JetBlue

A few things that caught my attention.....

JET BLUE

Imagine for a second that your getting on a plane. Taking your seat. Getting comfortable and it's 8 a.m. You find out from a hard-working flight attendant the flight is delayed. Well, that beach in Florida will still be there when you get there. Or....It's Valentine's Day and you can't wait to see the person who you can't live without.

9 a.m.
Read the magazines on the plane.

10 a.m.
They give you water and some of those pretzels.

11 a.m.

Noon.
They give you more water and pretzels. Hope you enjoyed them. The plane is all out of food.

1 p.m.
It's hot in the plane and the flight attendants....hard working flight attendants...finally open a door to let some air in the plane.

2 p.m.
No more food and water.

3 p.m.
Are there more magazines?

4 p.m.
Hey! They open the door again to let some air in the plane.

It's been eight hours and you ask to leave the plane.
JetBlue won't let you off the plane. If you try to get your family off the plane and back to where there is food and water, they will have you arrested.

5 p.m.

6 p.m.
No, you can't get off the plane. Sorry. I know you are a U.S. citizen and you are being held against your will for nine hours, but if you try and get off the plane, you will be arrested. Restrained possibly. But you cannot get off the plane.

7 p.m.
Someone at JetBlue finally comes to their senses and has the plane return to the terminal.
Ten hours.

You sat on the plane ten hours and they wouldn't let you off. People wonder why the government gets involved in the things they do. The JetBlue situation is why.
JetBlue says they are going to put $20 to $30 million dollars up to reimburse travelers
who are "inconvenienced" by the weather delays. In fact, they have come up with a
"Consumer Bill of Rights." That's good. When you hold people against their will for ten hours with little food, water, and two port-a-johns pretending to be airplane toilets, it's good to know that some marketing person with JetBlue got a committee together and came up with a flow chart, mission statement, and a feel-good document to e-mail to all that will fall for it.

Good thing. Someone probably should have been led off in handcuffs and taken to jail for letting a plane with real people sit on a tarmac or at the gate for ten hours.
Most people don't want the government to get involved and solve a problem with private business. But when you callously treat people with contempt and disrespect in the manner that JetBlue did, you open the door for actions you don't anticipate. Like the government ringing your doorbell.

It's too bad really this happened to JetBlue. JetBlue is a discount carrier that is trying it's best to make air travel affordable in the world of big carriers. The Valentine's Day weather debacle was a serious error on JetBlue's part, but one from which they can recover.