Donna

Well after seeing the news reports on Jet Blue, I can't imagine flying with them. I am the cheapest person alive and will go to almost any length for a low fare, but I would have been arrested by the air marshalls if they had tried to keep me on a plane for 11 hours and allowed air in every 20 minutes by opening the hatch! At least if I totally freaked out they would have had to sedate me

ekscrunchy

Yes if I was going someplace that they fly...I flew with them once and loved their comfy seats and the tvs. And their prices can be great. That was an isolated thing and could probably happen with any airline.

wtm003

Yes. This can and has happened on other airlines.

mrt

We flew with Jet Blue last year and it was as good as a flight could be. Plus, they offer a little t.v in the seat back so you can watch a selection of shows

rjw_lgb_ca

I love JetBlue. I'll fly them anytime (it helps that their West Coast Focus City is my home airport-- five minutes from my house).

I don't condone what happened on that plane. However, between the airport trying to stay open and the airline telling the pilots to keep the plane ready to take off at any time just in case they get the go-ahead, I'm not surprised. They do need to review those policies.

Gekko

I love JetBlue, my favorite airline by far, and fly with them monthly out of both JFK & LGA.

What happened yesterday has happened to many airlines (Northwest, Detroit).

It's a Catch-22 for airlines -- cancel flights early and people get mad, don't cancel & get caught on tarmac, and people get mad.

Dukey

Donna, you do realize, don't you, that not everybody reading this thread is fully aware of "the news reports" of what apparently happened yesterday?

Dan

Yesterday's "ground hold" for 8 or so hours was ludicrous but jetBlue is hardly the only airline to have been guilty of this. Northwest did it several times a few winters ago and this partially led to the "Passenger Bill of Rights" passed by Congress. If you pass on jetBlue because of this, it's your loss. They are really a good airline. I rarely fly them because, just as with Southwest, the "low-cost" carriers rarely have the lowest fares. Southwest and jetBlue often cost more than American or Continental, at least from my home airport.

rkkwan

Jetblue and Continental has for years shown to be most aggressive to put flights out in bad weather. You can see that they have the least cancellation rate of the major US carriers.

This policy has its advantage and disadvantage. Many people will rather sit in a plane for 1-2 hours on the tarmac to get to their destination, rather than fighting for a motel room, or sleep on the floor of an airport.

But this of course has a risk. Continental so far hasn't stranded passengers in snowstorms last year and this year at EWR; while this is already the second time for Jetblue in 2 years. During last year's snowstorm in February (or March?), at least one Jetblue flight has stranded passengers for hours.

It didn't get much publicity like AA's incident at AUS. Don't know why, some say it's because they are the darling of NYC's media. Maybe true, maybe not.

But as it showed yesterday, they haven't learned from their own mistake or AA. And I guess they can say that they weren't around during NW's fiasco that they can't have learned from that one.

AnnMarie_C

I would fly Jet Blue because this situation is not unique to them.

Recently, various carriers headed for Houston were diverted to San Antonio because of weather--passengers were not permitted to deplane and were stuck on board for at least 8 hours.

A few weeks ago, an American Airlines plane headed for Dallas was diverted to Austin...passengers whose final destination was Austin were permitted to deplane after waiting 4 or 5 hours on the plane.

And though I'm sketchy on the details I remember reading another horror story of an international flight making its way to the States only to be diverted to an airport not capable of handling international passengers so they, after flying however many hours, were also stuck. I would go insane.

It happens, more often that it's fully reported to the masses.

Bobmrg

As a jet-rated pilot, I must say that it is hard to understand the rationale of people who, faced with severe weather of any kind, want to go anyway. Few if any pilots harbor a death wish.

In the Jet Blue situation there were several competing forces...full gates, some immovable airplanes, irate passengers, company policies, FAA regulations, etc etc. My sympathy is with the pilots, who had no choice in the matter.

Gekko

In the news -- Delta flight grounded, passengers held on plane for 11 hours.

So if that's your yardstick, Delta is 'out' now too.

AnnMarie_C

Bobmrg, I agree with you. I don't remember exactly which incident it was where it was recently reported a pilot of a diverted plane requested in vain for an open gate at the interim airport so pleading passengers could get off. The tower disregarded his requests in favor of regularly scheduled flights. Out of exasperation, after waiting 8 hours, he took matters into his own hands and parked the plane. I say good for him--I can't begin to imagine the balancing act crew must handle between passengers and tower.

samschack

The silver lining in this incident is that it may be the impetus necessary to get a passenger's bill of rights through congress finally.

seetheworld

Here's the lounge discussion on the "Passenger Bill of Rights"...

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...4&tid=34947415

Something has got to give. I remember, last year on Jet Blue, nearly being charged at by a flight attendent when I attempted to use the bathroom. We were sitting on the tarmac for nearly an hour because of a severe thunderstorm. But it seems that passengers are not allowed to get out of their seats during this time - FAA regulations??

rkkwan

The "Passenger Bill of Rights" won't be a silver lining. It'll mean more cancelled flights, more passengers stranded at airports (vs on the planes), and it won't help relieve the congestions today.

Unfortunately, the stupid carriers are not smart enough to avoid these kinds of stuff, a few years after the NW incident.

Just too bad. Everybody loses.

Kathysa

I'd definitely fly Jet Blue, especially for long distance flights. However, they certainly aren't low-cost for coast-to-coast flights....United and American are almost always cheaper...but the flying experience is definitely worth the extra cost. We dread going back to other domestic carriers with the cramped leg room and being fed on the airline's schedule. Getting stuck on the tarmac could happen to any airline depending on the airline and how many gates they have at that airport, plus many other factors.

321go

Yes, I'll continue to fly with them. I've always been satisfied with them in the past, and choose to fly with them between Florida and NY.

polly229

Returning from Amsterdam (Delta) we had a minor equipment problem at JFK and missed our departure time. Forty-five minutes later, when we were repaired, we began to taxi out and stopped. To make a long story short, we sat on the plane (mostly on the ground) from JFK to Orlando longer than we were on the plane from Amsterdam to NY. Since then I was told by a friend whose uncle was an air traffic controller at JFK for years that pretty much if you miss your departure time at JFK between 3 and 9 PM, you can rot in hell. But since the pilots seemed to think it was possible that they might get clearance to fly, we had engines running the whole time and, ridiculously enough, had to return to the gate twice to refuel during the long wait.

Still 11 hrs. in that kind of weather seems a bit much. I would think they'd have had a pretty good idea they weren't leaving any time soon. Sometimes if it's equipment, I think they hold people on planes so passengers can't demand to be changed to another carrier. But in this case, that shouldn't have been a factor, both because no one else was flying and because I doubt any other carriers accept JetBlue tickets.

skatedancer

Well, I didn't have to sit on the tarmac or wait in the airport...but I just got home from being cancelled by Jet Blue! The only silver lining is that we got an email cancellation message on DH's Blackberry as we were heading to the airport, so we just turned east and went into NYC for the evening. A little retail therapy and nice dinner to sooth our nerves... Obviously with all the bad weather cancellations, we can't get on anything until Tuesday, but since we were only going down until Monday, that's not too helpful. Since our bags were all packed, I've been trying to find another warm weather destination to go to tomorrow, but so far, no luck!!!