New President -- Marty St. George

[eolesen]

Looks like Marty St. George is returning to JetBlue -- he spent 13 years there in various roles including chief commercial officer before stepping down in 2020.

Marty St. George Named President of JetBlue

30-year industry veteran rejoins JetBlue effective February 26, 2024 JetBlue (Nasdaq: JBLU) today announced the appointment of Marty St. George to be the company’s next president, effective February 26, 2024. He will report to Joanna Geraghty, JetBlue’s current president and incoming chief...

news.jetblue.com

I've known Marty for a long time, and he's just what they needed to get things back on track.

 

[SWAMECH]

Looks like Marty St. George is returning to JetBlue -- he spent 13 years there in various roles including chief commercial officer before stepping down in 2020.

Marty St. George Named President of JetBlue

30-year industry veteran rejoins JetBlue effective February 26, 2024 JetBlue (Nasdaq: JBLU) today announced the appointment of Marty St. George to be the company’s next president, effective February 26, 2024. He will report to Joanna Geraghty, JetBlue’s current president and incoming chief...

news.jetblue.com

I've known Marty for a long time, and he's just what they needed to get things back on track.

E, you may know better than anyone. Is Marty SG being brought in to help get the merger done? I see one of his titles is airline partnerships in his new role at JB. Just curious about the timing is all. Reading his past, he does fit the position to a "T" IMO.

 

[CorvetteMan]

E, you may know better than anyone. Is Marty SG being brought in to help get the merger done? I see one of his titles is airline partnerships in his new role at JB. Just curious about the timing is all. Reading his past, he does fit the position to a "T" IMO.

There will be no merger. Follow along.

 

[eolesen]

It's not about the merger. It's about cleaning up the overall dumpster fire Robin Hayes left behind when the board pushed him out the door a month ago.

There are very few people who could step in and fix this mess, and Marty is one of them.

I'll quote from Brett aka Cranky, who (for disclosure) worked for Marty when both were at United what seems like a lifetime ago...

Departing JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes Has Little to Show for His Nine Years at the Helm – Cranky Flier

Robin [Hayes]’s tenure can really be broken into two halfs. Between 2015 when he took over as CEO and the pandemic, JetBlue seemed more focused on controlling its own destiny and growing organically. The airline was building its Boston and Fort Lauderdale operations. 

Then the pandemic hit, and the airline changed. Or maybe it wasn’t the pandemic when it happened; maybe it was when CCO Marty St George left in June 2019. Whatever it was, around that time, JetBlue’s eye started wandering.

During the pandemic, the airline focused more on short-term opportunity instead of long-term strategy as other airlines like Delta and Southwest did. The experiments in Miami, Newark, Philly, and Raleigh/Durham amounted to nothing and were discarded just as quickly as they started.

Meanwhile, the airline’s culture continued to erode from those heady early days. Under Robin’s leadership post-pandemic, JetBlue took three big swings, but it ended up striking out. The JetBlue of today is in a worse place than it was 5 years ago.

The three big swings Brett refers to are the NEA, the Spirit Merger, and launching service to Europe.

All that happened after Marty left.

My guess, and it's just a guess.... JetBlue knows it needs to rewind nine years and try to become the airline they used to be.

Warren Christie can fix the operation. Marty can fix the commercial strategy. Joanna was the clear #2 under Hayes, so I have to question how long the board will keep her there or if it's really for short term continuity...

Either way, I'm betting on JetBlue finding a way to be its old self and do organic growth vs. fighting too hard for a merger that was going to be a serious distraction for the next 3-4 years.

 

[SWAMECH]

Didn't realize how bad off Robin Hayes left JB in. I will agree they have more important things to fix than a merger. Will be interesting watching them rebuild going forward. Never really followed JB before, just thought they were strumming along doing as well as they have in the past, but now I see and will watch them in a different view.

 

[WeAAsles]

It's not about the merger. It's about cleaning up the overall dumpster fire Robin Hayes left behind when the board pushed him out the door a month ago.

There are very few people who could step in and fix this mess, and Marty is one of them.

I'll quote from Brett aka Cranky, who (for disclosure) worked for Marty when both were at United what seems like a lifetime ago...

Departing JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes Has Little to Show for His Nine Years at the Helm – Cranky Flier

The three big swings Brett refers to are the NEA, the Spirit Merger, and launching service to Europe.

All that happened after Marty left.

My guess, and it's just a guess.... JetBlue knows it needs to rewind nine years and try to become the airline they used to be.

Warren Christie can fix the operation. Marty can fix the commercial strategy. Joanna was the clear #2 under Hayes, so I have to question how long the board will keep her there or if it's really for short term continuity...

Either way, I'm betting on JetBlue finding a way to be its old self and do organic growth vs. fighting too hard for a merger that was going to be a serious distraction for the next 3-4 years.

Interesting to have a front row seat working in FLL. The day they lost the case lots of JetBlue and Spirit people on the employee bus were in depression panic mode. Also quite snappy.

I didn’t see it put out publicly anywhere but JetBlue right after the CEO announcement also sent out a notice of raises to their ground staff. They’re actually only going .33 cents an hour below AA end of March. And next year they’re going up almost another $2.00 TOS.

 

[eolesen]

Never really followed JB before, just thought they were strumming along doing as well as they have in the past, but now I see and will watch them in a different view.

And yet you've been this huge cheerleader for the merger. Odd.

 

[SWAMECH]

I was for the merger to give JB more cost where they would indeed have to raise prices in order to maintain. That would place them even further away from Southwest's pricing model than they are now. It would also delete one of the largest ULCC's from the market, also helping Southwest's bottom line from all the penny pinchers only looking at pricing of tickets to fly.
Another reason, but not as much, was to see if AMFA wouldn't be able to grow even larger within the industry since they already represent Spirit, a simple vote, with JB Mechanics already turning in a large number of signed cards, I think would prevail in AMFA's favor when a vote would occur, after the merger is completed.
On top of all that, Spirit needs some serious help and JB needs some help in order to grow and/or keep up as they have missed out on past merger options that were swept out from underneath of them by other airlines, which is why they came in and over bid for Spirit out from Frontier. They got tired of being bullied around the merger life.
I knew both Spirit and JB were hurting, just didn't realize how bad off one or the other were. Now that all the cards are on the table while getting looked at for the merger I see just how bad off they were/are.
I never follow or care about all the other airlines on how bad or how good they are doing, only care about how well or bad my airline is doing. So, for me to care or even know the exact level of stability of other airlines are not even a main thought in my head, I have other thing, and damn sure more important things to worry about than how well or bad other airlines are doing.