain points along the way. Then, your job is to figure out how to solve those pain points. 

As new features go, Watch Party isn’t the kind of thing that alone will make people think “Hey, I should book this flight on JetBlue,” but it is going to make the experience better for the people who do. Don’t underestimate the value in that–especially for JetBlue, which built its brand on providing a different kind of experience. That experience is the reason people make buying decisions, and this new feature might be the most clever way I’ve seen yet.