NEW YORK -- David Neeleman stepped down as chief executive officer of JetBlue Airways Corp. yesterday, giving up operational control of the airline he built from a scrappy low-fare upstart into a perk-heavy carrier with nearly 600 daily flights.

President David Barger, 49, will become CEO, and Mr. Neeleman, JetBlue's largest individual investor, will be nonexecutive chairman.

"I'm not a day-to-day operator," Mr. Neeleman, 47, said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg News. "It's not something I enjoyed."

Mr. Neeleman's exit extends the management and financial upheaval at New York-based JetBlue and comes less than three months after two winter storms forced it to cancel nearly 1,700 flights.

Mr. Neeleman acknowledged that it was time for him to step aside and let the operating experts take over. He had been CEO since 1998 -- Mr. Barger had been president the same time, joining Mr. Neeleman's startup -- and said he will focus on strategic initiatives.

Still, it's quite a change for a business whose brand, some analysts say, became intertwined with Mr. Neeleman's personality.

"He has embodied the personalized service of that airline," said Richard Levick, president and CEO of Levick Strategic Communications in Washington.

However, pure energy can only carry a chief executive so far.

Mr. Neeleman concedes that his entrepreneurial skills didn't translate well to the operational side of his business.

Storms on Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day essentially shut JetBlue down, forcing the cancellation of nearly 2,000 flights and stranding thousands of travelers throughout the Northeast.

To prevent a recurrence, JetBlue drafted a "customer bill of rights," under which the company now issues vouchers to some customers who experience delays.