JFK Fun
 

So Mrs. Boghopper was booked on FLL-JFK-SFO today, and JB cancelled FLL-JFK. They rebooked her on FLL-BOS-SFO with a 30 minute connection for the last flight of the day. No way was she going to take that chance (and she was told if she missed the connection she would be on her own to find a place to sleep overnight) so she asked for alternatives. None available and JB refused to book her on another carrier because the delay was caused by construction. Construction that has been months coming, long before we booked this flight. So we demanded that they cancel the flight and refund the money. This they did, after a 45 minute hold for a "supervisor". I booked her a one-way for less that what JB refunded.

From what I'm seeing on twitter and others (some fun hashtags borrowed from John Oliver) JFK is a nightmare. No reason to think this won't continue with JB for the duration of construction (for the rest of the year I think). Note to self: avoid JFK and JB like the plague until future notice.

As usual, JB fails miserably at irregular operations and planning. We won't make the mistake of booking on them again (not that we did all that much before). Too risky.

looking at the delta forum it seems that weather (wind?) reduced ops to one runway. my takeaway is that if the weather is ok it won't be too bad, but all bets are off if its not sunny and calm

Construction at JFK
 

I wonder if other JFK airlines (DL and AA) are being so callous.

The whole avoid JFK thing is a little overblown as it takes a very specific wind to force them to use only one runway. At other times the construction is no big deal - remember JFK has 4 runways and only 1 is being renovated. Usually they use 2 simultaneously and sometimes 3, so most of the time construction on one isn't a big deal. People on twitter need to calm down!

That said, B6 should not behave that way. JFK is their hub and they ought to be a little more prepared during this period to accommodate pax on the few days when the wind acts up and takes JFK down to 1 runway. They went through this is 2010 after-all, when another of JFK's runways was closed for a similar period of time.

It was a severe wind that forced the 13/31's to close so they were reduced to only 4R/22L. I'm not sure why Jetblue blamed construction; JFK is always at best a 3 runway operational airport. Construction of the runway had little to do with it as even with the runway open they still would have delays during the peak periods.

It's going to be a combination of both, as the runway that is currently closed for construction allows for two runway operation in the prevailing severe wind conditions. Yes there are delays but not as bad as when it's down to one runway. I think yesterday was the worst, averaging over 4 hours with ground holds as well.

And yes all airlines are affected, it just depends on how the delays are dealt with. AA is cancelling flights from the smaller airports, DL is basically delaying some flights to keep others on time.