Firing Neeleman; JetBlue Just Blew It

 |  from FC Experts

Mark February 14th, 2007 as the day that destroyed JetBlue. Not because the airline massively screwed up, stranded 1,000 planes, and turned passengers into captives. But because David Neeleman, JetBlue's founder and CEO, was unable to recover from the debacle. Despite more apologies than Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin combined, last week he was removed as CEO from the company he visioned into flight.

The board did what boards do: replacing a passionate, entrepreneurial creator with a skilled "operator." In this case, it's David Barger, who had been president since the airline got started.

Why Barger, as president, was Tefloned from responsibility for the February 14th fiasco is another question. Shouldn't the guy who's responsible for the day-to-day at least take some of the heat, rather than be promoted? Doesn't make any sense to me.