Marty St. George Isn't Playing Around

JetBlue's legendary network planner is going big into Fort Lauderdale.

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Dear readers,

When network planners join JetBlue, Marty St. George likes to play them a scene from “Glengarry Glen Ross,” the film adaptation of the David Mamet play about a group of competitive, big-city real estate agents. In St. George’s favorite part, one of the main characters is explaining the rules of a sales contest.

“The punchline is: ‘First prize is a new Cadillac, second prize is a set of steak knives, and third prize is ‘you’re fired,’” St. George said.

St. George isn’t suggesting he’ll fire planners for proposing losing routes (though given the airline’s tenuous financial position, cash-negative routes are not ideal). Instead, he’s reminding them that the No. 3 position in an airline market is worthless, while No. 2 is just OK. In a scale business, the top dog wins a disproportionate portion of the profits — and that’s what JetBlue seeks. Anywhere, really.

“We have never had a focus city where we were reliably No. 1 by a big number,” St. George said. “The joke I said in the meeting was the only place we were reliably No. 1 in the market was in Presque Isle, because we’re the only guy that flies there.”

Now, JetBlue has its chance.