Forensic Analysis · Air Transportation · as of Nov 9, 2026
Jetblue Airways Corp (JBLU)
A forensic read on Jetblue Airways Corp built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
F · Poor — capital at risk
Forensic grade
Distress
Financial health
-0.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
-25.3%
ROE
-2.3%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Jetblue Airways Corp earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -0.3, placing it in the Distress zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-2.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -2.6% in the latest fiscal year, against -1.9% in FY2023, having run between -5.2% and -1.9% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($182M) in FY2023 and ($291M) in FY2025, with operating income at -2.4% of revenue in FY2023, -7.4% in FY2024 and -4.1% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +20% across FY2023–FY2025, from $9.4B to $11.2B, while the return fell 0.7 points, so the dollars added over that window earned less than the -1.9% the older base was already earning. $1.3B of the $11.2B base at FY2025 is short-term investments and long-term marketable securities (11.4%) — securities held beside cash, which the base keeps because only cash is subtracted from it; they earn the balance sheet's yield, which is not in the operating profit above, so the loss on the operating capital is larger than this rate shows.
+4.3%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +9% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+4.3%/yr). The count is growing — 332.9M shares in FY2023, 362.1M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~4.3% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2023 has been diluted ~8%.
0.4% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.4% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.11 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 4.3% a year across FY2023–FY2025 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$9.06B
Revenue Growth YoY-2.3%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-2.9%
Net Margin-6.6%
Free Cash Flow-$1.17B
Return on Equity-25.3%
Debt / Equity4.01x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Jetblue Airways Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?