Originally Posted by
ZapBrannigan
yeah but didn't Herb fire him? He was super religious and never quite synced up with Herb's smoking and drinking and sense of humor. Thought I remembered reading that he was fired.
Found it.
"...But, just five months after the sale, Kelleher fired him.As Neeleman tells it, with 25 years of context, he wasn't a great fit at Southwest. He'd brought an "absolutely paranoid," startup sensibility to Southwest -- which was a stable company that with many years of consecutive profit behind it at that point.
But still, it hurt big-time to be fired, Neeleman recalled recently on a recent episode of NPR's podcast,
How I Built This With Guy Raz.
"Herb invited me to the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Dallas," Neelman said. "And he said, this isn't going to work. You're driving everyone insane. ... He reached across the table and held my hands. I was crying. ... 'Even the people that are your biggest supporters said I had to let you go.'"
[url]https://
http://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/fi...ming-back.html[/QUOTE]
That is a great interview by the way. Guy Raz also interviewed Herb. Also great.
Both are con men in their own way.
Nelleman is a start up CEO. He specializes in getting funding and investors together to start airlines quickly, a business that has a very high barrier to entry. He has had some success, mainly due to timing and location, but success nonetheless. He is, self admittedly, not a good day to day CEO and is easily bored with the day to day running of a stable company. It is why he left JetBlue and Azul.
Herb was kind of the opposite. He used blunt force to get Southwest on the map and flying airplanes. He then used the same blunt force approach to expand the network and make them a big airline. He loved the day to day and relished his role as CEO. He could also sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady in white gloves and made everyone around him believe that they were important. That is how he sold a bill of goods to thousands of employees and made them WANT to settle for less. They did it with a smile on their faces and a song in their hearts. All for Herb. He encouraged his employees to unionize and then used those very unions to further his aims. The guy was truly a genius, you have to admit. He knew people.
Breeze was a strange project. I am not convinced that this one will survive long term like JetBlue and Azul. JetBlue had the fortune of great timing and a JFK hub that was reeling in the early 2000s and needed revenue. Azul was perfectly launched to take advantage of a rising middle and wealthy class in Brazil who now could afford to take trips around the country (its huge!) and the world. Breeze was a Covid baby and it was launched with the intention of filling a vacuum that, quite frankly, didn't last quite as long as anyone thought it would. They are throwing jello at a wall trying to get it to stick with city pairs and routes. They don't have the capacity and pricing power to compete at scale and their product isn't unique at all unlike both JetBlue and Azul. They are definitely an acquisition target, but I don't know if they are quite to the point where they are ready to be bought and I know Southwest isn't at the point where they are willing to take on two new aircraft types and a bunch of struggling markets.
Sorry, I just don't see it happening. Not now.
All this what if about a merger is just ridiculous sh!t talk. Nobody is getting merged.