Interview: JetBlue Founder’s Future With Azul Airlines and TAP Portugal
Photo Credit: David Neeleman's post JetBlue project, Brazil's Azul Airlines, has struggled in recent years because of Brazil's sluggish economy. But he predicts the airline will report a third-quarter profit. Azul Airlines
Skift Take
When David Neeleman was pushed out of JetBlue Airways, the carrier he founded, in 2007, it wasn't clear he would have a next act. But Neeleman, who now controls two airlines, is doing just fine.
Future of Passenger Experience
To better understand the challenges facing airlines in an age of fluctuating oil prices, rapid growth, and changing passenger expectations, our Future of Passenger Experience series will allow leaders in the industry to explain their best practices and insights.David Neeleman did not leave JetBlue Airways under the best of circumstances.
It was 2007, not long after the airline's Valentine's Day crisis, when a New York-area ice storm crippled JetBlue's operations for days. All airlines have meltdowns at some point but this was worse than most, with many passengers stuck on planes for hours, and others unable to get help from customer service agents. A few months later, after making an apology tour, Neeleman, the company's founder, resigned as CEO.
But Neeleman is a lifelong airline guy — he co-founded a U.S. airline called Morris Air in 1984, when he was in his mid-20s and sold it to Southwest Airlines in 1993 — and again this time it did not take him long to reappear. By 2008, he had started a new airline, Brazil's Azul Airlines. A low-cost carrier, Azul is similar to JetBlue in its strategy, paint job and onboard product (and color, too: "azul" is blue in Portugues and Spanish).
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