Originally Posted by nsx
Flight delays can be extreme, with no alternative due to thin service. My first B6 flight was delayed 3 hours.
After two approximately on-time flights, my 4th flight on JetBlue is shaping up to be another sleep deprivation experience. This time I had the choice of flying Southwest with a connection arriving 20 minutes earlier than JetBlue, but I decided to go with JetBlue.
Just to be sure, I phoned 1 800 JETBLUE to make sure everything was OK before I left for the airport. No problems, they said. The airport display first said on time, then a 20 minute delay, and now a 90 minute delay.
I'm beginning to think that JetBlue is below critical mass (frequency) on its routes, and will lose customers semi-permanently with delays like this.
Edited to add: final delay was 2 hours. That makes an average delay of 1.25 hours over my 4 flights. I hope to have better luck next week.
I don't claim to have the answer to flight delays, but larger airlines can often marshall resources to fix a multi-hour delay. I haven't yet seen JetBlue do anything other than roll the delays to the end of the day. Ultra-full flights may be part of the reason, not allowing two flights to be merged. Perhaps JetBlue's planned growth will help.
I'll add one more dislike to the OP: the current seat assignment system favors early booking low-fare passengers over late booking high-fare passengers. The legacies have seating preferences for high-mileage customers and sometimes upgrades for full fare. Southwest has a system that frequent customers know how to work to get a good seat virtually every time. On the Southwest forum, people debate ad infinitum which is better. But JetBlue has neither of these systems and puts its highest-paying customers in themiddle seats. That's bad business, IMHO.
I don't have a solution to propose, but I'm sure there are several viable options. Boarding speed seems not to be an issue as it would be for Southwest, because JetBlue turns in my limited experience require at least 45 minutes.
I'm a veteran of Southwest, meaning that I am patient and easy to please, but if middle seats and major flight delays were regular features, I wouldn't choose JetBlue for business in most cases. I can get an aisle seat with good pitch virtually every time on Southwest, and a nonstop on JetBlue is only superior if it actually arrives before Southwest's connecting flight.
Oh, and I'll modify my Likes list to say that JetBlue's FAs are superior in positive attitude to Southwest's, and that is a high compliment indeed. Tonight's crew had started their day much earlier with a 2-hour delay and they handled their very long day with grace.