Whether your a SouthWest fan or not you’ve got to admire chairman Herb Kelleher, 77, who will chair his 31st and last Southwest Airlines Co. annual meeting Wednesday, ending one of the longest and most colorful tenures for a head of a U.S. airline.

As of Thursday, he’ll just be an ordinary employee of Dallas-based Southwest – if Mr. Kelleher can ever be considered ordinary. His $400,000-a-year contract keeps him at Southwest into 2013. It does not state his duties.

And Mr. Kelleher says he expects to still be coming to work every day in 2013, when he turns 82.

“I would guess so. I enjoy it. I enjoy work. You can refer to me as a drone, a worker bee. I always have enjoyed it,” Mr. Kelleher said Friday, adding, “I hope I can still be useful.”

Just for comparison take a look at what’s changed with SouthWest from 1978 until today.

Category                           1978         2007
Airplanes                             13            520
Employees                          1,119         33,261
Net income                       $17 million  $645 million
Destinations                           9             64
States of operation                  1             33
Average flight distance            235 miles    629 miles
Average passenger trip distance    297 miles    815 miles
Annual passengers                3.5 million  101.9 million
Average fare                       $21.99       $106.60

JetBlue founder David Neeleman revealed the name for his new low-cost Brazilian airline yesterday.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise as the name that was chosen was Azul, which means blue in Portuguese.

The name came from a naming contest that had over 157,000 entries from 108,000 different people.
The final vote came from Neeleman’s camp in choosing Azul while Samba actually had more votes.
Regardless of the name lets hope Azul can be the great success that jetBlue has been in the U.S.

Go get em Azul!

Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines said on Monday they have agreed to merge in a deal valued at more than USD$3 billion, aiming to cut costs amid skyrocketing fuel prices and compete better globally.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, which would create the world’s largest airline, Delta will acquire Northwest in an all-stock swap in which Northwest shareholders will receive 1.25 Delta shares for each Northwest share they own.

Frontier Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late Thursday in Manhattan.

Frontier blamed the action on an “unexpected attempt by its principal credit card processor to substantially increase a ‘holdback’ of customer receipts, which threatened to severely impact the airline’s liquidity.”

“Frontier is committed to delivering exceptional customer service and we intend to continue delivering on that promise with normal operations throughout our reorganization process,” said Sean Menke, Frontier president and chief executive, in a news release issued just before midnight in Denver.

JetBlue founder and Chairman David Neeleman has announced plans to start up his fourth airline, a domestic carrier in Brazil, pending local Government approvals. Mr. Neeleman, who was born in Brazil, has raised $150 million to finance the as-yet-unnamed carrier.

The airline, to be based in São Paulo, plans to commence operations in early 2009 and, ultimately, will serve most major markets throughout Brazil with as many as 76 brand-new Embraer aircraft by 2013.

This could be an interesting development as Europe’s rail system is set to explode in the future, it will be interesting to see how this affects air travel.

March 10 (Reuters) - Air France could cut a quarter of the 4,000 jobs in its domestic network by 2016 due to increased competition from TGV fast trains, a spokesman said on Friday.

“We expect that the competition with the TGV will increase, and we have informed the unions of our plans to adapt our organization to that,” he said, adding that there would be no lay-offs and all would be absorbed by natural departures over the next eight years.

A number of regional connections could be canceled or reduced in frequency.

Low cost carrier Vueling Airlines appears to be in a bit of troubleas they’ve now canceled their orders for 3 new Airbus A320 aircraft as well as postponed delivery of six others to 2009 after reporting a 73 percent fall in profits in the third quarter of this year.

Google Page Rank 5/10
Alexa rank of 1,539
YSlow rank F(35)
132 HTML errors on front page
90 CSS errors on front page
Failed Section 508 tests
Half Nut rank F

Overall I think they’ve got a decent site with a strong brand. Their code needs some updating for speed, accessibility and complying with the standards.

On a positive note they have a cool feature where you can download their toolbar to view information about flights. http://www.vueling.com/EN/latest/toolbar.php?language=EN&idMenu=5

David Neeleman who started JetBlue Airways built a wonderful brand and has now moved on to the next big project. The founder of JetBlue Airways wants to start a new Brazilian airline and is in negotiations with Brazil’s Embraer plane maker to buy 36 mid-range jets, a leading Brazilian newspaper reported Tuesday.

David Neeleman while still a chairman at JetBlue, has lined up investment totaling about $200 million for the venture, the O Estado de São Paulo newspaper reported.

The newspaper, citing sources close to the deal, said Neeleman has already bought a small Brazilian airline named Cheta with government authorization to operate in Latin America’s largest nation.

My money is on David to create another successful low-cost carrier. This type of business is in his blood and I can’t see him sitting still for very long. I’m sure Cheta or whatever he may change the business to will thrive!

The New York Times just released their list of 53 Places to Go in 2008.
Well worth checking out I think.

Passengers on JetBlue Airways Flight 641 from New York JFK to San Francisco Tuesday morning will be the first to have access to the carrier’s new inflight Internet service, which will allow customers with Wi-Fi enabled laptops or one of two BlackBerry models to log on to Yahoo! Mail and Messenger or their personal e-mail accounts (via PDA).

JetBlue subsidiary LiveTV paid $7 million for a 1-MHz block of former Verizon Airfone wireless spectrum auctioned off by the US Federal Communications Commission last year. The size of that spectrum will not allow passengers full access to the World Wide Web or e-mail attachments, but it is large enough to handle the limited capabilities that will feature on Tuesday’s flight. The A320, which joined the fleet this year and has been renamed for the BetaBlue product, will have three Wi-Fi access points installed behind the ceiling panels and an onboard server. A JetBlue spokesperson told ATWOnline that the installation is a “lightweight version of what’s needed” and does not include any heavy equipment that might be difficult to install or increase fuel burn.