According to the local ABC affiliate, the Saxons got there last Wednesday night and didn’t leave until Tuesday.
Weather was great. Flights were going in and out on schedule.
But the Saxtons — Curtis the dad, Nicole the mom with Dominic and Sadee, their 4- and 13-year-old kids — were flying back to Virginia on JetBlue buddy passes. Buddy passes are vouchers that airline employees can share with family and friends, allowing them to fly for next to nothing.
Flying for almost free comes at the cost of convenience. Buddy pass users are not just flying standby, but they’re at the very bottom of the standby list. After all the regular passengers board, and then all the higher-priority standby passengers board, if there any seats left, only then are buddy pass passengers allowed onto the plane.
Just saw this linked on Facebook. The most infuriating thing is how the ABC affiliate makes it sound like the family was somehow wronged. Almost as much as the fact that someone donated tickets and money, AFTER they had declined meal and lodging vouchers from the airport.
Sadly, I fear that the employee who provided the buddy passes may soon be out of a job...
__________________ "When you're great, people often mistake candor for bragging."
Wow, who would have thought free passes would be at the bottom of the standby list and when flying in the summer you may have to wait for flights? It's amazing what websites pass off as "news".
Too bad, it's probably going to cost somebody their job who thought they were doing a good thing, and most certainly make the passes more restrictive.
In 1993 my wife and I used non-rev passes to go to Hawaii. On the trip to Hawaii he were bumped off one flight for a total delay of about three hours. On the trip home we were bumped off fifteen flights over a three day period. That was the last time that we used non-rev passes for vacation travel.
I watched this story on CNN this morning.... my days are worth more than the ticket cost... but I understand how it can be tough for a family of four. However, you know that going in... and should have known the loads before travelling. And, yelling to the press is not going to go well for the giftor of the buddy passes.
Funny, how United stepped in for them... United cannot help their own customers but are happy to help JetBlue's!
A friend of mine is a pilot for a major US-based legacy carrier. His wife is a former FA on an European carrier. They have three children (oldest is in third grade). She flew (by herself) with the kids to/from Europe last summer to visit her parents. It took them nine days to get home (five of them at JFK). This year, it only took three days.
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Just saw this linked on Facebook. The most infuriating thing is how the ABC affiliate makes it sound like the family was somehow wronged. Almost as much as the fact that someone donated tickets and money, AFTER they had declined meal and lodging vouchers from the airport.
Sadly, I fear that the employee who provided the buddy passes may soon be out of a job...
It seems to me the employee is also at fault. He/she should have known that getting four people on a flight together in summer no less is basically impossible. He/she should have either known that his friend was able to travel as such or withheld giving the passes to the imbecile in the first place.
First of all Jet blue did nothing wrong and I was pleased to see the comments on the article understand that. However I am willing to bet Jet blue's facebook page is getting slammed right now by people vowing to never fly the airline again and they are horrible for stranding a family for almost a week. I can just see it.
Blame can be mixed between the family and the employee that gave the passes. I am tending to blame the employee more. According to the article this was the first time anyone in this family had ever flown in their lives so of course they don't know what to expect even if they had paid for a ticket, let alone buddy passes.
The employee shouldn't have donated the passes in the first place and will probably lose his or her job over it, if not then he or she is guaranteed to lose buddy pass privledges. Using a buddy pass is the equivalent of offering to eat leftover food from a restaurant that customers leave on the plates. You are low as dirt and you will get a seat only if all paying customers have boarded, standby pax either paid standby or irrops, deadheading crew, and only then you might be lucky if one seat is left, let alone 4.
This family didn't have the money so they shouldn't have traveled. What makes them entitled to have any sort of priority at the airport amd why should non rev trump a paying passenger or crew that needed to be somewhere?
Yeah the family should have never traveled when they didnt have the money, but the employee should have known that giving away a buddy pass during a peak season would be hard enough for one person, let alone 4.
It seems to me the employee is also at fault. He/she should have known that getting four people on a flight together in summer no less is basically impossible. He/she should have either known that his friend was able to travel as such or withheld giving the passes to the imbecile in the first place.
