JetBlue Airlines was once my favorite airline to travel. Suddenly this year my opinion of this airline has changed completely.
It appears after they had the debacle of national news headlines regarding leaving passengers for hours on the tarmac, they now have a new policy in effect..just cancel flights if there is any possibity of a delay to avoid any problems or bad publicity.

Today I had a flight scheduled to depart from JFK to Pittsburgh at 3PM. The flight was cancelled right before the taxi arrived to depart for the airport. In NY we had a rainy morning and absolutely georgeous afternoon with sunny skies and about 80 degrees outside. I was very surprised to say the least. I checked Delta airlines which I had a return flight on Sunday with, and all 4 flights from JFK to Pittsburgh were going. After checking tonight 2 of the 4 arrived with about an hour delay and the other 2 flights were just about on time. Why didn't JetBlue at least make an effort to get passengers to their destination? It is unacceptable to function in this mode. It is irresponsible completely to just cancel flights without making an effort to get passengers to their destinations.
I have never seen more cancelled flights in the past months than with JetBlue.

After speaking to a JB rep I was told the next available flight wouldn't be till Saturday,and she made no attempt to try and get me on another airline. I wasted over an hour and a half to be told I could receive a refund..Thanks so much!

This left me no choice but to cancel my entire trip. I had tickets to shows and ballgames in Pittsburgh that costs hundreds of dollars and now stuck with them and the first night hotel room. In addition Delta Airlines could not offer me a refund due to all their flights were going to Pittsburgh, no cancellations. I received $119.50 credit of which when I re-book a flight there is a charge of $100.

My previous flight with JetBlue was also cancelled. This time they discontinued service from JFK to LAX and offered me a whopping $50 voucher which I applied to the cancelled trip to Pittsburgh. When I rebooked a flight using another airline due to the fact it was very close to the departure date it cost me almost $200 more.

I sent an email to JetBlue and awaiting their response. I probably don't have any recourse but thought I would let them know how disappointed I am with the service I have received.
Let me know what you think.

Thanks

I'm sure not going to defend JetBlue, but your story sounds like dozens I've been hearing about just about every airline. Are there any airlines that aren't canceling flights right and left and leaving people upset and angry?

I haven't heard of Southwest canceling any flights like this. They are still making money, thanks to their fuel purchase hedging (Alaska Airlines too). I haven't heard of them cutting back their schedule at all. I would be shocked if they canceled a flight and were unable to get me somewhere for two days.

This sounds terrible and I would be upset too. I've stopped booking with them since they upped their cancelation penalty from $30 to $100. Southwest is still zero so I always book with them. I did enjoy the actual flights on JetBlue but these changes are disturbing.

You may want to try Virgin America for coast to coast flights. They have been ranked number 1 for domestic air carriers from Travel and Leisure.

With all the recent airline cancellations and loss of service to many cities, I have been driving to many destinations that I once considered flying to. Now I drive anywhere that is less than 500 miles from Chicago. Coupled with all the flight delays the haraSSSment at the airports, I find that I am getting there on my schedule rather than the airlines. I have also found that by renting a car off airport for these jaunts I am saving wear and tear on my old gas guzzler.

All of the airlines are awful these days unfortunately. But as a frequent flyer, I find that JetBlue and Continental give me the least problems. I am not saying they are great, but they sure as hell are not as bad as AA,Delta and USAir.

I flew Virgin America a couple weeks ago for the first time and it was great. Hopefully they expand their service because it is very limited right now.

I thought that the Airlines must get you on the next available flight if the problem was not weather related. Jet Blue cancelled a flight of ours due to problems with the Jet. We all got vouchers to cover the cost of the flight PLUS a seat on the next flight out.

JetBlue has always been good to me (now I am probably jinxing myself)

There could have been bad weather at wherever the plane was coming from toGET to JFK, leaving your flight with no aircraft.
Also, JetBlue does not ticket on other airlines.
I'm with the others..this happens all the time on all airlines. Sucks, but thats life these days.

