you should protect yourself as much as you can against irregular ops and poor service recovery.
The problem is that flying AA through Chicago or NW through MSP isn't usually the best way to keep your trip from being disrupted! There have been many previous years when I've been quite happy to be flying nonstop over or around thunderstorms or snow in the center of the country.
The only other nonstop option SEA-BOS is Alaska flight 12, leaving at 8:50am... but getting my family of non-morning-people to the airport by 7am pretty much gives a 95% chance of a terrible travel day, versus perhaps a 1% chance of a Seattle snowstorm...
So unless NW or AA restores the nonstops they used to have, or VS decides they need an extra west coast hub, I'll probably make this same mistake again. I'll just have to hope that global climate change doesn't mean Seattle will have eight inches of snow on the ground every December!
(and even if it does, eventually the airport will install bigger de-icer tanks, I'd think.)
In this case I believe NW sent a 747 to pick up their passengers.
I believe this is true. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not believe JetBlue is in a position (from a fleet / lift capacity standpoint) to dispatch any extra sections. Loads from cancelled flights are simply rolled into future scheduled flights. At this time of year with few open seats, if you're cancelled on JetBlue at an outstation, esp. west of the Mississippi, you might as well forget it. No 747 coming to rescue you.
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Owing to heightened security you must comply with any crazy fake "regulation" we make up. Thank you sir.
If they had an extra plane they should have done a shuttle like service for the day to somewhere like LGB or OAK where they would have had more capacity to accomadate more paxs. Of course they would have had to cancel some flights to LGB to get slots
I thought I had been told that there's normally an extra plane in LGB or somewhere on the West Coast... in general, I would have thought JetBlue could do better at resolving disrupted service in a place like Seattle that has relatively few flights than they could when a big storm knocks out JFK or BOS; obviously, they can't double the number of flights systemwide the day after a storm, but if they had doubled all flights to SEA for a day or two that would only represent 5% or so of their total traffic, and I would think they would have that much extra capacity.
Obviously, I don't really know how much spare capacity in planes, crews, staff, fuel, supplies, and so on that airlines maintain. I would assume that there's some margin in each of these categories, because you don't want to have to cancel a full day's flights if one plane has a problem, one pilot is sick, or one flight attendant has car trouble... So barring other problems happening at the same time, they should be able to put another plane in the air if they choose. (Of course, once they've sent the spare plane/crew off to SEA, then they're in trouble if somebody back at JFK is sick that day, I suppose!)
I guess I just assumed that JetBlue might be looking for an opportunity to combat a reputation for being unable to respond well in this type of situation; instead, it appears that they just decided things would work themselves out.
well good thing we don't get bad weather often and heavy traffic like the New York area does or else B6 operations would be screwed in Seattle or PDX. 1X a day..would become 0X during the winter. Good thing it's not a frequent occurrence..if it does happen though don't count on rescue planes like others have stated!
I believe that B6 does keep an extra plane on the west coast (I think in LGB) so that when one needs a repair they can replace it . It may have been easier to find the plane then to find the crew to fly it . (Especially when getting at the end of the month/quarter when pilots may be hitting their limit .
I believe that B6 does keep an extra plane on the west coast (I think in LGB) so that when one needs a repair they can replace it .
Ideally, this is the case. Unfortunately, utilization and other needs sometimes prevent a spare from being available, so this shouldn't be relied upon.
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The above does not represent actual views and/or opinions of JetBlue Airways.
In short, we have senior leadership constantly reviewing our quite substandard ability to recover after an IROP, and trying to improve SYSOPS in particular. Unfortunately, although there has been some improvement we have a ways to go, no question. The airline absolutely has A320 airframes being under-utilized, but after a couple weeks of fairly constant scheduling disruptions we likely don't have the crews left to fly them. I really hope for the sake of our customers as well as our long-term survival our abilities and performance in this regard will get better quickly!
...we have senior leadership constantly reviewing our quite substandard ability to recover after an IROP...
I appreciate your candor, which is not shared by your management, many of your co-workers and even some of your other customers. Believe it or not I am rooting for JetBlue to survive and thrive, but operational maturity, including better irrops response, is a prerequisite and B6 is not there yet.
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Owing to heightened security you must comply with any crazy fake "regulation" we make up. Thank you sir.
Agreed. I very much want B6 to thrive as my livelihood is tied to it. I don't understand why many of my fellow crewmembers have such a hard time accepting legitimate criticism; isn't that how we ultimately improve?
We currently have a decent in-flight product with mostly motivated front-line employees delivering it, stretched over a very thin network with little capacity for IROP recovery/re-routing. I believe that model must change for us to be a reliable transportation provider going forward!
I am still not sure what Jetblue's trying do be . Do they just want to be a FLA-NY shuttle (aka a regional NE airline) , or are they trying to be a coast to coast airline ? BTW I read the Delta forum that someone got stuck in NY for 2 days trying to get to FLL so even on the legacy airlines you may get stuck in for days after snow storms . Of course the other lesson is don't change planes in NY unless you are prepared to stay the night.
I am still not sure what Jetblue's trying do be...
I think JetBlue pretty clearly wants to be a cream-skimming premium national airline that can command higher fares for better inflight experience. The LGB foothold shows they do not think of themselves as an east coast corridor airline. I do not think they have the operational robustness to realize this proposition, though. As Aewanabe says the network is too thin and far-flung, crumples too quick in adverse circumstances, and takes too long to recover.
For one thing I think they try to serve too many stations west of the Mississippi -- 15 if I count right, almost all of them long, thin, slim-frequency sectors with almost no presence or marketing support at the outstation. B6 doesn't have the resources to compete in all those citys -- they have toes dipped everywhere in the west, but they make a real impact almost nowhere. I'd like to see 'em cut back to LGB, OAK, SEA and LAS and build up a presence.
When Southwest invades a new market it's like D-Day -- they mean to take the beach. When JetBlue opens a new market it's like a covert CIA operation. I've never understood the rational for that reticence.
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Owing to heightened security you must comply with any crazy fake "regulation" we make up. Thank you sir.
I think they should have 5 or 6 flight between cities instead of 1 . Perhaps instead of the 1 daily transcons from Sea they should have 3 flights to Austin or LGB instead . I guess they are making money off of the the Sea-JFK and Sea-Bos routes but I wish they designed more robustness so I could them and trust I won't be delayed for 3 days if it rains or snows . They have plenty of flights to Florida so that part is fine.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bmg42000
I think they should have 5 or 6 flight between cities instead of 1 . Perhaps instead of the 1 daily transcons from Sea they should have 3 flights to Austin or LGB instead . I guess they are making money off of the the Sea-JFK and Sea-Bos routes but I wish they designed more robustness so I could them and trust I won't be delayed for 3 days if it rains or snows . They have plenty of flights to Florida so that part is fine.
Don't forget that the transcons cost ~2x the Florida flights to operate, and the demand for seats is lower. And the utilization of the planes is lower. Those factors make it a bit difficult to justify throwing 5x daily on SEA-JFK or SEA-BOS.
Good thing it's not a frequent occurrence..if it does happen though don't count on rescue planes like others have stated!
