Markets

JetBlue's President and COO Russ Chew Talks About the Airline's Transformation

By Brett Snyder

Updated on: April 3, 2009 / 11:25 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

If you read Cranky, you've already seen my interview with Dave Barger, CEO of JetBlue (part 1 and part 2), but he wasn't the only JetBlue exec I was able to sit with last week. I also had the chance to talk to President and COO Russ Chew while I was there, and he had plenty to say about the internal transformation of JetBlue as a company.

When I asked him to describe his role at JetBlue, he put it quite simply, "At the FAA [as Chief Operating Officer], I tried to get them to be less bureaucratic and JetBlue, more bureaucratic." But it's not that simple, of course. Introducing bureaucracy at an airline that's known for being quick and responsive could have killed the airline. As Russ said, he was looking to bring people in who were experienced with operating a larger airline but also people who didn't have a legacy-type of thinking. "We don't want to suppress innovation."

That plan when he arrived was to "stop growing so fast and get the financials in order." As we know, JetBlue has slowed growth significantly and is sitting in a better financial position then where they have been in recent times, so that part appears to have worked.

But I wanted specifics. What exactly was he trying to do at JetBlue right now? Russ said there were three things he was focused on:

A new network strategy was put in to place that would focus on putting airplanes where they could maximize their unit revenues (Revenue per Available Seat Mile, or, RASM).
They are working on bringing IT systems up to speed so that they could handle the tremendous volume and complexity that the airline now requires. For example, Sabre will replace Open Skies as the airline's reservation system, and that will allow the airline to better handle higher volumes as well as partnerships.
An operational integrity program was put into place. This involves "taking what we've done to improve recovery times and create processes around what we do." This plan also will improve, as Russ said, "planning, action, and communication," starting with internal communication and then external.

The big question for me was . . . what does this mean for the customer and when will they start seeing the results? Russ said that the reservation system will happen next summer and the reliability programs should be rolling out in the spring. So next year will be a big year for the airline.