Here is the standard response I reveived from JetBlue and my response below.
Now that I've had a day to think this over I am even more upset by what transpired.
First off, 2 days to get me on a flight after the cancellation is unacceptable. JetBlue should have made an effort to get me on the next flight available. They did not, they kept me on the phone almost 2 hours for nothing.

They seem to be the only airline cancelling flights on an 80 degree sunny afternoon. At least make some attempt to get customers to their destinations within a reasonable period of time.

This fiasco has cost me close to $1,000 and I do plan to make an issue out of it. Its also a matter of principle to me.


> Dear Phil,
>
> Thank you for your email regarding your canceled flight.
> Flights were flying out of JFK during the
> day; however, since JetBlue's hub is in JFK, our
> flights are extremely impacted by the delays that
> JFK took on June 24, 2008.
>
> Ground Delay Programs will only allow a certain amount of
> flights out at a time. We had many
> flights that were able to depart from JFK, we just were not
> able to get all of them out that day so
> necessary measures needed to take place.
>
> We regret any inconvenience we may have caused you. We
> know that cancelations can cause our
> customers much frustration and disappointment but had no
> other alternative during this time.
> Although we strive for the highest level of customer
> service, we must respectfully deny your request
> for compensation.
>
> We thank you for your choosing JetBlue Airways for your
> travel needs and hope to have a new
> opportunity to serve you in the future.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Terri
> Customer Commitment Crew
> JetBlue Airways
> Crewmember 48088
>
Terri,

I am very upset by your response to my problem. First off, I was told I couldn't get another flight to Pittsburgh until Saturday the earliest. That was the best your customer service could do to help me. I find it hard to believe that was the next available flight. That is completely unacceptable to have to wait 2 days to get from NY to PIT. I then requested to be put on another airline going to Pittsburgh and told that was not possible. I wasted almost 2 hours on Thursday trying to procure another flight for my trip before finally giving up.

To cancel an afternoon flight at 3PM is ridiculous when the weather is perfect outside, 80 degrees and sunny. Why wasn't an attempt made to get this flight out? Delta Airlines had 4 flights going out to Pittsburgh the same day from JFK and all 4 departed, 2 had a delay of about an hour and the other 2 arrived on time.

This fiasco has cost me almost $1,000, paying for a hotel room, tickets to events that I cannot get back. In addition, I was not able to receive a refund from Delta Airlines for my return trip on Sunday, because they said there were no cancellations with our airline!

This is the second flight in a row that I booked with JetBlue that has been cancelled. I booked a flight from NY to LAX for September of this year and about 2 months later received notice that JetBlue no longer flys to LAX from NY. I had to rebook using another airline and it cost me almost $160 more due to booking the flight 2 months later after receiving your notification. I was rewarded with a $50 voucher which I used for your cancelled Pittsburgh flight.

I plan to make an issue out of this. I have already posted this problem on a few travel sites and many people are interested in seeing how this awful situation will be handled by JetBlue.
I am a frequent flyer and always swore by JetBlue. JB was my favorite way to fly, no question. Now I am furious over what has transpired and your apparent lack of concern to my misfortunes using your airline.
You ruined my summer trip costing me vacation time, money and plenty of needless aggravation.

I also plan to take legal action if I do not receive what I consider to be proper compensation for this disaster.

Phil

I'm sorry that this happened to you, but did you read the JetBlue response? It had nothing to do with sunny 80 degree weather; they said there was a ground delay (due to capacity, if I understand correctly) which meant the flight had to be canceled.

321go, I'm not sure what you meant by your response. It happens therefore one should smile while waiting two days for a solution? I didn't get the idea that the OP's complaint was so much that the flight was cancelled as it was being unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

Yes, S--T happens, but it's how a company cleans up that S--T that makes a difference.

