JetBlue TrueBlue - E145 Headed to JetBlue

Not a new topic at all since all late evening it's been discussed over on Airliners, but saw it missing here, and a friend that's a captain with ExpressJet told me about this, and that to help alleviate some of the problems that JetBlue is having with their E190 and the software programming, they have 4 E145 a/c coming over to fill in the holes as 2 a/c leave at a time for maintenance work. Think the subcontract should only last a few months or so.

I assume these won't have the tv's?

I haven't heard anything to the sort about us using 145s for a short period of time. I'm commuting in for a trip today so I'll poke around and see what I can find out. Remember don't always believe what a friend of a friend of a Captain at an airline tells you. ;)

I think this one is a go, Express Jet 145s substituting for E190s.

Air Canada (the other big E190 operator) is also undergoing a major software patch for their E190s. YYC and BNA are the locations for AC modifications with Embraer bringing Brazillians to YYC. Hope they like snow and cold weather, March and April are the best months for snow in YYC.:D

March and April are slow enough in the AC schedule to handle the loss of E190s, but I think B6 has been trying to get better performance from the E190 than AC. B6 requiring additional lift to handle the modification program would not be unexpected.

I would hope that B6 lets everyone know that the E145s aren't here to stay but simply being pulled in from the Bull Pen rather then cancel any flight/s out.

......simply being pulled in from the Bull Pen rather then cancel any flight/s out.


JetBlue today announces that two starting pitchers are placed on Injured Reserve list due to unspecified upper body injuries, we expect them to be out 6-8 weeks but make a full recovery.

At the same time, Jetblue has activated 4 players from our minor league affiliate. :p :D :D :D

I found out about this from our AO Manager three days ago. They will do a lot of BOS flights to I believe BUF, RIC, and IAD. Not entirely sure though. Each customer will receive a $25 voucher for the inconvenience.

Please note I am posting this on my personal behalf, it is not an official posting from JetBlue.

We just got an email from Vicky Stennes informing us about the 190s are going down to BNA for an extensive software upgrade that will greatly improve the dispatch reliability. The reason the 145s are coming from ExpressJet is because 2 aircraft will go down to BNA at a time and that will reduce the number of spares to 1 or 2. So if planes go down we will not have a spare and will be forced to cancel flights to strong markets.

So being proactive the company secured 4 145s and crews to operate flights to JFK, IAD, BOS, BUF and RIC. Customers will be contacted and offered a $25voucher for the reaccomidation on the RJs.

I assume these won't have the tv's?

Does it really matter, you have already made it quite clear that you will never fly jetblue again.

None of ExpressJet's aircraft have TVs in them. But if I remember correctly they where/are planning on installing XM radio in the aircraft that are going to be used for their independent operation, so these aircraft may have the XM in them. I kinda looking forward to it because this may make my commute BUF-BOS easier if they have more than the 3 flights we have now! ^

Does it really matter, you have already made it quite clear that you will never fly jetblue again.

Really nice.:rolleyes:

Does it really matter, you have already made it quite clear that you will never fly jetblue again.

That is not what I said and it is a TOS violation to put words in posters' mouths, FYI. Thanks.

Here's a story in the press with some info.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=ag1i2EqM3iE8&refer=news

"the E190s' grounding is the latest setback for JetBlue.."
I'm not sure I would have said this. If anything, the temporary grounding of a couple 190s for software upgrade will assist the company for future operations and will only affect a handful of daily flights. The imperative software fix will greatly improve dispatch reliability of the aircraft.

Please note I am posting this on my personal behalf, this is not an official posting from JetBlue.

Here is the article in the Richmond Times Dispatch link (http://www.richmondtimesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArti cle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193563283&path=%21business&s=1045855934855). I am very sorry to say Jet Blue is getting a black eye in Richmond lately. With the 6 days of every flight cancelled in Feb. and now people see this in the paper. What the article does not say is the Expressjet has a maintenance hanger here in RIC and this route allows then access to maintenance if something goes wrong with one of the ERJs. I am very hopefully the it does not effect B6

I really don't like articles like this. They do more bad than good. I will admit that having aircrafts going off-line to get fixed/upgrated is never good, especially when they are new planes. However, B6 is not the only ones expierencing this. Air Canada is sending their planes to YYC or BNA to get fixed also (funny how the article didn't mention that).

