heathpack

Some of you might know from another thread I recently started that JB cancelled my mother's flight on Tuesday from Burbank to JFK and we had trouble reaching them by telephone. I posted here to see if there is a better way to contact JB. (The answer is telephone or Twitter.) The posted responses of JB employees to that thread suggest that JB considers it operationally efficient to have inadequate phone capacity to handle a crisis (it is cheaper in the long run to have lesser phone capacity and increasing capacity would not be cost-effective). Hopefully JB is working on improving other methods of communications if they have no intention of changing the phone system.

When Mother was rebooked, she was rebooked onto a redeye last night. The young, tech-savvy travellers who were aware of the Twitter rebooking option likely got all daytime seats before Mother could get through on the phone, leaving a 75-year-old lady with spinal problems on a flight which will preclude her ability to get a good night's rest. Nothing was available out of Burbank, we had to send her out of LAX. We made sure her request for a wheelchair was transferred to the new booking.

Last night we arrive at LAX. JB has no curbside check-in, where do we get the wheelchair? Mr. H accompanies mother into terminal, the JB check-in line looks to be about 45 minutes long, no other help is in sight. He puts Mother in the check-in line and goes to see if he can find someone and in a few minutes comes across a smiling red-jacketed man pushing a wheelchair. Sorry, I cannot help you, my company is contracted with Alaska Air, not JB, I don't know how to get a JB wheelchair.

Ok, Mr. H decides he will go stand in the line for Mother and call JB and he sends her somewhere to sit. There is no place nearby, but she does find a seat where she can at least see him standing in the line. He gets in line and calls JB. Meanwhile, out in the car, I don't know what's going on, but I can see there is no wheelchair in sight, I am also calling JB to try to get the wheelchair. Shockingly, LAX airport security is letting me sit curbside and has not yet run me off.

Mr. H gets through to JB and is told the only way to get the pre-ordered wheelchair is for Mother to wait in the line and then check her bag and THEN they will call for a wheelchair. When Mr. H tells JB phone agent that makes no sense- Mother needs a wheelchair and cannot stand for 45 minutes in line, he is told that it would be a "waste of the wheelchair attendant's time" to come out for her before her bag has been checked. He hangs up in disgust and calls me to let me know what's going on.

I inform him that I am also on hold with JB, my agent has her supervisor calling their wheelchair people at LAX and supposedly they will be able to get someone sent out to get her. I return to my JB call and after about 10 minutes I am told that a wheelchair will be out for her right away. By now, we have been working on the wheelchair issue for about 15 minutes. I am now run off by LAX security, who were surprisingly nice about booting me.

Mr. H continues to wait in line for Mother, I drive in circles around the airport, the pace of the line picks up, the wheelchair guy shows up 15 minutes later about one minute before Mr. H gets to the front of the check-in line, where Mother joins him to check-in. Wheelchair guy is super-nice and friendly, apologetic for the delay. Fortunately we had left plenty of time for something to go wrong.

Ticket agent asks Mother how her day is going. Mother says she is not happy. Ticket agent looks her in the eye, says nothing and then looks down and starts pecking at her keyboard to complete the check-in process. Totally emblematic of our interactions with JB- not impolite, just exuding a "we don't really care" attitude.

Last Thursday (four days after the blizzard), one of my colleagues at work gets a call from her parents. They are at the airport in Boston trying to fly to a wedding in DC. Their JB flight has been cancelled and rebooked several times, they can't get through to JB on the phone, can't get information at the airport, can she go to the website and/or try to call from work to see if she can learn more? They are at their wit's end.

This is our first experience with JB. Our conclusions:
1. If you fly JB, you will be way better off if you have a team of several people with access to multiple different communication technologies in case something goes wrong. This is probably not a good airline for a little old lady who needs a wheelchair to fly alone. Indeed, I would argue that its probably not a great airline for any solo traveller to fly, except perhaps a very experienced traveller who can manage phone calls, Twittering and a websearch simultaneously.
2. If something does go wrong, JB will be totally polite, but may be unable to get you the information you need. They appear to be understaffed with limited phone capacity yet they will direct you to their phone lines to solve your problem. They will not send you helpful information via email (they'll just tell you to call), they won't put helpful information on their website (it will just tell you to call), they won't direct you to alternate communication options like Twitter (you have to find out about that on your own).

So would Mr. H and I ever fly JB? Maybe. If the flight had the best schedule for our itinerary, we might, but in general we'd look to other options as we have overall been pretty unimpressed. We however can roll with the punches and tag-team the problem if we hit a snag.

Would we want Mother to fly JB again? No. She cannot technologically multitask herself out of a pickle, and it is surprisingly difficult to obtain a wheelchair. Totally not worth the risk.

Now our next task is to see if we can get JB to refund that $100 gift certificate we gave her as a Christmas gift....

My Rant is done and time to wish you all on FT a Happy New Year!

bmg42000

If they will not refund it, try selling it on ebay or craigslist

Dieuwer

Drive, take the bus, or book another airline to DCA (DL or US). Should be cheap anyway.

heathpack

Spoke with Mother a little while ago. There was also no wheelchair waiting for her when she arrived JFK. Flight was crowded but otherwise fine.

Work colleague's parents did get out of Boston late Thursday, I believe on JB. Found it interesting however that they needed to call their daughter because they could not get through to JB on the phone.

H

magiciansampras

Silly, don't you know by now you have to Twitter JetBlue in order to get through???