Rapid Response: Balancing data with gut feeling, w/JetBlue's Joanna Geraghty
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2020
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After record-shattering drops in revenue from Covid-19, JetBlue had to rethink every plan and every assumption. Joanna Geraghty, JetBlue's president and chief operating officer, shares how the airline built a new system for flexing the business, to ramp up only when demand rises, deploying cost cuts but no furloughs. As airlines grapple with a new global infection surge, Geraghty says her decisions rely on new types of data as well as gut feeling – from re-opening middle seats starting in January 2021 to expanding flights to London. The volume of choices Geraghty has to make and the uncertainty around the risks are dizzying. But despite the challenges, she says, JetBlue is rising up.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think the future of the industry is at stake. |
| 0:06.6 | The pandemic did a phenomenal job in quickly directing your priorities. |
| 0:13.9 | When your revenue drops 95% overnight, you have to take a step back and reposition. |
| 0:21.4 | And in a pandemic, your crew member safety becomes your number one priority, followed by |
| 0:26.8 | customer safety, followed by financial stability. |
| 0:31.0 | And that enables you to hone in and direct your resources in a very purposeful, driven way. |
| 0:39.2 | And then, once you feel that you've got a plan for those three areas, you can then take |
| 0:45.8 | a step back and say, okay, what are the opportunities that are in come out of this? |
| 0:50.5 | Because there will be opportunities. |
| 0:53.6 | As an airline that's largely leisure, we're excited about our prospects for recovery, |
| 0:57.8 | because we do think that leisure travel will come back. |
| 1:01.4 | It will come back in a meaningful way. |
| 1:04.9 | She was thanking me for my leadership, and I just looked at her and I said, what you've |
| 1:09.1 | done in the sacrifices that you've made have been truly remarkable. |
| 1:13.9 | So it's this gut feeling, making sure that your plans also reflect not just the data, |
| 1:20.6 | but also how does it feel? |
| 1:24.6 | Traveling now definitely feels different, but it feels good to be back out there. |
| 1:31.0 | That's Joanna Garrity, president and chief operating officer of JetBlue. |
| 1:36.1 | Like other airlines, JetBlue has been crushed by COVID-19. |
| 1:39.8 | Joanna's head to manage costs, cuts, schedule shifts, new protocols, and constant uncertainty. |
| 1:45.7 | I'm Bob Safian, former editor of Fest Company, founder of the Flux Group, and host of |
| 1:51.4 | Masters of Scale Rapid Response. |
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