JetBlue TrueBlue - Flight 186 CANCELLED on 4/6

Does anybody know why flight 186 from San Diego to JFK was canceled yesterday?

Looks like more than 80 flights were cancelled yesterday into JFK - including my flight from Austin to JFK. They rerouted me through Boston, assuring me that the Boston to JFK flight would not be cancelled, and it was. The first agent told me that it was because of the runway construction; then they posted something about the weather. Interesting that they cancelled the Austin to JFK flight almost a day before anticipating the bad weather!?

When I got to Boston the only flights cancelled into either JFK/LGA were JetBlue's as far as I could see. I got on a US Airways flight, at my expense, and got to LGA without delay. When we got to LGA the pilot said that the weather had cleared and that the visibility was fine. So much for weather causing the JetBlue cancellation.

I didn't know before this flight that JetBlue would not put you on another carrier's flight. I doubt I will risk this again - especially given so many choices in the NY area. I realize that if JetBlue was reading this they would say: as soon as their flight is $10 cheaper than the competition I will be flying them again. To that all I can say is that business travelers seem to have figured out what I hadn't.

JFK went into extensive ground delay programs yesterday due to weather and some taxi times were as long as three hours leaving affecting the operation which may have lead to additional cancellations. GDPs may occur at JFK while LGA remains unaffected.

My flight to SF was also canceled, but flights to Burbank, and Oakland were still taking off. If I'm not mistaken, JFK-SFO is a turnaround flight using the same plane, so the weather excuse is suspect.

Meanwhile, Jetblue made a crappy situation just that much crappier....

I was already on route to the airport by the time I got the cancellation email. The 1800 line were useless when trying to rebook,and kept suggesting the check in gate would help me get on another flight....but check in kept telling us to call the 1800 number instead. All they were offering was to reschedule 3 days later on Thursday, and they were pushing their connecting flights into places like Austin, at that. Or they were all too happy to give you a full refund, and screw your travel plans entirely.

What makes this extra frustrating? Knowing one reason all the seats are booked is because they ran a $14 ticket promotion for travel this week, which required completing travel by Thursday, which go figure was the first day offered for seat availability.

Wait, it gets better. After lots of screaming I shouldn't have had to do, and phone calls in a panic to the 1800 number (where the reservation agents claim they do double duty as customer service), I'm told I can't have a seat assignment unless I pay them another $30 for an extra legroom seat. God forbid they comped that and assigned me a seat, and remember, they ran a promotion for tickets at half that price. As it is, I'm paying for three trips to JFK from Manhattan I hadn't factored in, and still have no guarantee my new flight will leave on time. Priceline offers more stability than that.

This means by flying Jetblue in the future, I'll have to expect the possibility I might not fly out until days later, and I may have additional expenses I might incur that nearly double the cost of the ticket itself.

Couldn't they foresee weather issues a week ago, or problems with the anticipated runway repair at JFK? Couldn't they have added flights?
My hunch is this is manufactured by some Executive who figured they can use rain as an excuse to cancel flights due to weather, and push customers on to other flights so they don't have to fly half empty planes. What a clever way to take a great company and ruin it.

I didn't know before this flight that JetBlue would not put you on another carrier's flight. I doubt I will risk this again... all I can say is that business travelers seem to have figured out what I hadn't.

All they were offering was to reschedule 3 days later on Thursday... or they were all too happy to give you a full refund, and screw your travel plans entirely.... flying Jetblue in the future, I'll have to expect the possibility I might not fly out until days later, and I may have additional expenses I might incur that nearly double the cost of the ticket itself. Happened to me multiple times. Welcome to the JetBlue alternate universe, where no other airlines exist, and your traveling schedule is totally unimportant. God forbid you should fly because you have something important to do / attend / etc. on the other end.

It sounds like the standard JetBlue irrops response model hasn't actually improved much since the V-Day meltdown... the GAs have no information and make stuff up to get rid of you, and the phone agents are completely unreachable. Irrops recovery is JetBlues' Achilles' heel, and the reason why it is totally unsuitable as a business travel airline. You can't book B6 unless it doesn't really matter when you get there.

Couldn't they foresee weather issues a week ago, or problems with the anticipated runway repair at JFK? Couldn't they have added flights?
My hunch is this is manufactured by some Executive who figured they can use rain as an excuse to cancel flights due to weather, and push customers on to other flights so they don't have to fly half empty planes. What a clever way to take a great company and ruin it.

Are you serious? foresee weather a week ahead?

