I first met JetBlue founder David Neeleman when he was checking my bag onto a JetBlue flight at JFK Airport. This wasn’t some staged stunt. He looked uncomfortable when I said, “Hey, aren’t you the CEO of JetBlue?” In a world where you were lucky to get pretzels and a smile, this was the airline with cheeky attendants, blue chips, a TV in every seat, and, apparently, a chief executive who occasionally worked the airport floor.
Thinking differently is the through-line of Neeleman’s aviation career in which he’s founded five different airlines.
He left JetBlue after a 2007 ice storm created so much chaos that it cost him his job. A year later, he launched another carrier, Azul Brazilian Airlines, to open up air travel to underserved routes in the country where he was born and served as a Mormon missionary. The concept of flying was so new to many travelers there that I recall him telling me how some brought their own toilet paper on board. He changed his marketing and services to help new fliers adjust. He’s also been a pioneer by having reservations agents work from home and giving pilots work-life balance.
At Fortune Brainstorm Tech this week, Neeleman, now the CEO of Breeze Airways, talked about the power of differentiating through better service in an era when customers are especially unhappy. He launched Breeze in 2018 to focus on smaller cities, where 90% of routes have no non-stop competition, and to challenge the premiere carriers in the U.S. airline industry, which has gotten increasingly top-heavy since President Jimmy Carter deregulated it in 1978. The country’s four largest carriers now control about four-fifths of domestic traffic, primarily out of large cities where one carrier often dominates.
Neeleman understands the role that government continues to play in commercial aviation. When the federal government deregulated aviation, it also launched the Essential Air Service program to subsidize carriers that made otherwise unprofitable flights to small rural airports. Breeze recently applied to serve one of those subsidized routes.
Neeleman’s knack for disruption is not just a strategy but a mindset. When I told him years ago that one of my children had recently been diagnosed with ADHD—knowing he had it, too—his response was, “Congratulations! He’ll spot patterns that no one else will ever see.”
We are all shaped by nature and nurturing. In this week’s episode of Fortune’s Leadership Next podcast, Michal Lev-Ram talks to Sephora’s new CEO of North America, Artemis Patrick. Born in Iran, she grew up with foster parents in California. It’s a moving discussion.
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