I would like to add that B6 did a decent job improvising by hiring ExpressJet to cover their shortage in aircrafts. The down side is that the ExpressJet jets are not as new (comparing the two fleets), they are smaller, and they don't have TV's. And that's just the direct impact to the costumer. The loss to B6 includes running 2 aircrafts, paying 4 pilots instead of 2, and 4 FA's instead of 2. Which means these expense are going to run up, inreturn the customer may end up paying more in the long run. The upside for the consumer is that there are not going to be any extensive cancellations

Air Canada is sending their planes to YYC or BNA to get fixed also (funny how the article didn't mention that).


AC doesn't go to market highlighting its good seats, DirecTV, etc. JetBlue does. Thus, when B6 has to take planes out of service and replace them with planes that don't offer what they advertise, it is a bigger deal.

AC doesn't go to market highlighting its good seats, DirecTV, etc. JetBlue does. Thus, when B6 has to take planes out of service and replace them with planes that don't offer what they advertise, it is a bigger deal.

First off, I never said AC did have the IFE with the leather seats.
Secondly, B6 is offering their $25 vouchers for the incovience. Normally, you have to speak up and they would give you the vouchers no problem. With this perticular event, B6 is doing it for everyone on one of these flights before anyone even asks about it. AC offers no personal IFE ever or automatic vouchers for effected flights.
Lastly, when is it not a big deal for any airline to take their fleet of a particular plane off-line for software overhauling? (I know they are not all going off-line at the same time but every E190 will have to come off line for repair.)

First off, I never said AC did have the IFE with the leather seats.
Secondly, B6 is offering their $25 vouchers for the incovience. Normally, you have to speak up and they would give you the vouchers no problem. With this perticular event, B6 is doing it for everyone on one of these flights before anyone even asks about it. AC offers no personal IFE ever or automatic vouchers for effected flights.
Lastly, when is it not a big deal for any airline to take their fleet of a particular plane off-line for software overhauling? (I know they are not all going off-line at the same time but every E190 will have to come off line for repair.)

You are not understanding the point. B6 differentiates itself by its product. When it can't provide that product, I believe that is newsworthy. When AC has to bring its planes out of service, it is replacing them with similar planes. They don't, after all, promise leather seats and DirecTV.

I do understand the point. However, when these planes go out of service, where are the replacements with the personal IFE's? We obviously don't have enough to do this project on our own which makes contracting a necessity. You can't use the DL Song planes (too big, besides we got our own A320's with IFE's). CO, DL mainline, UA, NW, AS, FL (although they have XM), and US along with ExpressJet all don't have any personal IFE system systems. Obviously, any contracting to outside carriers will not have the IFE.

In light of that, B6 has 2 options if they want to get the planes in a physical condition they should be: A)contract out to a carrier (obviously without personal IFE's) or B) don't fly at all. Therefore, my question is which option is better?

In light of that B6 has 2 options if they want to get the planes in a physical condition they should be A)contract out to a carrier (obviously without personal IFE's) or B) don't fly at all. Therefore, my question is which option is better?

Your changing the goalposts. No one is arguing that they should stop flying. You're arguing that AC should have been mentioned in the news report. I argue it should not because B6 swapping out planes is a much bigger deal than AC doing so. Why? Because of the way B6 markets itself. If AC had massage chairs on its flights and all their commercials said so, then it would be significant if they had to swap our planes as well.

In my eyes the switching of the aircraft is a big deal from a customer stand point. Like magiciansampras stated we sell many of our tickets based on the premise that you will have good IFE at your seat and you won't have to fly on an RJ. That's part of our promise. Now we can't fullfill that promise so we need to do something about it. Our customers expect all these things because that's how we brand ourselves.

From an operational stand point it really isn't that big of a deal. There currenly isn't another airframe out there that we (embraer) could lease to fill in for the departing 190s. The markets that the 190s serve are markets that are still to small for a 320 to work into with out burning money. If AC pulled a 190 they could easily put in a 319 with out much of a problem. Not to mention they don't specifically market their IFE, like magiciansampras said. We could go with out the 145s from ExpressJet while the 190s are pulled out and sent for the update. However if/when a 190 goes tech, we wouldn't have an operational spare to put into it's place to keep the flight on time. That's the whole reason for the 145s is to take the load off the remaining 190s and minimize cancellations.

Your changing the goalposts. No one is arguing that they should stop flying. You're arguing that AC should have been mentioned in the news report. I argue it should not because B6 swapping out planes is a much bigger deal than AC doing so. Why? Because of the way B6 markets itself. If AC had massage chairs on its flights and all their commercials said so, then it would be significant if they had to swap our planes as well.

