For nine years at JetBlue Airways Corp., Dave Barger played the quiet No. 2 executive to David Neeleman, the discount carrier’s passionate, high-profile founder and chief executive.Now, the reserved Mr. Barger is manning the controls when the airline most needs a steady hand. JetBlue lifted off in 2000 to rave reviews and four years of strong profit before plunging into losses as it struggled with its own rapid growth and rising costs. Then in February, it infuriated customers with its botched handling of an ice storm, although JetBlue recently seems to have recovered by winning top honours in two airline polls and on Wednesday raising its second-quarter earnings guidance. Last month, JetBlue’s board unexpectedly asked Mr. Neeleman to step aside and become nonexecutive board chairman. Mr. Barger, 49 years old, was named to succeed him.

The Detroit native, an ardent fisherman and Detroit Tigers baseball fan, comes from an airline family. His father was a United Airlines pilot, his mother and stepmother were flight attendants, and his brother was a Navy Top Gun aviator who now runs JetBlue’s training campus in Orlando, Florida.

In an interview at JetBlue’s headquarters in Forest Hills, New York, Mr. Barger talked about how he’s revisiting the airline’s strategy, his views on prospects for airline consolidation and how to deal with a customer crisis. Excerpts:

WSJ: You come from an aviation family. What draws people into this industry?

Mr. Barger: It’s the freedom it gives us, the liberty. There’s something really cool about connecting cultures and connecting people. And let’s face it, airplanes are fascinating machines. (But) if you don’t like logistics and you don’t like external factors and you want to control your destiny, do not get into this business because there are too many forces that are in play.

WSJ: Will the long-predicted consolidation of the airline industry ever happen?

Mr. Barger: I truly believe it will. Take a look at the auto industry and the steel industry and these other maturing industries and one can’t help but be led to a conclusion that there will be consolidation. How many alliance carriers do you need to go from A to B? How many domestic brands do you need? But how do you merge cultures? That seems to be the lone question that never has been answered adequately. You can merge operating certificates and facilities and fleets and the infrastructure. But even if a merger makes sense, there isn’t enough creativity to say, ‘Listen, how are we going to make the cultural side of the equation work?’>

WSJ: Analysts have been buzzing about Delta Air Lines coveting your company. Has anybody approached JetBlue about an acquisition?

Mr. Barger: No. What we’ve accomplished over the last seven years is organic growth, something very important to me. I wouldn’t welcome any overture. In an acquisition, the product would get lost. The focus on costs would get lost. Most importantly, this relationship we have with our crew members, 11,500 strong, (would be lost). I just don’t think that’s a good solution for us.

WSJ: And you’re not looking to buy another airline?

Mr. Barger: We’re not. But it’s not lost on us that our route network from JFK could plug in nicely with other marketing partners. That’s why we have a new relationship with Cape Air (a turboprop commuter carrier that serves New England). It’s small, as we’re stepping into the shallow end of these relationship

WSJ: Will the airline industry ever be broadly, consistently profitable or will it continue to hobble along?

Mr. Barger: The airline industry can be long-term profitable if the market economics are allowed to play out. This deregulated industry is highly regulated, and I don’t mean from an FAA perspective, but from the standpoint of the involvement of Washington. As a young airline, how do we compete with all these competitors who have adjusted their cost structure as a result of going through the bankruptcy car wash? Wow, that was a lesson that was rather rude, that 50 percent of the domestic seats at one point were being operated by airlines under bankruptcy protection. We’re taking a different approach. The commitments we’ve made to our original equipment manufacturers, our communities, our crew members — we can’t back off on those commitments.

WSJ: What did you learn from your Valentine’s Day meltdown that you could tell managers in other industries confronting similar disasters?

Mr. Barger: Hope isn’t a plan. You better assume that Plan B is not going to materialize either, so what’s Plan C and D? Keep it to a one-day event, don’t make it a two-day event or, in our case, a six-day event. Limit the damage. Make sure that the problem is identified and there are fences put around it. Service recovery is key as well.

WSJ: So Mr. Neeleman’s profuse apologizing was part of the solution?

Mr. Barger: Yes, but apologise and then get on with it. What I heard from so many customers was, ‘Thank you for the apology, stop apologising, go fix it.’ Boy, this was new to us. This airline is all about hugging our crew members and hugging our customers. But I think it’s important to get the message out and move on.

WSJ: You went straight from college to New York Air and then Continental Airlines. You’re known as the ‘operator.’ How is JetBlue going to be different under your leaderp?<$>

Mr. Barger: David (Neeleman) is second to none from the standpoint of vision in the airline business. At the same time, there are only so many ideas we can digest at any given time. Do we need a new airplane every three weeks? I don’t think so. What’s the report card on the 128 airplanes being deployed today? Has every airplane earned its way into the route network or the fleet plan? We’re going to continue to grow, but let’s just calm it down. As the eighth-largest airline in the country, you can’t turn on a dime any more. You want to be able to move with alacrity when opportunities present themselves, but behind the scenes be very deliberate.

WSJ: Mr. Neeleman said things fell apart in February because JetBlue hadn’t kept up with its growth and ‘lost control.’ When did you first start to worry that the company wasn’t managing the transition between upstart and major aine?<$>

Mr. Barger: There wasn’t an event or a meeting, but there were smoke signals, whether it was the cost creep or the decision to take on 35 airplanes a year. We ended up with a unionization effort within our airport group. What triggered that? What weren’t we doing right?

(A consultant) said, ‘You keep blowing the same candles out.’ You end up trying to fix the same problem the same way, or the same problem crops up and you try another fix, but there’s not a comprehensive fix. As a leadership team, you better be listening to the signals because otherwise here’s the next airplane and the next new city and we’re going to blow the same candles out again.

WSJ: The airline business has reinvigorated network carriers, discounters continue to grow, and new airlines like Skybus and Virgin America are coming along. How is JetBlue coping with intensifying domestic competition?

Mr. Barger: Our cost structure, while we can always hone it, is in very good position. Make sure we continue to keep the product fresh. Our ability to really compete on a cost and a product standpoint really positions us well for the future. You can’t rest on your laurels when Consumer Reports comes out and says JetBlue is the top airline. We have a responsibility to make sure, if something’s not performing, let’s redeploy the airnes.

WSJ: Wall Street says it loves the airline, hates the stock. What do you do about that?

Mr. Barger: Our mission is to really, with rigour, review what we’re doing today. Let’s manage the company: 128 airplanes, 54 cities, let’s evaluate. However, are we deploying our newest asset, the (Embraer) 190? I think every airline would love to have a 100-seat airplane they could deploy across North America. Many of them can’t. From a revenue perspective, there is plenty of running room for our brand, and not just in the domestic US Let’s look at Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean. I really believe the share price will take care of itself.

WSJ: JetBlue is talking about raising additional revenue but the concepts — refundable full-fare tickets and premium seating — aren’t necessarily in line with being a discount airline. What’s the right balance?

Mr. Barger: Once we start to deploy our airplanes into markets that are more nondiscretionary — traditional business markets — it’s important for us to really respect that he or she who purchased that full-price ticket should be offered the best seat instead of a middle seat. It’s important to listen to our customers who say, if you offer refundable tickets, we’ll fly your airline. This is really under the banner of don’t be afraid to experiment. They’re not all going to be successful, but if you don’t experiment, you can become stagnant.

JetBlue changes course