Right now is a really bad time to go through JFK. One of the runways is down for repair, so if something would cause an hour long GDP, it could cause a much longer GDP if the winds required use of that runway and it's not available.

Even though I don't fly JetBlue very much anymore, I'm avoiding JFK whenever possible until the runway is back in commission.

However weather was perfect in both cities and enroute. I want to send a complaint, as it cost me a lot of money not to get home on time that day :( Anyone can share the real the email address of a real person?

However weather was perfect in both cities and enroute.
How do you know about the weather en route? Moreover, how do you know the weather for the routing that the plane and the crew were flying that day?

There is a TON that goes in to flight planning, not the least of which is when the Feds come in and tell a carrier to cut some number of flights from a given airport or that a "slot" at some point in the air is not available, even though it is sunny on the ground.

Check out there two posts (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/11416928-post40.html, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/11425609-post47.html) in this thread (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/continental-onepass/931984-co-wont-hold-last-flight-evening.html) about a similar issue with CO for a bit more insight on how the Ops people have to work to schedule the flights, even on a "sunny" day.

One of the problems is that B6 is the major carrier (along with DL) at JFK and if flights needs to be cut then the feds may make the cut the flights . One of B6's weakness is they do not have many flights to one location so if one is cut you are screwed . Hopefully when they can interline in 2010 that will help them but one should no the limitations of B6 when booking . I would never connect thru JFK or EWR (it seems there are delays everyday ) and the ATC needs to be revamped . If you look at the CO Forum , complaints about IRROPS are plentiful . I was just in LAS for a vacation but I had noticed that the weather report was bad for when my plane was leaving BOS (I took a connecting flight from LAS-BOS-JFK with the assumption that the 7 pm BOS-LAS flight was more likely to be on time then a 6PM JFK-LAS flight ). In the meantime I saw the weather and looked up other flights I could book myself on (ie LAS-ATL-HPN) or (LAS-IAH-LGA) that were cheap and had space should flights get cancelled . My flights turned out to be fine so I did not have to buy another ticket . When flying on airlines that don't interline and have only 1 or 2 flights per day you need to be cautious . It comes out to cost vs reliability and most people will choose the cheaper flight .

If you really need to be somewhere at a certain time or on a certain day, take another airline to avoid major headaches. Thin frequencies and lack of interlining make B6 a joke for business and other essential travel.

Irrops recovery is JetBlues' Achilles' heel, and the reason why it is totally unsuitable as a business travel airline. You can't book B6 unless it doesn't really matter when you get there.

Agree completely. I basically told one of my groomsman and one of my ushers that they weren't allowed to fly JetBlue on BOS-DEN to the wedding this summer for this reason. They can do as they wish on the way home......

If you really need to be somewhere at a certain time or on a certain day, take another airline to avoid major headaches. Thin frequencies and lack of interlining make B6 a joke for business and other essential travel.

There has been a few times that the lack of frequencies without factoring in irrops has prompted me to use another carrier. The last time I was in Seattle was a prime example of this. I ended up using DL's JFK-SEA-JFK route instead of B6's just b/c they do 2X daily during the offseason compared to B6's 1x daily.

Business people and savy leisure passengers recognise that there is a fine line between a great product and flexability. JetBlue has the first which makes them a pleasure to use when the latter is satisfied.

I was in the taxi delay at JFK yesterday. We sat for 3hrs on the taxiway with about 50-60 other aircraft. Northeast and westbound departures were stopped for about an hour. The way JFK had the taxiways set up there was no way for any aircraft to return to the gate. We tried several times to get back to the gate but ground told us they wouldn't be able to get us back to the gate for another 2hrs if we wanted to go that route. JFK was horrible yesterday with the weather and the closed runway, an absolute mess. We finally got to ORD yesterday about 7hrs late.

This means by flying Jetblue in the future, I'll have to expect the possibility I might not fly out until days later, and I may have additional expenses I might incur that nearly double the cost of the ticket itself.

I allow about 3 hours extra when selecting JetBlue. If I don't have 3 hours to spare, and if Southwest does not serve the route, I reluctantly pick UA, where I normally have to seat in E-. :(

FLL - LGA flight cancelled for "weather" reason

However weather was perfect in both cities and enroute.

Perhaps the weather affected another route from which your aircraft or crew were coming. Or perhaps weather disrupted the schedule massively and your flight lost out on the reshuffle because it had the lightest load. Some airlines would call that a weather delay, since weather was the root cause.

