What should Neeleman as a CEO do with Dave Barger in light of his absence during much of the crisis?

Nothing would test JetBlue's-or Neeleman's-limits more than the East Coast ice storm that began on February 14, 2007. When the storm hit, it was expected to be a cold rain. In keeping with its approach of avoiding flight cancellations, JetBlue allowed multiple flights at JFK Airport to depart their gates. As the storm worsened and the rain turned to ice, it became impossible for these airplanes to take off. They were also unable to return to their gates since other planes had occupied the slots in the interim. As a result, JetBlue stranded passengers on nine flights for up to six hours. In the ensuing days, over 1,000 flights were canceled. Although other airlines suffered similar problems, the extremely negative press coverage that followed these events focused on JetBlue, severely damaging the customer goodwill that Neeleman had worked so hard to create From the founding of the company, Neeleman had delegated the day-to-day operations of the company to COO Barger. However, Barger was in Florida when the storm hit and remained there for the next several days. Operating without his longtime COO at his side, Neeleman became all too aware of how ill-equipped JetBlue was to handle a crisis of this magnitude. He became very frustrated that the operational processes were not in place to end the crisis. "This was an operational failure. We had an emergency control center full of people who didn't know what to do, because they lacked the necessary systems and were ill-equipped to handle a crisis of this magnitude," he said.34 Neeleman next focused on restoring customer confidence in JetBlue by apologizing directly to customers and by finding a way to address quickly JetBlue's operational deficiencies. Less than a week after the crisis first hit, Neeleman took the unprecedented step in the industry of announcing the Customer Bill of Rights, committing JetBlue to spend $30 million to compensate passengers who had been stranded during the storm, as well as specific compensation levels for flight delays and inconveniences for future passengers of JetBlue 35 He noted, "In a sense, I sacrificed myself to save the brand-and it worked." He continued: "I knowingly went out there and said we screwed up. We rode the wave of great publicity, but that turned on us really quickly. We had to do something drastic to pull it out, so we came up with the Customer Bill of Rights. I was so wrapped up in trying to save the business and the brand, and pulling us back together again, that I failed to communicate effectively with my board." Neeleman knew he had a steep hill to climb in order to restore the confidence of his customers and his board and get JetBlue back on track. His apology campaign received high scores from the public and from crisis communications experts as he took responsibility for the crisis. But the JetBlue board had serious concerns about whether he had made a mistake in apologizing for this crisis. Neeleman felt he couldn't have handled the crisis in any other way. As he noted, "I personally felt I had to do it. How could I face our customers and our crew members if I didn't take accountability for our problems?"36 To address the operational issues, Neeleman successfully wooed Russ Chew to join JetBlue as COO, with the charter to overhaul the operations function. At the time, Chew was COO of the Federal Aviation Administration and had previously headed American Airlines' operational control center. "Chew got things back on track, and kept them there," Neeleman said