In 2005, JetBlue’s sixth year of operations, we experienced significant growth and enjoyed exceptional customer loyalty, but we also faced difficult challenges which resulted in the disappointing first quarterly and first annual loss since becoming a public company in 2002. Record high fuel prices and a very challenging yield environment combined to make 2005 the fifth year in a row in which the airline industry as a whole endured substantial losses. For the year, total industry losses for North American carriers were over $10 billion. We were not immune to these industry-wide forces. Fuel costs increased 52% year-over-year and had the price of fuel in 2005 stayed at 2004 levels, we would have spent $167 million less on fuel last year. 

Against the backdrop of this highly challenging environment, our outstanding crewmembers, now more than 10,000 strong, continued to take great care of our customers, and we continued to strengthen our powerful brand during the past year. We flew a total of 14.7 million customers in 2005, a 25% increase from the year before, and those customers responded very positively to the JetBlue Experience. For the fourth year in a row, the readers of Conde Nast rated JetBlue "Best Domestic Airline.’’ We were also ranked #1 in the University of Nebraska – Wichita and Wichita State University Airline "Quality Rating’’ study for the third straight year and Air Transport World Magazine granted us the "Passenger Service Award.’’ We deeply appreciate our customers for their exceptional brand loyalty and are thankful for our crewmembers and their hard work, passion and dedication.

Accolades and awards are meaningful and appreciated, but we also know that in the eyes of our customers, we are only as good as our last flight. Customers choose JetBlue because we offer attractive fares and a great experience, and 2005 saw a continued expansion of our network. We welcomed four new cities to our network: Burbank, CA; Ponce, PR; Portland, OR; and Newark, NJ, and we introduced new nonstop service between already-established JetBlue cities, such as our ten daily flights between Boston and our home base at New York’s JFK International Airport. In 2005, JetBlue established itself as the leading airline between New York and Florida, and between New York and the West Coast, offering more flights than any other airline. Customers in these markets benefited with low fares and convenient schedules, which greatly helped us achieve an 85.2% load factor for the year. 

We built upon the core elements of the JetBlue Experience in 2005, which includes all-leather seats with personal television screens featuring 36 channels of free DIRECTV programming, free onboard snacks and beverages, and a selection of premium FOX Inflight™ movies. We introduced the JetBlue Card from American Express in 2005, offering card members more ways to earn TrueBlue points while building an important new revenue stream for us. The JetBlue Card was an immediate success, outperforming our expectations and contributing almost one million new TrueBlue members, raising membership to close to 4 million customers. We introduced JetBlue Getaways in 2005, our one-stop shopping website that offers affordable customizable vacation packages to hotels and resorts. We also asked Joshua Wesson of Best Cellars to be our "low-fare sommelier,’’ to offer quality wines that rival those served in first class on other airlines. 

The key to the JetBlue Experience, of course, is driven most significantly by our crewmembers’ ability to deliver what we believe is the best customer service in the industry. Our crewmembers continue to do an outstanding job taking care of our customers, as evidenced by our exceptional brand loyalty, and we cannot thank our crewmembers enough for their diligent efforts.

In our greatest accomplishment last year, we introduced the EMBRAER 190 to our fleet. Our customers love the roomy interior and the expanded in-flight entertainment as our E190s, powered by General Electric engines, have more than 100 channels of XM Satellite Radio in addition to our signature 36 channels of DIRECTV programming. As the worldwide launch customer for this brand new aircraft type, we experienced operational integration issues not uncommon for the introduction of a new aircraft type. In retrospect, we were too aggressive in our initial implementation plan for a newly certified aircraft. Now, with more than five months of operating experience with the aircraft, we are confident that the E190’s operational reliability will continue to improve to the levels our customers have come to expect from us. In fact, our airline has achieved the highest technical dispatch reliability rating for our A320 fleet, according to Airbus Industries — which is an accomplishment made even more special considering JetBlue is the second largest A320 operator in the world with extraordinarily high utilization.

