Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Wow! This JetBlue horror story beats mine hands down

This blog and my main blog are getting a crazy number of hits. I must have struck a nerve.

I have to say - my JetBlue horror story pales in comparison to this one, sent by my friend Tracy.

JetBlue's frequent flyer program is called "TrueBlue". I have decided to appropriate that moniker and invite people to send in their "TrueBlue Horror Stories". I will gladly post them here:

Read this one from Tracy and weep:

My assistant's husband tried to fly to Vegas Sunday morning on JetBlue. His flight was scheduled to leave New York at 10:00am. He boarded the plane, then sat on the runway until 7:00 PM at night. No one was allowed off the plane. All they fed them was pretzels because they said they couldn't get them food on the runway. THEN get this: they finally took off Sunday night and had to land in the Midwest because the toilets were overflowing from all the people stuck on the plane for 8 hours. sorry- but that might beat your story.

Indeed it does, Trace! Hats off JetBlue! You are considerably more evil than any of us imagined!

13 comments:

Havoc71 said...

I was on this flight and you are not being honest. The flight did not leave at 7:00pm. It left at 4:30pm. You make it sound like JetBlue was keeping us prisoners, but that is not what happened. The captain told us what our options were before we took off. If we had gone back to the gate, it could have taken hours. There were airplanes on every taxiway. How exactly were we going to get to a gate? If we did get there, would there be an empty gate? If we did get a gate, would our flight be cancelled? If we didn't get cancelled, we would go the the end of the line for take off. There were at least 100 airplanes in line. At the time, we were number 10 in line. Personally, I wanted to get to Las Vegas, not get stuck in New York. Based on what I heard from other passengers, most of them felt the same way. It sucked to have to land in Denver to empty the toilets, but do you think they should have just locked the toilet doors and told us all not to pee?? This is the way I see it: It's not JetBlue's fault that the weather was bad. It's not JetBlue's fault that the airport was closed for 5 hours. They didn't hold us prisoner, they got us where we were going the best way they could, often by choosing the lesser of two evils to do it. Your post is ment to be sensational, and is not factual.

Bill Baker said...

Thanks for your comment. We have a disagreement on the timing, but the facts are fundamentally the same: JetBlue held people for hours on a plane. Sure, it may have been weather or ATC related, but we are not customers of the weatherman or ATC. We are airline customers and if they can't figure out a better way to run their business than to hold people for hours, then they deserve to go out of business.

Havoc71 said...

You say "JetBlue held people on a plane for hours." Do you think that flying is like getting in a taxi and driving down the street? Do you realize what an airplane is? You are getting in a pressurized metal tube that travels at 80% the speed of sound, five miles above the surface of the earth. You are literally crossing the country in a matter of hours. You can't just tell the driver to pull over and open the door so you can get out. If you have a problem with that, then maybe you should just get in your car and spend four days driving to Las Vegas. The rest of us are sick of listening to you whine.

Havoc71 said...

JetBlue may have their problems, but at least they got us to Las Vegas on Sunday. That's more than the other airlines can say...

http://www.ajc.com/money/content/business/delta/stories/2008/07/28/delta_flight_delay.html

Havoc71 said...

Hmmm... let me try that again... here is the story:

http://www.ajc.com/money/content/business/delta/
stories/2008/07/28/delta_flight_delay.html

Girish said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Girish said...

@Havoc71

Actually, I beg to differ jetblue also canceled the flight from JFK->SJC (#173) on Sunday along with 140 other flights across the country including 33+ at JFK itself.

Worse yet, they canceled our 173 flight on MONDAY! When it was blue skies and sunny outside. Why? Because of "Crew Legality Issues" -- Yes, it really said that in my email. Which isn't an act of God, AFAIK. I mean, if you say it was a chain reaction from the night before, can't you really blame everything on something in the past? You can just blame everything on some weather in some part of the world... (butterfly effect).

Jetblue positions themselves as a customer centric Airline, which they clearly displayed weren't anymore. I mean, they used to be, but now, it's more of a bottom line issue than customer satisfaction.

Havoc71 said...

You got an email? I'm wondering... did you get it before or after your scheduled departure?

At any rate, I'm not pretending to have knowledge of your experience. Just the flight that I personally was on. JetBlue got us there and they did it in the worst of circumstances. If they cancelled your flight the next day, then I would say you are right, and that is JetBlue's mistake. I'll only say that JetBlue wasn't the only Airline cancelling flights Sunday and Monday. The article above shows that.

Girish said...

@Havoc71

Yea, the article does show that jetblue wasn't alone. But, jetblue probably did have the most canceled flights. Anyway, jetblue did a lot of things these past two days that clearly showed that they weren't who they've claimed they are when it comes to caring about their customers. I think I had put jetblue on a pedestal, just knocked itself off. Guess that's what financial troubles does to a company, makes it forget it's core values.

Yea, I get emails when my flights are canceled (about the time they cancel them, not delayed. My wife also got a phone call from jetblue - automated call).

Anonymous said...

You know that this story is greatly exagerated because of the pretzel comment. JetBlue doesn't serve pretzels. The only place you can get them is in a bag of Doritos mix and even then there's only a few, so...you're saying that the airline took all teh pretzels out of the mix and handed those out while locking up all of the other available snacks???

Sorry, you're a liar. If you had a bad flight, say so, don't embelish it to the level of a full-blown hostage situation.

Bill Baker said...

Brian - I believe the person who emailed the story was using "pretzels" as a proxy for any kind of decent food. She should have said "snack mix" or "Doritos" or whatever it is that JetBlue serves.

The more important thing is that people sat on the runway for six and a half hours (or nine and a half, there seems to be some disagreement on the facts, but I will stipulate to the lower number) before a five hour flight and had to stop to empty toilets.

That's the real story here.

ethelethelethel said...

Jet Blue I loved you but now its over --Hit the Road Jack --You cheated you lied
You cancelled my flight much too late.The weather was gorgeous--All the other airlines were on time. No compensation --all the hotels full
I moved thru the airport like a zombie. I called and wrote, your excuses were flaccid:
the previous weeks weather, then later some
mumbo about the crew.
Honey your off my list
I wont call you.

Anonymous said...
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