The $14 "last minute" tickets surely added to this mess. There is something to be said about offering these tickets when there is an increased chance of irregular ops later in the week due to stormy weather.

It's not an absolute. It's not a guarantee of favorable or horribile weather, but the National Weather Service issues 7 day extended outlooks, and I believe there are extended outdooks beyond the 7 days that look more climatologically for unfavorable weather. (sp)

Certainly JetBlue included staff meteorologists to their marketing meeting before launching the $14 sale, yes?

The $14 "last minute" tickets surely added to this mess. There is something to be said about offering these tickets when there is an increased chance of irregular ops later in the week due to stormy weather.
Nothing that I can think of.

The airlines build their systems to support something very, very, very close to 100% loads, even though they know they'll never really get there. Still, selling 1000 extra seats this week really isn't a huge deal in the big picture. It was 60 seats JFK-SFO and 140 SFO-JFK. That isn't going to make or break anything.

And the 7+ day outlooks are a joke. I can almost guarantee delays to and from JFK due to volume and ATC in the NY area, but that has nothing to do with the weather. Making an operational decision today based on a forecast for 7 days out - unless it is a hurricane or blizzard, and even then it is arguable - is a very risky and likely very costly move for an airline.

I think JFK was a mess yesterday. The DL aircraft JFK-BOG didn't fly, and since it was supposed to fly my BOG-JFK this morning, I was routed through ATL.

I will join the members here who have lost all faith in B6 IRROPS. I don't understand how they can STILL fail so badly in the event of IRROPS.

The irregular operations complaints remind me of a situation in the 1980s. Frontier Airlines (not the same company as today's Frontier) was in financial trouble. They decided to increase their flight schedule from 3 "banks" of connecting flights at DEN to 4 "banks" per day. This left no room for error, and they wrote a column in their in-flight magazine explaining this and asking for passengers to cooperate, presumably by boarding quickly or something. Delays persisted, and the plan caused extensive missed connections. Rather than saving the company, it likely hasted the company's demise, which was not long in coming.

The moral of that story is that an airline is foolish to try to schedule every resource for maximum utilization without allowing for a significant amount of disruption. Or as they say in the military "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy". Airlines, like armies, need to keep adequate reserves.

Still, selling 1000 extra seats this week really isn't a huge deal in the big picture. It was 60 seats JFK-SFO and 140 SFO-JFK. That isn't going to make or break anything.

So you're saying that has nothing to do with why their next available flight was supposed to be 3 days away, after the promotion date? Really?

Meanwhile, there was no effort or preference to rebook passengers, and tickets were still on sale for these flights. I was going online, spotting ticket availability and going back into the check in line so I could ask for the seat. That's unreasonable to expect of customers, and bad business all around.

The question now is, why don't they have a better approach to a problem that their airline has become notorious for? If I check the Jetblue site at 3pm for a 6pm flight, and there's no indication the flight will be effected, then to me that's a preventable situation. As for the weather - the Supervisor at check in made a big point of saying the weather had been all over the news for the past 4 days, so again why didn't they anticipate it? Why don't they have contigency plans at this point. I still have a hunch that despite the bad press, there's a reason to their advantage why Jetblue let's this continue. It's not just incompetence.

If I check the Jetblue site at 3pm for a 6pm flight, and there's no indication the flight will be effected, then to me that's a preventable situation.

All airlines prefer to hold to the published schedule until it's completely clear that they cannot. As long as there is a chance that the flight will be able to get out on time, for example by swapping aircraft, it would be a disservice to everyone to cancel the flight.

The same applies to delays. If the airline posts a 1 hour delay but then is able to leave in 45 minutes, we all know what would happen: That passenger who left the gate for 50 minutes would blame the airline. This is why you see creeping delays. The airline will always err on the side of underestimating the problem, in case the problem turns out to be less serious after all.

Deciding when to throw in the towel on a delay or cancellation is an art. Some airlines may do it better than others, but the more important difference is the number and severity of delays. If an airline has few and small delays, you won't mind as much that the delays typically end up being twice as long as the original estimate.

Thank you all for your feedback. Based on it I have decided to cancel my JFK to PHX flight on Jetblue and switch to US Airways which has 3 flights a day. I can't risk having another flight canceled on Jetblue...they are becoming very unreliable.

Thank you all also.