We were also very pleased with the successful outcome of Flight 292, which experienced a nose gear issue shortly after take-off en route to New York from Burbank, CA last September. As millions around the country experienced the same tense moments waiting for Flight 292 to land in Los Angeles, we all collectively cheered in admiration for the heroic actions of our crewmembers — not only for the precision landing, but for keeping our customers well-informed and prepared for the landing. We heard from people throughout the country and across the world who sent us notes of praise for our crewmembers. All of the training and dedication to safety excellence came together on that evening to produce a safe landing. JetBlue and Airbus have since addressed and remedied the mechanical issues that led to the incident.

Reliable service is a key element of the JetBlue Experience. We had the highest completion factor in the industry, again demonstrating our commitment to operating flights even with a delay, rather than canceling the flight for the schedule’s convenience. Our on-time arrival percentage was not up to the high standards we have set for ourselves and that we have historically been able to achieve. The primary cause of this decline was a combination of internal and external factors, including challenging weather conditions in our key markets, air traffic control congestion — mainly in the Northeast where the majority of our flights operate — and our preference for not canceling flights. To improve our on-time arrival performance we are looking to revitalize our efficiency on the ground, termed the "BlueTurn,’’ which will assist us greatly in our focus to keep our aircraft’s ground time to a minimum. We are also working closely with the FAA and others to improve upon airport congestion and air traffic delays. Staying true to our commitment to our customers, we were ranked in the top tier among major airlines in the United States for our favorable baggage handling rates, low complaints to the DOT and zero incidents of involuntary denied boarding.

We were also impacted significantly in 2005 by three hurricanes: Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Unfortunately, our on-time percentage rates and completion factors suffered greatly because of the geographic concentration of our route network in the impacted areas. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, many Gulf Coast refineries went off-line and their overall output was reduced, thereby driving oil prices up as demand exceeded supply. Already high fuel costs suffered considerably, and in a matter of weeks in late October, we saw jet fuel prices skyrocket to over $3.00 per gallon at several airport locations. Our revenues suffered as a result of the storms as well. Lost bookings to and from the impacted areas combined with cancelled flights due to airport closures had a substantial effect on our results.

During the year we accomplished many notable infrastructure initiatives which will support us for many years to come. We were pleased with the successful, on-time conversion to SAP’s finance and human resource system in early 2006. As an integrated product, this software package will support many fundamental administrative functions as our crewmember population increases. Additional infrastructure accomplishments for the year include the opening of our Orlando, Florida hangar, which principally supports LiveTV. Shortly following our Orlando hangar opening, we also opened our new JFK hangar. This state-of-the art facility allows us to efficiently and effectively maintain our fleet of Airbus A320s and E190s at our home base of operations.

Last April, more than 200 LiveTV teammembers and their families met at the new LiveTV hangar in Orlando to celebrate a new home, the company’s growth and a redefined identity. When JetBlue purchased LiveTV a little over three years ago, we were their only customer with 30 aircraft in service.  Today, LiveTV is recognized as a world leader in providing satellite entertainment on commercial aircraft, with seven different products, five airline customers (AirTran, Frontier, JetBlue, Virgin Blue and WestJet) on seven different aircraft types and over 300 aircraft in service. LiveTV is unique in that it designs, manufactures, installs, maintains and provides content for the entire system. We are pleased that LiveTV has grown to be an industry leader and has successfully defined a unique position within the inflight entertainment industry.

Also in 2005, we officially opened our new JetBlue University training facility in Orlando. In 2006, we will break ground on a new crewmember housing facility, named the JetBlue Lodge, adjacent to the training center in Orlando. We expect this decision to be cost-effective in the long term, given our large training requirements in Orlando. The Greater Orlando Aviation Authority and many others in and around the City of Orlando were instrumental in partnering with our airline to ensure the proper long-term infrastructure is in place to support our airline well into the future.

