DAVID NEELEMAN HAS NO FEAR OF FLYING
THE ICY WEATHER SYSTEM that trundled up the Atlantic Seaboard and glazed New York City on February 14, 2007, was nasty, but not the worst that airlines had ever confronted. Mainline carriers such as American and Delta knew the drill. They canceled flights in anticipation while moving equipment and crews to sidestep the storm and minimize disruptions. The newer kid on the tarmac, JetBlue, flew into the storm face first. And flopped.
The low-cost carrier was barely seven years old, growing rapidly and happily because customers loved its panache, pricing, and product—comfortable seating, free satellite TV, and freewheeling yet attentive flight crews. Concentrating its fleet in New York and Boston made the carrier more vulnerable to winter weather, though, and as the storm began to wreak havoc on operations, JetBlue swiftly learned that its communications and logistics networks had not scaled with the rest of the outfit. With crews stuck out of place, the airline would cancel more than 1,000 flights over five abysmal days, stranding customers from the Caribbean to Queens. One jet full of passengers sat on the tarmac for eight hours. The debacle ultimately cost the airline $30 million.
Even before the storm had passed, JetBlue founder and CEO David Neeleman was conducting a nonstop apology tour, vowing to upgrade systems and make things right by customers. “This is going to be a different company because of this,” he told The New York Times. He was right about that. Three months later, JetBlue announced that Neeleman was leaving the CEO post and becoming chairman. At least Neeleman wasn’t aboard a flight when his own board shoved him out the door.
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