The end of my story is that I called customer service to ask for a refund for the Boston - JFK leg that was cancelled (I was booked AUS - JFK, and rerouted to Boston). I was offered a $59 credit for that leg and when I asked how that fare was calculated and what relationship it had to either my costs to get me to the city I was booked or to my original ticket, the supervisor got more than nasty. First time in a long time I hung up on a customer service person.

My question to you - if I was on American, Delta, US Air - and their flight was cancelled because of 'weather' but another airline was flying to my destination, would my original airline protect me on the flight that was flying? What I am asking is - generally - if I avoid a low cost airline (JetBlue, Southwest) would I do any better in this case? Sorry if this is off topic.

My question to you - if I was on American, Delta, US Air - and their flight was cancelled because of 'weather' but another airline was flying to my destination, would my original airline protect me on the flight that was flying? What I am asking is - generally - if I avoid a low cost airline (JetBlue, Southwest) would I do any better in this case?

JetBlue and Southwest will not put you on another airline. Southwest has lighter loads and a more fully connected network, so you tend to have options to get where you're going if it's not late in the day. (They don't fly any red-eyes.)

Other airlines have the ability to put you on another airline's flight, but they obviously prefer to accommodate you on their own flights. If the other airline is the only way to get you to your destination, I'm pretty sure they will put you on the other airline. Elite status apparently helps with this. I'd like to hear from people with recent experience with Rule 240 accommodations.

I'd like to hear from people with recent experience with Rule 240 accommodations.

This would be impossible as "Rule 240" died with the CAB. ;)

Various carriers have different rules in their CoC, but I haven't seen any that guarantees interlining for delays/cancellations outside the control of the carrier. That doesn't mean that they don't do it, but it isn't part of the CoC which is, in the end, really all you can depend on.

CO is known for not pushing domestic passengers to other carriers in weather/ATC scenarios. UA is pretty good about doing so for their GS/1Ks or for leveraging their larger network for on online reroute.

The true answer is that "it depends" and there are a variety of factors that will come in to play, even on carriers that have interline agreements and the ability to leverage alternate carriers and routings.

I'd like to hear from people with recent experience with Rule 240 accommodations.

I had a "rule 240" situation recently but I really don't think it would count in what you're looking for. DL put me on a NW flight CVG-MSP last month after I missed my connection at CVG due to a delayed EWR-CVG flight. Nevertheless, dispite DL still having other flights later in the day, they still put on the "other" (dispite DL's interest in NW) carrier.

CO is known for not pushing domestic passengers to other carriers in weather/ATC scenarios. CO is also known for cancelling flights and rebooking passengers preemptively in the face of incoming bad weather. For better or worse, this creates more predictability. JetBlue is known for not even admitting there's a problem until the system is flailing in the ninth circle of hell.

I'd like to correct wordsworth on some of the information given, and input my own experience that day.

I was also scheduled for flight #647 JFK-SFO on 4/6, admittedly on a $14 fare, but there were only 60 seats for this route for the entire week of the promotion - meaning an average of 10 seats on each flight sold at that price, some of which might have been already scheduled passengers who saw the promotional fare and refared their ticket. However, in contrast to the aforementioned accounting of the situation, I received an email at 2:14PM, as well as an automated phone call at 2:25PM saying that the 6PM departure had been canceled. I had checked alternative options the night before (because I knew the combination of a runway out and the incoming storm was going to be trouble), and saw several options to SFO, OAK and SJC that were leaving at around the same time. I called up at 2:35PM, and the agent was able to rebook me on a flight to OAK connecting in BOS, leaving at 5:30. She said it was still showing as on time, which I was a bit skeptical about, but decided to confirm it and go to the airport.

When I got to JFK at about 4:30, it was not nearly as hectic as I'd imagined it to be with the cancellations and delays all day - no line to get my boarding pass, maybe a 3 minute wait at security, and few enough people airside for me have a seat on the steps in the atrium and charge my phone. Before sitting down though, I did my homework, and went to the SJC flight that was departing on time at 5:45 and to the direct OAK flight that had a delayed departure time of ~9:30. Although they were full, the agent told me that not everyone had checked in yet, and that if if I came back after everyone was boarded and they still had seats, I would be able to be switched to those flights. I also went over to the flight that I was confirmed on, to Boston, to ask about the status of that flight - if it was going to leave and arrive on time, and if my connecting flight was going to be on time. They did their thing with the system, and assured me that the plane and flight crew were here for this flight, and the plane for my connecting flight was in the air from Cancun with an arrival time that would lead to an on time departure. Since this flight was leaving before the other two that I would be standby on, I chose to do the connection.

