Jetblue Case Study

avid Neeleman founded the Airlines in 1999, and the airline was considered as the first “mega start-up” applicant in the nation with $130 million in equity capital (JetBlue, 2012). Its maiden flight took off in February 2000, by the end of that year, more than one million passengers flew with the airline (JetBlue, 2011). Before the crisis, among low-cost airlines JetBlue is ranked high in on-board customer satisfaction and on-time flight, more so, the airline was well-known for its customer-friendly reputation (Ostrowski, 2010). JetBlue expanded speedily across the nation, growing by 30% in a year (Maynard, 2008). Of all of JetBlue’s total flights in 2006, only 0.19% had more than 2 hours flight delay (Bailey, 2007). During the fourth quarter …show more content…
The strategy of corporate apologia as the only crisis response strategy would not be strong enough to address the crisis. Therefore in order to restore JetBlue’s legitimacy with customers, stakeholders, and general public, corporate impression was another crisis response strategy adopted by JetBlue to address the issue. The theory of Image restoration was also chosen for the response planning, JetBlue focused on strategies to help the organization restore and repair its image as a result of wrongdoing and also clarifying their actions during the crisis to customers and stakeholders. These multi-crisis response strategies provided JetBlue airline with the tactics to respond properly and appropriately to the …show more content…
Neeleman stepped down as the CEO in 2007 (Maynard, 2008). JetBlue airline was accused of growing so fast, JetBlue airline has since then re-focused its strengths on providing valued flight coupled with outstanding service to customers (Maynard, 2008). New aircraft was added to their fleet, new destinations were added to their itineraries, and a major renovation of their terminal at JFK Airport started in 2008. The most noteworthy change is their efforts toward their communication with their customers. According to Efthimiou (2010), “even with crisis plans and emergency communication command centers, an organization must rely on its people, being its most valuable asset, to handle the threat.” Irrespective of the crisis situation, JetBlue airline made use of varieties of communication channels which help to keep its customers informed at all times. This is an important lesson for any organization that no matter what the crisis that hits the organization, crisis communications planning is vital to quick recovery. From the study above, the JetBlue airline did not only recover from the crisis, but also prosper in the aftermath of the