This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and watch out for more Battle of the Brands posts.
There really isn't much of a battle of the brands between Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) and JetBlue Airways Corp. (NASDAQ: JBLU).
Southwest Airlines is clearly the superior brand. It's the low-cost airline that everybody loves. I've flown Southwest a few times myself and found the service good, though I was annoyed by the trash that I found underneath my seats. I've never flown JetBlue because it doesn't fly out of my local airport in Philadelphia, while Southwest does.
In some ways, it's not a fair fight between Southwest and JetBlue. Southwest. which was founded in 1971, operates 2,800 daily flights in 60 airports in 59 cities across the United States. JetBlue is eight years old and serves 50 destinations with 550 daily flights.
Investors also prefer Southwest. Its shares are only down 3 percent this year, compared with the 17 percent decline for JetBlue.
Though its tempting to argue that Southwest will destroy JetBlue in the marketplace, I'm not ready to write off the scrappy New York-based airline quite yet.
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