Sorry guys. It’s been a little busy around the Arizona environs this week. Yours truly was honored to participate once again in the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airline Symposium. So that is where I have been hanging out.

Tonight we have about an hour off and then it’s back to the grind of being social and talking airlines.

Once again the folks at Sky Harbor put on an engaging conference.  And I think the venue this year better fits the conference. Instead of the huge J.W. Marriott in north Scottsdale, this year the symposium went back to its roots to the Arizona Biltmore. Nice place. And more cosy than the Marriott. The Marriott is a great hotel, but it’s more suited to huge 1500 meetings and such.

About the only negative thing I could say about this year’s conference is that the guest list was somewhat impacted by two things. One, the Bear Stearns Transportation Conference was this week in New York. That prevented at least one, if not two airline CEOs from participating today. And then there was JetBlue’s Russ Chew, who was also supposed to be here today.

Yes, well, there was a  bit of news that came out of the JetBlue board meeting — and I’m sure you are aware of it. The board of directors asked David Neeleman to step down, and Dave Barger has replaced David as CEO. David will now assume the role of non-executive chairman. Meanwhile, as most of you also know, Russ Chew was recently hired by the company as its new COO. So alas — Russ had some other things on his plate today to tend to.

My take on the Neeleman news? One thing is for sure. It certainly was a hot topic in the halls of the Symposium today.

But aside from that — it was the right move. I am not surprised. In fact, I had written in PBB more than a year ago that I thought perhaps it was time for David to consider such a move.

But that didn’t happen, and so here we are now.

I think the move came about a year too late, maybe a little more. Then again — at least the good part of the decision is that it would appear there is at least one airline board of directors that has balls.

More than I can say for most of the others.

For PBB subscribers — a reminder. This week’s issue will be posted this weekend.