Here’s an incredibly strange development regarding Delta’s newest executive…
Scott Laurence moves to Delta, resigns
In January I wrote about how Delta appointed Scott Laurence as Vice President of Network Planning. What made this so noteworthy is that Laurence was previously a JetBlue executive, and was one of the key people behind the strategic alliance between American & JetBlue.
This alliance was essentially intended to allow American and JetBlue to better compete against Delta in New York. His move from JetBlue to Delta was significant, especially as the Department of Justice is currently challenging this alliance.
Well, just a few weeks after starting at Delta, Laurence has already resigned. Delta has confirmed this development, though there’s no further information as to why Laurence decided to leave the airline.
For context, Laurence has been in the airline industry for over 25 years, first working at US Airways, then at United, then at JetBlue, and now (very briefly) at Delta.
What went wrong?
How strange to leave an airline for a competitor, and then resign within a few weeks. Presumably one of three things happened:
- Laurence immediately decided Delta wasn’t a good fit for him
- Delta decided Laurence wasn’t a good fit for the airline
- While you’d think this would have been crystal clear prior to him departing, perhaps there was some sort of non-compete clause (or something) that caused a major issues for the prospect of Laurence working at Delta, given his knowledge of the American & JetBlue alliance
One thing is for sure — Laurence is running out of US airlines to work for. I can’t imagine JetBlue would want to rehire him, and similarly, I can’t imagine American would hire him either (given that he was involved in the strategic alliance and then left). Now Delta is off the table. He had worked at United before so who knows what kind of a relationship he has with that airline.
I suppose there’s always Southwest, Allegiant, Frontier, etc., but pickings are getting slim…
Bottom line
A few weeks ago Scott Laurence took a job at Delta, after working at JetBlue for years. This was a major development, since he was behind the American & JetBlue alliance that was intended to challenge Delta in New York. Now he has already resigned at Delta.
This is one of the more unusual resignations we’ve seen at an airline in a while. While we’ll probably never find out, I can’t help but wonder what the backstory is here…
What do you make of Laurence’s quick resignation at Delta?
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