Ok...I'm glad that we agree about B6's necessity to fly. I also do agree that this news worthy. However, the article made no mention of any other carrier having a problem with the E-190. I'm not asking the news company in Richmond to make a huge story out of AC either. It just doesn't do B6 justice by leaving the reader assuming that JetBlue is the only airline encountering this technical problem. After all, it's an Embrear problem that is having effects on AC and B6.

It just doesn't do B6 justice by leaving the reader assuming that JetBlue is the only airline encountering this technical problem. After all, it's an Embrear problem that is having effects on AC and B6.

For RIC pax, B6 is the only airline experiencing this issue. Sure it wouldn't hurt to go into more details on what is going on but the audience is the travelling public in RIC, not a group of aviation industry insiders.

Also, in some respects it is a B6 issue because they chose to go with v1.0 model equipment. If everything was running fine with the plane, B6 would be receiving its fair share of praise. As things are not going so smoothly, they are receiving their fair share of bad press.

Ok...I'm glad that we agree about B6's necessity to fly. I also do agree that this news worthy. However, the article made no mention of any other carrier having a problem with the E-190. I'm not asking the news company in Richmond to make a huge story out of AC either. It just doesn't do B6 justice by leaving the reader assuming that JetBlue is the only airline encountering this technical problem. After all, it's an Embrear problem that is having effects on AC and B6.

If we were discussing an article in Aviation Week and not the local Richmond paper, then I'd agree with you.

But since AC doesn't serve Richmond, would mentioning that AC is experiencing similar troubles really be germane to this article? Not if I were the reporter's editor. YMMV.

We, all of us at FT.com, know that this issue with the software installed on the E-190 is a problem that steamed from Embrear, not JetBlue. However, like AC, JetBlue is stuck in the middle of this mess and the attempts at cleaning it up. I fully agree with all of you the pax in RIC are suffering from subpar service on the middle two JFK flights. Yes, there are no IFE's like adverstised. Yes, they are on ExpressJet's E145's, a smaller plan. However, service is not being disrupted at a highly noticable level and vouchers are automatically being given. Besides, the only reason I would bring AC up in the article is to show that JetBlue is learning how to cope with challenges. They've recieved enough bad press from the past month's events and have a big black eye in the view of the public, espicially in RIC. It is not fair for making the pax go through this, but it not fair to fully leave it as an exclusive problem to JetBlue (and leaving the fault with them).

I just checked the seatmaps for a BOS-BUF R/T that I have at the end of the month, and both flights were switched out to ExpressJet

Today on my shift the first day of XJet in BOS was fairly smooth considering the lack of time our station had to prepare for the operation. We utilize gate 33 which is our overflow gate. We typically have two "wingtip" flights depart 25 mins apart from each other. Our first flight to IAD left ontime at 1820. The other flight left 40 mins late due to MX in IAD earlier. The aircraft I hopped on for a second had no XM :( ...

Here's a photo:
http://i17.tinypic.com/2e1a8fq.jpg

Overall I think the operation in the customer's eye is minimal. Although it is a significant downgrade in a/c and services, the airfare that is commonly purchased on these flights, the $25 voucher, and the relatively short duration of the flight >hopefully< make up for it.

Happy Travels.

Please be advised I am posting this on personal behalf, this is not an official posting from JetBlue.

I just commuted into BOS for work and rode on the 145s. All of the customers seemed very understanding and did have questions. I tried to answer some of the questions for them but it seems the operation is going very smoothly. The ExpressJet Crews are a great bunch of people and it's a pleasure to have them on the property.

The inflight service is very close to normal. Same snacks, drinks and what not but there is no TVs or Radio. I was talking with the pilots and apparently some approval for the XM hadn't come from the FAA yet so that's why their 145s aren't equipped with the radio yet.

I'm glad we where able to secure the 145s for the next couple of months as we are booked at or near capacity and we would have many angry customers if we had to cancel flights because we didn't have the aircraft to operate.

I'm glad we where able to secure the 145s for the next couple of months as we are booked at or near capacity and we would have many angry customers if we had to cancel flights because we didn't have the aircraft to operate.

Doesn't the 145 have less seats than the 190? If so, won't there necessarily be lots of folks turned away? Or are they running more 145s than 190s to make up for the smaller bus?

Yes the 145s seat 50 where the 190s seat 100. ExpressJet is running 2 flights to our normal 1 to carry all of the passengers.