Dieuwer

JetBlue's Flawed Customer Service Could Be Detrimental To Business

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2894...al-to-business

sbm12

So a weather system made it 1000 miles from middle America to the east coast in 2 hours? I'm impressed.

He also got the 3-hour comp rule completely wrong.

Sorry, but one you start to get stuff like that wrong credibility goes to hell in my book.

Yes, JetBlue does not have interline relationships with many carriers meaning that rebookings are a pain. The guy's complaints are reasonable, and my recollection of the weather situation on Sunday was that it wasn't so bad in the NYC area. But he misses a number of easy facts that distract from the message.

af fp

It's a weird way to request customer service, basically write an article about the issue.

As far as I am concerned, I am not too impressed either, JetBlue cancelled my flight on Sunday and wanted me to wait until Monday, which I could not do. I had booked a back-up with Delta and the situation was the same, delta wanted me to wait 2 days. I ended up getting both tickets refunded and riving a rental car, qhich was much more expensive and phisically taxing.

I believe both Delta and JetBlue provided an awful service, I would not single JetBlue out.

sfozrhfco

Waiting until the next day is hardly providing poor customer service. If there are weather problems which force the cancellation of multiple flights by multiple airlines, and the flights later that day are full and other planes are out of position, what exactly do you expect them to do? Buy another plane and rush it in just for you? The planes are already filled with existing passengers and airlines can not afford to have multiple extra planes hanging around in the event of a once every few months weather issue.

The article mentions Southwest as an airline to emulate but alas they do not protect on other airlines either, so that argument does not hold much water.

Unless airfares go up significantly and enough people are willing to pay the high prices--thus making it profitable to fly with 65%-75% of the seats filled--it will be impossible for airlines to accommodate everybody immediately on the next flight in an irrops situation caused by weather. There are simply too few available seats as necessitated by relatively high costs to operate an airline and relatively low fares paid for the seat on average.

PlateMan

Seeking Alpha is a site that pretty much anyone can get stuff posted on. It's not real journalism, and as the article shows, his facts are way off.

I believe this is mislabeled as an article .. more like a blog or opinion, or angry rant.

BearX220

I agree the linked article is crap, but buried deep within is a valid complaint about B6's lack of interlining policy which makes irops rebooking fraught with peril. I was at BOS one sunny Monday afternoon a couple of summers ago when our flight to IAD was cancelled, a lot of connections got blown up... and you should have seen the faces of business travelers heading to IAH, DEN, etc. when they were told they'd now be arriving at the destination late Tuesday night.

There are about 75 other ways to get from Boston to Houston on a Monday afternoon but B6 wasn't going to rebook distressed pax on any of them. Those customers had the choice of taking a 24-hour delay (which made it a trip in vain for most, obviously), walking over to UA or DL and buying a very costly walk-up ticket, or giving up and going home.

B6 could fix that and retain more customers with an interlining agreement, but they don't. So "waiting until the next day" can indeed mean poor customer service, and it's the main reason JetBlue is no good IMO for business travel. Starting my trips at a distant B6 outstation (SEA), if a flight goes tech, it's no good for me to hear I should just come back to the airport in 24 or 48 hours because that's when the next open seat on JetBlue is available.

sbm12

Agreed.

But none of the passengers' blown connections you described would have been on B6 via IAD. Houston and Denver haven't been served from IAD ever.

Interlining has become a bit better with the AA deal but it is still lacking. Doesn't seem likely to get better any time soon.

BearX220

You're right. Canx flight must have been to JFK, as we were flying BOS-JFK-SEA. Believe our segment was canx because our inbound a/c was stuck on ground at IAD. Sorry for confusion.

Dieuwer

You can fly BOS-SEA :-:

BearX220

And indeed two of the three of us were rebooked on the B6 BOS-SEA nonstop that afternoon; my kid and I got the last two seats. Because B6 does not interline, my wife was forced to stay overnight at Logan and get a B6 itinerary the next day. So, a $200 hotel room plus meals, she missed a half a day's work, and got back to SEA 16 hours later than booked... because B6 transcon frequencies are thin and they wouldn't book her/us over to another carrier. No compensation from B6, not a grape.

We haven't flown B6 since. When I'm flying for work I can't afford such delays, and when we're flying for leisure we don't want to risk them.

JAX2BOS

We interline with AA a lot in BOS during irops now according to my friends in customer service there. The agreement may not have been in place when you were stranded, which I agree was awful when we had ZERO relationships (hello Feb 07)....

mikeef

+1

It's the reason I don't fly Jet Blue unless the alternatives are so horrible that I'll take the risk (and this is not bashing those who do fly JBLU; just my personal feelings). I go in knowing that, if there is a problem, I'm not getting interlined anywhere.

It's too bad; the in-flight experience has always been second-to-none on the flights I have taken.

Mike

CAL PHL FLYER

This is something to consider when buying a ticket with JetBlue or Southwest..they dont have interline agreeements with other airlines to put you on if something goes wrong..its a chance you take..@:-)

audio-nut

It's mentioned a few times in this thread that B6 does invol reaccom on AA.

JetBlueFA

From what I hear from out airports people we see a lot of AA customers in BOS, JFK, and ORD. Especially in JFK and BOS since we serve a lot more destinations non-stop from those cities.