David Neeleman is the founder of jetBlue Airways and previously worked with Southwest Airlines, after he’d sold his earlier company, Morris Air, to Southwest in 1993.
This blog post relates the story about being dumped by Southwest founder Herb Kelleher that Neeleman told at a conference in Washington, D.C.:
Neeleman idolized Kelleher and told the audience that he would have sold Morris to Southwest for a lot less than he did to get the chance to work with Kelleher. Neeleman hit the ground running at Southwest and started pushing big changes on a number of fronts. Five months after getting there, Kelleher took Neeleman to lunch at a Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Dallas and told him he was fired because he was just too impetuous. Neeleman told us he cried after that conversation.
1 comment
Mr Neeleman seems to have a way with history… the airline was called Morris Air not Neeleman Air, he’s forgotten about the money behind it and the other founder. Neeleman was quirky during his time at LUV and added an extra D to ADD.
….from wikipedia
The airline began charter operations as Morris Air Service in 1984. It was founded by June Morris who also founded Morris Travel, and David Neeleman who also co-founded WestJet. David Neeleman worked with Southwest for a short period. When his non-compete agreement expired, Neeleman founded JetBlue Airways. June Morris sat on the Board of Directors of Southwest Airlines until she retired at Southwest’s annual shareholders’ meeting on May 17, 2006.