JetBlue names new president as CEO shifts to long-term strategy

JetBlue Airways is promoting Joanna Geraghty to president, tasking her with running day-to-day operations while freeing up CEO Robin Hayes to focus on long-term planning. Geraghty, 45, will also oversee the airline’s commercial team, JetBlue said in a statement Friday. Hayes, 51, will manage efforts to improve profit margins and the company’s expansion into related travel and vacation businesses. Geraghty will take over as JetBlue’s No. 2 executive as the New York-based airline faces a raft of other changes. The New York-based airline is nearing a decision on whether to expand service across the Atlantic Ocean, while also working through a cost-cutting program and contending with the unionization of two critical work groups: pilots and flight attendants. “It certainly makes sense,” Susan Donofrio, an analyst at Macquarie Group, said of the management shift. “If anything, it adds more to the credibility of the company because they are thinking about the longer-term plan.” The promotion makes Geraghty, who will also be JetBlue’s COO, the highest-ranking woman at a large US airline. <br/>