At JetBlue, Growing Up Is Hard to Do

New York Times, October 5, 2008 — JETBLUE AIRWAYS was the darling of the airline industry until Valentine’s Day, 2007. And life for the carrier hasn’t been the same since.

On what is now known within the company as “2/14,” a winter storm paralyzed flights at New York City’s airports. Hit hardest was John F. Kennedy International, where JetBlue, which got its start in 2000, has its busiest hub. Its planes were snowbound at gates or stuck on runways, trapping some passengers.

The 2/14 fiasco set off a crisis — emotional, cultural and financial — that few start-ups might have survived.