With an eye on the future, we broke ground for our new terminal facility at JFK’s Terminal 5 in December 2005, which will be connected to the historic Saarinen building. This new facility and the supporting infrastructure will host 26 gates, and we expect to operate roughly 10 flights a day from each gate when the new terminal is completed in early 2009. This will give us the potential of 250 departures per day from JFK, capable of handling up to 20 million customers a year. We are already the largest airline at JFK and this new terminal will further cement our leadership position at our hometown airport. This effort was only possible through our partnership with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and we are very thankful for their ongoing vision in leading the world’s largest airport system forward into the future.

Looking ahead, our challenge will be to improve upon our revenue performance, further improve our low cost structure and keep the JetBlue Experience fresh and attractive as we grow our network. We believe we can improve the management of our inventory through a better fare mix on every flight, without significantly changing our fare range. We are also keenly focused on determining the appropriate fare structures to meet the sustained high fuel prices, as well as revamping frequencies in certain markets to optimize our revenue. In addition, we will continue to utilize leading-edge technology in our marketing efforts. In 2005, we initiated new online marketing tools that are not only cost-effective, but also produce higher booking rates. In early 2006, we launched a new advertising campaign with J. Walter Thompson and, later this year, we plan to implement Navitaire’s New Skies reservation system, the next-generation booking system that will allow us to introduce new features for our customers and permit more customization of our web site and kiosks. 

We remain committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet as we grow our airline. To that end, our liquidity position remains solid. Key to balance sheet stability is of course, profitability. As we face what appears to be the ‘‘new normal’’ for record-high fuel prices we know there are many challenges to overcome. And even though our operating margin in 2005 was higher than most other major airlines in the United States it simply was not where we would like it to be. We have committed ourselves as a company to return to profitability and intend to do everything we can to achieve this goal as quickly as possible. An important factor in this commitment is advancing our revenue management to the next level. An increased internal focus on implementing a combination of higher average fares, improved capacity alignment and diversification into new markets will assist us in our goal to enhance our revenue performance. 

We continue to look for opportunities to diversify into higher-yielding markets and are shifting our focus to short and medium haul cities where decreased competition, especially from bankrupt competitors, will allow us to command a revenue premium. Of course, we are very excited about having the A320 and E190 as part of our fleet, as the two aircraft will be instrumental in balancing the seasonality of markets, stimulating demand in smaller markets and adjusting aircraft size to accommodate varying demands during the course of an operational day.  

On the cost side, we are more committed than ever to be diligent in the items we can control. With our second greatest cost being labor, we are looking for innovative ways in which we can enhance productivity, improve business practices and increase our technology initiatives to help mitigate cost pressures. With respect to fuel, we will continue to take advantage of any opportunities to add to our hedge position and are focused internally on every means whereby we can safely and reliably reduce our fuel burn per block hour via improved techniques and new software systems in areas such as flight planning. Increased utilization of our assets and economies of scale as we grow, along with a dedicated effort to justify every dollar we spend, will also contribute to our continued focus on cost control.    

Despite the financial results of 2005, the future remains bright for JetBlue. We remain in a position of strength, thanks to the brand equity we have worked so hard to achieve and our ability to maintain a vigilant focus on low costs. With that in mind, our goal for 2006 and beyond is to return to profitability while scaling our culture as we grow. We will continue to hire crewmembers based on friendly attitudes, train them properly and provide them with the necessary tools to deliver the JetBlue Experience. More than 1,200 JetBlue crewleaders have successfully completed our Principles of Leadership program, and they continue to be held accountable for our crewmembers’ success. We will welcome up to eight new crewmembers a day to JetBlue in 2006, and every new crewmember will attend orientation where JetBlue’s senior leadership will introduce them to our values: Safety, Caring, Integrity, Fun and Passion. 

We are confident that our commitment to bringing humanity back to air travel will continue to attract and retain customers as we grow our airline. As we enter our seventh year of operations, we remain committed to providing the best airline experience for our customers and crewmembers alike.

On behalf of our over 10,000 dedicated crewmembers, thank you very much for your continued support of our airline.