Arrivals at FLL was horrible Saturday night 1/6!!!
 

I was on Ft 566 on 1/6 (SJU-FLL) on Saturday 1/6 and it was bad enough that the flight departed over 2 hours late which I understood due to the nationwide schedules being disrupted by the winter storm in the Northeast. However once we landed in FLL we sat on the runway for 45 minutes until a gate opened and then had to wait an additional hour for our luggage to arrive on the carousel. The baggage area was a total nightmare and they kept on announcing carousel numbers for the arriving flights and then changing the information. Also is it so difficult to actually list the flight numbers on the information boards for each carousel instead of the ridiculous "Welcome to Ft. Lauderale message?

You should email JetBlue. While you may not technically be entitled to compensation based on their Passenger Bill of Rights, given all that you went through, I'd say you are due compensation as a goodwill gesture due to a string of failures to deliver the type of experience they strive for. Beyond they compensation (which will likely be modest vs. the inconvenience), it's worth letting them know of their failure to deliver. Hopefully they can use the info to improve future service.

This sounds more of an issue with FLL rather than JetBlue.

Ramp service (loading and unloading baggage) is the responsibility of the individual airlines. The airlines typically control their own gates as well, although FLL ATC may certainly have been a factor. Regardless, the buck stops with the airline, so if the overall experience is sub-par, it was not a widespread issue that affected multiple airlines, then I'd say it's up to JetBlue to take responsibility.

Hi RSSrsvp,

So sorry to hear about your flight. Hopefully they will give you a voucher for future trips. You can fly on JetBlue again sometime in the future. Hopefully the weather will get better.

My guess is low staffing levels late night combined with the late arrival slowed things down. Sucks.

I can empathize with you on this one. The problem is FLL is so gate constrained that any delay will throw the whole system out of whack. If you ever have a layover in FLL (I have had several in T3/T4), watch the gates. When one flight leaves a gate, another flight immediately arrives at the gate. So, when a flight is late, it just has to squeeze in when it can. However, with that said, I do believe the airlines are partially to blame for these gate issues. They schedule operations at gates with no slack, so even one or two delays results in chaos with gates.

As far as baggage claim, that whole "Welcome to Fort Lauderdale" annoys me as well. Really, can't list the flights on the carousel? It's probably because luggage guys in back go to the first carousel available.

Isn't FLL still under construction in places? Baggage delays have been an issue there for several years. Unless the construction is over, there's not much the airlines can do right now.

Yes, new T4 customs haven't opening yet. Right now, they still used at old T4 customs.They already open new T4 East G1-G6 gates. As for concourse H, they will be demolished it soon. Once they open it up 2 more gates G7 & G8 sometime end of 2018.

I've got to think that when airlines have gate problems there is *some* emergency capability to get a gate from another airline, even if you have to pay for it. I imagine it's just a matter of when the airline thinks it's worth paying. The PBoR might make that decision for B6. If so, they are certainly to blame for any waiting for a gate more than what should be acceptable...

There were multiple B6 flights arriving about the same time. At one point they announced they would all arriving at carousel 6 and everyone waiting for their bags looked at one another in amazement! :mad:

If this happens again, I would suggest asking for the JetBlue station manager and telling him/her on the spot about the issue. I've had to do this a few times now and have been compensated on the spot.

B6 runs things pretty thin on staffing and if things get a but out of whack, they become a major issue on B6.

The point is that people want service not compensation. B6 is, of course, happy to dole out vouchers because they cost it very little (most of them are never used). It is not so happy about actually doing anything.

Make your choices about future B6 flying.

Yet when I go to LAX's UA customer service desk, where I am the only person and five of them were on their phones, I still had to call in to get them what I wanted to do. :rolleyes:

There's no way the JetBlue station manager doesn't know all about this. As discussed above, FLL is under construction and there simply aren't enough baggage carousels for the number of incoming planes. The problem isn't unique to B6 at all.