Stuck in Long Beach - learned some interesting things

[RdFltErr]

So this is my first time flying JetBlue in about a year. Not terribly thrilled. There's good, bad and ugly... Let's get the bad/ugly out of the way.

- Flight was announced delayed at 1:00pm from LGB to SFO. Reps announced plenty of seats available still on a flight to Oakland at 1:30pm, but then started turning people away when they realized all the work involved in moving the bags from one plane to another may delay the Oakland flight. Asked those of us with bags to stay put, that the delay was minor.

- Delay was extended to 4:00pm. Pilot announced that a replaced navigational computer still was not working properly and that they were on the phone to some folks in Brazil to try and figure out what was wrong. Yikes? This does not calm my nerves! Though I do appreciate the honesty.

- At 5:00pm, it was announced that there was no way the plane was taking off. After 3 hours of waiting. Lame :-(


Now, the good (and interesting)

- Rep at the counter informed me that JetBlue offers a free taxi voucher to LAX! She would refund our ticket (no voucher for the delay though) to use on a competing airline who could actually get us home and pay for our cab, free.

- They put out snacks for the entire terminal (there were a lot of delays). That was very, very cool.

- They decided to use the plane from an incoming flight from Austin to get all of us home since it had no other destination. SWEET! Go JetBlue - no other airline would do this IMHO.


Anyway, it's interesting!

Comments?

[sbm12]

Originally Posted by RdFltErr

- They decided to use the plane from an incoming flight from Austin to get all of us home since it had no other destination. SWEET! Go JetBlue - no other airline would do this IMHO.

Most airlines will shift planes around to cover broken equipment. WN is the best about it, cascading minor delays through a series of flights while they repair one busted plane, keeping the overall inconvenience to a minimum and getting the plane fixed, at least in airports where they have sufficient flight volume.

So it sounds like they ended up flying your flight with the replacement aircraft rather than actually canceling it, right?

The voucher to get you to LAX was a nice touch, assuming you could find seats for a reasonable price. I don't blame them for not wanting to move folks with checked baggage. That seems like a reasonable policy.

[RdFltErr]

Originally Posted by sbm12

Most airlines will shift planes around to cover broken equipment. WN is the best about it, cascading minor delays through a series of flights while they repair one busted plane, keeping the overall inconvenience to a minimum and getting the plane fixed, at least in airports where they have sufficient flight volume.

So it sounds like they ended up flying your flight with the replacement aircraft rather than actually canceling it, right?

The voucher to get you to LAX was a nice touch, assuming you could find seats for a reasonable price. I don't blame them for not wanting to move folks with checked baggage. That seems like a reasonable policy.

Despite my bickering, yes, all this is actually a pretty reasonable response to a delay. I guess it's only frustrating because the entire trip is 6 hours by car (heh). We've been here 7 hours

The replacement flight has not arrived here yet, so I can't tell you how the trip went The inbound flight is on flightstats.com and shows the inbound plane on-time at 7:30pm PST here, so they can turn it around and I guess we'll be going around 8pm.

We'll see what happens.


Does anyone know how the voucher delay system works? Has anyone ever received a voucher from JetBlue? Are they hard to use? I'm referring to the JetBlue Customer Bill of Rights... If they do take off at 8pm, then we'll be 6+ hours, which apparently is a full refund in the form of a credit/voucher?

- Darren

[sbm12]

Good luck!

The voucher system is supposed to be automatic and they will send you an email with the details. I'd give it a couple days before following up on the situation, especially with the holidays mid-week.

[RdFltErr]

Originally Posted by sbm12

Good luck!

The voucher system is supposed to be automatic and they will send you an email with the details. I'd give it a couple days before following up on the situation, especially with the holidays mid-week.

thanks Hope that's true! That'd be cool. I will say, the gate staff here have treated us really nicely. If this had happened on United (where I am 2P) I suspect I would have been SOL by now. Maybe I will fly JetBlue more often.


Another question... Does anyone fly this route often? Is it always late? The flightstats rating shows it's on-time 0.3 out of 5.0 times, but I don't really know what that means...

[davidmay]

so why is it that snowstorms are considered "uncontrollable" but a failed navigation computer isn't? is JetBlue supposed to have kept the computer from failing somehow, or is the "controllable" part that they should have had a spare closer to hand so it was a short delay rather than a 6-hour delay?

is it just that the difference is that they're willing to pay compensation to one airplane's worth of passengers, but not to a whole airport full?

[sbm12]

Originally Posted by davidmay

so why is it that snowstorms are considered "uncontrollable" but a failed navigation computer isn't? is JetBlue supposed to have kept the computer from failing somehow, or is the "controllable" part that they should have had a spare closer to hand so it was a short delay rather than a 6-hour delay?

is it just that the difference is that they're willing to pay compensation to one airplane's worth of passengers, but not to a whole airport full?

Mechanical failures are generally considered to be within the airline's control, as they can perform appropriate maintenance or have necessary spares available to deal with them. Weather cannot be managed.

[sbm12]

Looks like the flight finally got out at 8:30pm, likely using the aircraft that was scheduled to operate the 6:05pm departure that was canceled. I guess they had either low enough loads or sufficient people moved to other flights that they could combine them down to a single plane.

[davidmay]

Originally Posted by sbm12

Weather cannot be managed.

Obviously weather cannot be controlled, but it can be managed around to some extent, or at least the recovery from a period of bad weather could be managed....

Again, I'm just still a little frustrated that a one hour mechanical delay gets a voucher, but the fact that JetBlue couldn't fly me out of Seattle for three days after flights resumed in Seattle (six day total delay) doesn't!

[sbm12]

Originally Posted by davidmay

Obviously weather cannot be controlled, but it can be managed around to some extent, or at least the recovery from a period of bad weather could be managed....

Agreed...bad choice of word on my part.

[defiance96]

Originally Posted by RdFltErr

Now, the good (and interesting)

- Rep at the counter informed me that JetBlue offers a free taxi voucher to LAX! She would refund our ticket (no voucher for the delay though) to use on a competing airline who could actually get us home and pay for our cab, free.


Comments?

And I bet if you take them up on this, you likely get nothing under the Customer Bill of Rights, because it would be seen as a non-purchase. You requested a refund, and they gave it to you. So its not quite clear to me this is a good thing at all, especially given what you'd likely pay for a walk-up fare.

[haddon90]

i have a 3.5 hour layover in LGB in a few weeks. i've never been, so what is there to do? any bars/restaurants to get a bite to eat?

[sbm12]

Originally Posted by defiance96

And I bet if you take them up on this, you likely get nothing under the Customer Bill of Rights, because it would be seen as a non-purchase. You requested a refund, and they gave it to you. So its not quite clear to me this is a good thing at all, especially given what you'd likely pay for a walk-up fare.

Depends. I'd rather my money back in cash than a voucher, assuming I am not going to get to fly anyways. If there were seats open and a reasonable fare (the great unknown) then getting real cash back that could potentially cover the new ticket would be better than a voucher and a flight 6 hours delayed with some uncertainty around that number at the time the taxi was offered.

[Seat13c]

Originally Posted by haddon90

i have a 3.5 hour layover in LGB in a few weeks. i've never been, so what is there to do? any bars/restaurants to get a bite to eat?

Ammenities at LGB are a little more basic compared to most airports. If you don't mind renting a car and passing back through security at LGB, you may want leave the airport for something good to eat/drink.

[JetBlueFA]

Outside of security, up above the main ticket lobby is a good restaurant called the prop room. If you don't mind going back thru security I would recommend eating there as the food is good and gives you a great overview of the field and our operations.