Funny that Delta Air had no problem with 4 flights same route without any problems at all the same day. If you follow JetBlue since they had national coverage earlier this year, stranding passengers for hours on the tarmac they now seem to be notorious for cancelling flights from JFK with any possible weather problems.
Also, apparently you feel its acceptable to reschedule a cancelled flight 2 days later. I certainly would like to see your reaction when scheduling a vacation and going thru what I have and losing about $1,000 and your vacation time while all other airlines had no problem with similar flights.

Thanks so much for your input.

Thanks for your response NeoPatrick.
It was an awful experience for me and as you said if at least an effort was made to try and find alternative means for me to get to my destination, I could live with that.
I have never experienced anything quite like it and hope other travelers never have this awful experience. I think its important for fellow travelers to speak up about their experiences with the hope things can get better in the future.
If travelers just say thats how it is today..it sucks what can you do..I think its important to make an issue out of it and possibly if enough travelers get the word out airlines would hopefully start improving service.

First of all, cancellations are awful, esp. when you have other tickets, hotels etc riding on the other end. So my sympathies are with the OP. Some facts that might be helpful:

- in weather delays the airline is required to do much less than if their plane breaks down, can't find a crew etc. In this instance, it sounds like the weather MIGHT have been somewhere else and the planes couldn't get TO JFK in time to do the Pittsburgh flights. This has to do with the positioning of planes to be where they need to be before and after your flight.

- JFK is one of the busiest airports int he world. if there was a weather delay, and the planes couldn't arrive in time to leave JFK on time, they may have missed their slot to depart and so had to be cancelled. Now this likely has to do w/ that the OP stated initially -- Jet Blue IS NOT going to risk having a plane leave 3 or 4 hours late after all their bad publicity. So the flights were cancelled rather than delayed several hours.

- in weather delays (or any delay that affects many planes) GENERALLY long distance flights will be cleared before short hops. One rationale being that a 777 planeload of several hundred people going a long distance, is much harder to accommodate than a 320 going t o Pittsburgh.

- and given re accomodation issues- Jet Blue and Southwest are two airlines that do not "interline" with others - so they cannot/will not sign their ticket over to another airline. I'm not sure why that is - I know it has to do with the fact that JetBlue and SW will not pay another carrier to take their passengers if there are delays and cancellations but why and how that works exactly is unclear to me. I do know it can bite you in the butt if your flight is cancelled. (And is why I won't fly Jet Blue)

It doesn't help you much, but if you had gone to another carrier and bought a one way ticket to Pittsburgh, you MIGHT have had a better case to go after JetBlue due to the hotel and event tickets you had already purchased. And a one way ticket might have been cheaper than losing the whole trip.

Sorry again this happened to you.,

My skeptical side also wonders when I've been in similar predicaments whether the "weather" is a convenient scapegoat. I even researched this online at the time and found some articles supporting that line of thought.

"Smile", Patrick? Where did I say that? I don't know how you inferred that from my comments.

Again, I empathize with the OP - it's awful having a flight canceled. My point is that flying out of JFK in the summer is often a problem. DH has been flying out of there 2x a week for the past several months and between weather and over-capacity (too many planes trying to take off at the same time), cancellations happen. I agree that being re-booked is the best way to handle it, but Jet Blue (like Southwest) doesn't have agreements with other airlines for this. And if their other flights that day are full, well ..... It doesn't leave a lot of options, does it.

No, you didn't say "smile" but you asked "did you read the Jet Blue response?" Maybe I misintrepreted it, but your whole post sure sounded like "that's a perfectly good reason, so why complain about customer service?" I just didn't get that response. There was PLENTY to complain about their customer service, which is what docpsb was doing, not merely saying that they had no reason to cancel the flight.

Meanwhile you now say, "it doesn't leave a lot of options, does it". Well, one option might be (according to many of the responses here) -- if you NEED to get somewhere don't book Jet Blue to begin with because unlike most airlines they won't even put you on another airline if they cancel -- greatly limiting how you can get to your destination. I've been on enough canceled flights in my day and have been almost immediately put on a different airline every time (if not another flight of the same airline) to think that I'd be very hesitant to book with someone who DOESN'T do that.