Song Airlines is closing. It’s sad that a better customer experience alone isn’t enough to compete, but that in itself is a good lesson. The symptom of Song’s decline was a failure to replicate JetBlue’s service, while the cause is a failure to look beyond JetBlue’s product to the true source of their success. There’s a relationship between product, process, and culture, and JetBlue’s employee-focused (not consumer-focused!) culture is what propels them.

Though I must say the popular doubts about JetBlue’s ability to preserve this culture while they grow and grow are substantiated. As a JetBlue customer, I don’t feel the experience is any better these days, I only fly them for the price. It’s time for change.