I agree fully. My frustration was more about how the press chose to portray this as some sob story where JetBlue or SEA is somehow at fault. And as Dadaluma83 mentions, I can just see the kettle interwebz going wacko over this.
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Wow. Just wow.
My heart goes out to those kids. They got stuck in a crappy situation by their parents.
To everyone over the age of 18 involved with the buddy passes, are you freakin' kidding me? Buddy passes in the middle of the summer, no back-up plan and then b*tching to the media about it? You don't have to be a FTer to realize that this whole situation was a really bad idea.
The family was sort of wronged. Whoever gave, or sold them, the buddy passes didn't adequately explain the issues. Six nights in the airport. Maybe someone from JetBlue could have checked bookings and politely told the family the chance of anything opening up prior to Monday was zero. I clicked on the article. A poster said this is the hardest flight to use a buddy pass. One flight a day. There are sometimes 40 passengers on the standby list. It sounds like it was possible they wouldn't be able to use their buddy passes for weeks.
The only reason the family got home is a person bought them tickets on United.
Maybe JetBlue could have politely told them there won't be tickets available for them any time in the foreseeable future. A busy restaurant tells would be customers they are fully booked and aren't accepting any walk ups.
The person who gave them the tickets should have done some homework. Told them the passes wouldn't work for them.
It's easy to blame the parents. Sounds like they don't fly much. Sounds like they had no idea about possible issues. I'll sort of disagree with the previous posters, I'll give most of the blame to the person who gave them passes.
The family was sort of wronged. Whoever gave, or sold them, the buddy passes didn't adequately explain the issues. Six nights in the airport. Maybe someone from JetBlue could have checked bookings and politely told the family the chance of anything opening up prior to Monday was zero. I clicked on the article. A poster said this is the hardest flight to use a buddy pass. One flight a day. There are sometimes 40 passengers on the standby list. It sounds like it was possible they wouldn't be able to use their buddy passes for weeks.
The only reason the family got home is a person bought them tickets on United.
Maybe JetBlue could have politely told them there won't be tickets available for them any time in the foreseeable future. A busy restaurant tells would be customers they are fully booked and aren't accepting any walk ups.
The person who gave them the tickets should have done some homework. Told them the passes wouldn't work for them.
It's easy to blame the parents. Sounds like they don't fly much. Sounds like they had no idea about possible issues. I'll sort of disagree with the previous posters, I'll give most of the blame to the person who gave them passes.
Yes, I'll give you the point that the person who provided the passes should have also imparted some knowledge on the family (or not given them passes that they could have guessed would be this difficult to use).
However, I find it hard to side with a parent who would let their 4 year old child get hungry to the point of needing paramedics called to the airport simply because they didn't want to leave the airport for fear of missing a once-a-day flight.
I understand they wanted to get home, airport food is expensive/nasty, and money is tight. But if it's a matter of my kid not being able to bathe, sleep, or eat enough to stay upright, the level to which I care about drilling up a credit card balance, overdrafting a bank account, or almost anything else is relatively inconsequential.
__________________ "When you're great, people often mistake candor for bragging."
Most airports have some kind of traveler's aide. I'm sure they could have helped out with getting the kids fed in an emergency situation. It sounds like to me this idiot wanted his 15 minutes of fame and was willing to put his kids in peril to do so. Kind of like the imbecile a few years back that faked his kid going up in an air balloon to try to get on a reality tv show.
The family was sort of wronged. Whoever gave, or sold them, the buddy passes didn't adequately explain the issues.
But we don't know if that is really the case. How many times Lewis have we seen people who read what they want to read, or hear what they want to hear, setting aside the factual information and instead going for the pixiedust option? I've seen you called a big poopyhead many times for your stance on Skybus and Spirit for instance, even when you were right.
I'm not familiar with buddy passes from JetBlue, but isn't there usually some sort of written documentation when one accepts these types of 'gifts' from people in the industry?
I tend to agree that the employee may be out of a job, but I won't be blaming him right now as we don't know what really happened. The actions or lack of action on the part of the parents is odd, however. Then again, there are people who do just sit back and wait, and take zero responsibility for themselves, and have no initiative. But when it involves a 4 year old and hunger to the point of paramedics being involved, I have to question the judgement of the parents.
