InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
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January 1, 2001 |
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Generation Dot-Com Gets Its Wings
CEO David Neeleman is taking JetBlue Airways to new IT heights; he'll even check your bags for you
By Jeff Sweat
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ou have to be crazy to open a new airline in a market that has seen 87 airlines fail in the two decades since deregulation. Crazy--or, like JetBlue Airways CEO David Neeleman, innovative with the people, policies, and technologies that keep planes full and moving.Neeleman's brainchild, JetBlue, is a year-old airline that flies discount routes from New York's John F. Kennedy airport. It's not the first discount airline, yet it's attracted attention and money partly because of its innovative use of IT. "It's safe to say that they're the first airline built from the ground up for the dot-com generation," says Stuart Klaskin, a partner at Klaskin, Kushner & Co., an aviation consulting firm.
So far, JetBlue has netted $160 million in venture capital in its first year of operation. Neeleman, who started out in the travel world with the launch of Salt Lake City's Morris Air and followed that with reservation and accounting software company Open Skies, is pushing a technology and business infrastructure that may send ripples through the travel industry. Besides sporting signature leather seats with individual TV sets, JetBlue is "applying technology to an industry that's in desperate need of technology but hasn't used it," Neeleman says.
Because it had no legacy requirements to meet, JetBlue started with a clean technology slate. It chose IT strategies such as ticketless operations, unified reservations and accounting systems, and virtual call centers, which, Neeleman says, let it operate at half the cost of a typical airline. The cost savings from IT have already given JetBlue a profitable quarter in year one, a big accomplishment when many established airlines are awash in red ink.
For Neeleman, IT is the key to efficiency. For example, the customer-service architecture easily handles the 12,000 calls a day and JetBlue's 300 contact-center representatives in Utah, where it keeps its customer-service operations. Reps are given training, a PC, two phone lines, and a two-way pager; they can work from home, which saves on overhead, offers workers flexible hours and no commute, and makes it easier to respond to call-center surges.
| QUALITY
TIME : Neeleman's house has four networked computers; instead of watching TV, he and his kids go online |
| NEXT
VACATIONS : Orlando; skiing in Utah; Maine in the summer |
| WHAT
DO YOU WANT TO DO LESS OF IN 2001? "Be less oncerned with things I can't control" |
Employees say most innovations bear Neeleman's stamp, because he takes a hands-on approach to management. It's not unusual to see the CEO at the airport helping with customer service and handling luggage. "It's important for employees to see that the job they do isn't too good for me to do," he says.
He's not hung up on status symbols such as a large office, and VP of reservations Frankie Littleford says Neeleman's most pronounced management traits are his persistence and his faith in his employees. He often sets a seemingly unattainable goal--which, surprisingly, she reaches--and then it's on to the next one.
Neeleman's secret may be his ability to focus on the job without distraction. A Mormon with nine children, family is critical to him. But any time not spent with his family is likely to be thinking about work. "I love to work. I love my job," he says. "To me, there's no golf game on the planet that can compare with that."
Continue on to Elliot Masie, director of The Masie Group
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