Originally Posted by
volvo99
This was forecasted at least 24hrs out; plenty of time for JetBlue to set up a conference call with station managers to set up a game plan for adequate staffing, delay and diversion recovery, as well as consider pre-cancellations and reposition planes and crews to recover quickly.
Yup. The sixth or seventh time you are shocked (and your operations destroyed and customers traumatized) by a severe weather situation that was well forecast, you go from looking overwhelmed to looking incompetent.
Originally Posted by Analise
There was no way of knowing in advance that this October storm would hammer New England as it did.
The ferocity of the storm / snow accumulation was somewhat underestimated but its presence and path of travel very well understood. You can argue that it is stupid to dispatch BOS-EWR flights, 40-minute flights, into the teeth of such a thing. It is stupider still not to activate irrop contingency plans as the storm is hitting. B6 seems to always be thunderstuck, and totally unprepared, for these increasingly routine weather incidents. Long-term weather patterns in the NE US are not getting any more benign. Read the papers.