Everything after that went very smoothly. It was my first experience with IROPS on B6, and I was actually very impressed with everything that happened. I got through to a customer service agent very quickly, was able to rebook for a flight that night, and both of those flights were surprisingly on time, and only got to my destination about an hour late (unfortunately I had booked my hotel at SFO, and after coming into OAK had to spend 2+ hours getting there on BART, but that's another story :))

So you're saying that has nothing to do with why their next available flight was supposed to be 3 days away, after the promotion date? Really?

No, I'd say the real reason why there were no seats was the fact that it's spring break in the NYC area, and Thursday is a light travel day so that's when seats were first available.

Certainly JetBlue included staff meteorologists to their marketing meeting before launching the $14 sale, yes?

Probably not. Why would they?

As for the weather - the Supervisor at check in made a big point of saying the weather had been all over the news for the past 4 days, so again why didn't they anticipate it? Why don't they have contigency plans at this point.

There's only so much you can do with a finite number of planes in finite airports. There are only so many crew members that are eligible to be flying on those flights. You can anticipate something, but how do you decide between your 'everything is disrupted' plan, your 'only a bit is disrupted' plan, and everything in between - especially when those plans could be drastically different in execution?

The main gripe seems to be the lack of available options when it comes to rebooking. Unfortunatly Flightspeed doesn't have the ability to book flights on other airlines and hence the lack of agreements with other airlines. When bad weather and cancellations hit the customer is forced to rebook on a flight later in the day, or the next day for cities that only have 1 flight. We can't send passengers to other airlines to help free up capacity in the network. The switch to SABRE later in the year and early 2010 should fix that problem. I even think it was mentioned in the announcement that it would help with codeshares and agreements with other airlines. I think we have improved quite a bit in our handling of IROPS but we still are bad when it comes to getting passengers to their destination in a timely manner and not 3 or 4 days later.

When I worked ticketing for ATA we would use 120.20 and 240 all the time. When we knew a delay was coming and passengers were likely to misconnect we rebooked them via another airline right away instead of dragging them along saying they should get to their destination eventually. Telling a customer they will eventually get their is not the right thing to do. Telling them we can't get them their on airline A but we can on airlnie B shows that you are looking out for them and doing your best to get them where they need to go. Getting them there 2hrs late is better than 3 days later. Hopefully the switch to SABRE will bring ticketing agreements with other airlines!

Perhaps the next time that bad weather is predicted , the CEO should book a flight (under a different name) perhaps and see for himself what happens. Unfortunately this may be part of the problem with the reservation system but waiting 3 days is the not acceptable (unless we get a 3 day snowstorm ).

I allow about 3 hours extra when selecting JetBlue. If I don't have 3 hours to spare, and if Southwest does not serve the route, I reluctantly pick UA, where I normally have to seat in E-. :(

Hmmm, for me, UA has given me the most frequent and longest delays.

The main gripe seems to be the lack of available options when it comes to rebooking. Unfortunatly Flightspeed doesn't have the ability to book flights on other airlines and hence the lack of agreements with other airlines.

How does it work when flight crews from other airlines deadhead on your metal? I see this on both jetblue and southwest so there is some way to get flights book across airlines.

it may not scale in its current form for planeloads of passengers, but there should be some methodology to help ease the burden, no?
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to add, for the number of times I've encountered an irop and the poor service AA and united have provided in those situations, I don't think I would switch away from jetblue just because of that.

The crews that ride on us aren't "deadheading". They are flying non-revenue on a jumpseat agreement that is established between the carriers. It is a lot more flexable then a revenue ticket as we can just walk up to the gate and ask to ride on a flight. Last month a United ORD-BOS flight went mechanical so I just walked over to AA and got on their flight. With Sabre you can book flights on other airlines for revenue customers. Flightspeed doesn't have this ability.

It will be interesting to see if JetBlue will rebook its customers on other carriers after they switch to SABRE and have the technical capacity, or whether they will stick with their low cost business model and not allow it.

The company website says that the new Sabre system will allow the company to book interlining tickets as well as codeshare flights. So I would assume that JetBlue will look at signing interlining agreements with customers.

The company website says that the new Sabre system will allow the company to book interlining tickets as well as codeshare flights. So I would assume that JetBlue will look at signing interlining agreements with customers.

Everything I've heard in discussions with the various folks in the company indicates that they will be putting together interline agreements. That's a good thing.

But that still doesn't guarantee pushing passengers to OALs when there are service interruptions. That will remain to be seen.