electra

The boyfriend and I watched the whole drama unfolding, and differed on only one point: He feels that a live emergency unfolding on national TV could be detrimental to B6, whereas I think that the fantastic landing, and perfect response to the crisis will only reinforce passenger's good feelings about the airline.

What do you think, will this help or hurt B6 in Pax's eyes?

kdinino

As PR professional, I think it will have a slight negatative short term effect, but after seeing the perfect landing, great crew response and all the passeneger testimonials where they basically are a spokesperson for Jetblue (talking about Direct Tv, etc). It will have a positive long-term effect. I mean, their message of Live TV, low fares etc was disseminated to millions of people last night (for free). It definitely reinforces that the airline is in a class of its own and knows how to respond properly to adverse situations.

luv2ctheworld

I agree that the short term might be some jittery feelings, but truthfully I think that it applies to all flights; not just B6. I spoke to a friend about it, and her reply was, "sometimes I wonder about getting on a plane"

But as for Jetblue's way of handling it, especially the great landing (well, great for what it was), and how they handled PR, I think it will help them. It would be one of those thoughts that "their crews are great" after seeing such a spectacular and safe landing. A coworker said that if he ever got into a pickle like that, he'd want that pilot to be at the controls, so it seemed to be an image boost.

BobH

I wonder if this had occured with any other airline in any other part of the country, whether it would have received the TV coverage it did.

For example, if it had been a NW plane and circled between DTW and the air national base near here, whether it would have made the news to the extent that it did.

Bob H

kdinino

Thats a great point and I'd say no way. It'd be a scrolling line of text on the bottom of CNN. Jetblue's two biggest "hubs" are LGB and JFK, both huge media markets...this isn't a surprise. Not too mention that on MBNBC they had some NBC employees on the flight.

The airline is a media darling and their PR team is the best in the industry--they maximize the hell out of every possible opportunity. Not saying they had a part in publicizing this, but seeing that Jetblue is popular in those markets and has never had any accidents, the media eat this slop up...lol

goingsomewhere

Good publicity: Excellent piloting and flight crew.

Bad publicity: Are the mechanics doing a good job or ?

jaguar

Just shows the public for hours and hours in prime-time what a first class operation JetBlue is.

bratton

You are probably correct. In the Seattle paper this morning, an article quoted John Nance, an author and aviation expert stating that there have been two other incidents with Airbus aircraft having the same problem. I don't recall having seen those publicized.

LAX

I would have to disagree with this. IMHO, even the best mechanics in the world cannot prevent aircraft parts from occasional malfunctioning. Considering that B6 has a relatively young fleet, everything on the aircraft should be in pretty good condition (unless there are reports/warnings prior to routine maintainence work), so it's unlikely that the mechanics neglected to check the nose gear (or whatever that's called).

As someone who has never flown B6, I think this drama was good publicity for B6. While I don't know anything about flying a plane, this had the potential to become something disasterous if the pilots didn't know what they were doing. This suggests to me that B6 provides good training to its pilots and crew on how to handle emergencies.

LAX

FWAAA

It will be good and bad for B6.

The picture perfect landing by the heroes on the flight deck was, of course, the happiest ending imaginable. ^ to both of them for a perfectly safe ending. They showed why pilots make the big bucks (or deserve to make the big bucks, since the B6 pilots don't actually make big bucks).

The bad will come when it is revealed that the mechanics screwed up - nosegear don't just turn 90 degrees as some kind of random mechanical failure. They do that when someone fails to do their job properly. And that publicity will be bad. At least that publicity won't be the lead story on the evening news for two hours straight like it was here in Los Angeles last night.

IceTrojan

While the mechanical aspect of the story will be bad PR, I think the American public (in general) is just one big flock of sheep, and all they saw was an excellent landing under the circumstances, praise for the crew, and awareness that jetBlue even exists now (how many people do you think hopped onto the internet to see if jetBlue flies to their home airports?). Yes... free advertisement!!!

Humans are very visual... most people will probably tune out when the media reports on the FAA findings.

And... any publicity is good publicity, right?

indyscott

Exactly, just ask Kate Moss!

justageek

Great publicity. Shows that B6 has great pilots, in-flight satellite TV, and good load factors (140 pax on a recently-introduced route). Plus, all the pax I heard interviewed were gushing about how well the FAs handled the emergency, etc.

goingsomewhere

adamak

Good : Safe landing. I hope the pilot and crew get bonus $$.
Bad : leaving CNN running and cause additional stress?

I think people who flies JetBlue will continue to do so. I doubt people will think "let me switch to JetBlue because they did a great emergency landing."