Jet Blue's silver lining--a taxi

[thebest]

Do those cabbies have a union?


Bye Bye--General Lee

unions don't do anything! Look at your paycheck.........go alpa?

 

[Deli Guy]

Yeah you rite, bra (as they say in nola). Sorry. I know you better. Don't worry though, a union is comin'. As for competent management and solid middle management ... who knows.

I for one want Neeleman to go. Yesterday.

But what you flightinfo-er's don't get is just how bad it is. I would LOVE to post some of those company emails on here or just give y'all my bp.com password (maybe I should auction it off to supplement my second year pay). Rumors may be indeed rumors, but if even half of the stories about the irate pax, security issues, thousands of bags in jfk, chartered flights, lost crewmembers, airbus crunch in BUF PLUS all the cancellations, the media coverage, our Crew Services system and FLICA completely useless -- then we have just dug ourselves a HUGE hole.

When you get an email from your CEO with the subject line ... "Please Help" -- what would y'all think about the strength of the operation?

Why not post the emails, it's not like Longhorn can do anything about it anymore.

:angryfire

Hey BC,
As bad as this was, it was worse in Detroit at Northwest in 99. I was in the middle of both. What NWA did was tell the customers to pound sand. Just like Delta and American are doing now. The middle management does suck. I saw no leadership on Wednesday or Thursday. I do think you are way too negative on the impact of this. It is going to cost 10 mil (plus or minus) and that sucks. The people will return because we have a good product.

 

[Turtle21]

Oh yes... I forgot the CEO e-mail employees asking..."Where are you?"

I'm shoveling snow out on the ramp. I already flew 95 hours this month so I 'm helping out with a shovel.

Tell sched I will talk to them next month and make sure you update the pay department that I maxed out already. Ta Ta.

 

[roadrunnerblue]

Yeah you rite, bra (as they say in nola). Sorry. I know you better. Don't worry though, a union is comin'. As for competent management and solid middle management ... who knows.

I for one want Neeleman to go. Yesterday.

But what you flightinfo-er's don't get is just how bad it is. I would LOVE to post some of those company emails on here or just give y'all my bp.com password (maybe I should auction it off to supplement my second year pay). Rumors may be indeed rumors, but if even half of the stories about the irate pax, security issues, thousands of bags in jfk, chartered flights, lost crewmembers, airbus crunch in BUF PLUS all the cancellations, the media coverage, our Crew Services system and FLICA completely useless -- then we have just dug ourselves a HUGE hole.

When you get an email from your CEO with the subject line ... "Please Help" -- what would y'all think about the strength of the operation?

Why not post the emails, it's not like Longhorn can do anything about it anymore.

:angryfire

Bavarian is correct:

This airline is on the wrong path and the main reason is the egotistical behavior of our CEO. No matter what experts you hire from other companies, if you constantly know it better and surround yourself with yesmen it really does start to look like the "Fuhrers bunker" there in Forrest Hills. The man is in over his head and need to depart the fix. Certain promoted individuals (good intentions understood) appear not to have a clue how to manage operations. And it flows from the top on down.

The Valentine's Day disaster will have repercussions far into the future.

As far as going union, it is high time to extract ourselves from indentured servitude and have some sort of protection from idiotic business plans, haphazard policy changes, lack of forsight and the hypocrisies of selective application of the so called 5 values that are touted every day.

If this fiasco does not result in management change I see a cloudy future at best.

 

[FlyBoeingJets]

If pax actually understood the ATC system and how it works (or doesn't work) they would never take discretion away from the Captain.

Note quite the issue here.

11 hours on the ramp held hostage in an airplane = passenger ire strong enough to generate congressional action.

Passengers DO NOT want it to happen again. If we have Captains so afraid of management that they can't treat their passengers humanely then something needs to intervene to prevent it in the future

 

[IB6 UB9]

Bavarian is correct:



As far as going union, it is high time to extract ourselves from indentured servitude and have some sort of protection from idiotic business plans, haphazard policy changes, lack of forsight and the hypocrisies of selective application of the so called 5 values that are touted every day.

What sort of protection do you mean? Will ALPA protect us from the same inept management decisions that created this 5 day abortion? I don't think so. Unless we change or upgrade our way of doing things or our leadership, we can unionize or ALPAize all we want...it will just accelerate our demise. In my opinion, if we don't realize right now how exposed we are...we are fugged. Period. Make some leadership changes...yesterday.

 

[IB6 UB9]

Note quite the issue here.

11 hours on the ramp held hostage in an airplane = passenger ire strong enough to generate congressional action.

Passengers DO NOT want it to happen again. If we have Captains so afraid of management that they can't treat their passengers humanely then something needs to intervene to prevent it in the future

I...respectfully...very much disagree with what I think you are implying here. If we have any Captains that are too afraid of management to be Captains then I haven't met them yet.

 

[crxpilot]

I'm shoveling snow out on the ramp. I already flew 95 hours this month so I 'm helping out with a shovel.

Tell sched I will talk to them next month and make sure you update the pay department that I maxed out already. Ta Ta.

95 hours in 18 days..............care to elaborate????

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

318 bucks for SWF-SRQ-SWF round trip on Greyhound. Of course, it takes two days to get there on Greyhound. Well.. and maybe jetBlue, too.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Hey BC,
As bad as this was, it was worse in Detroit at Northwest in 99. I was in the middle of both. What NWA did was tell the customers to pound sand. Just like Delta and American are doing now. The middle management does suck. I saw no leadership on Wednesday or Thursday. I do think you are way too negative on the impact of this.

Hmmm...

I was in the middle of the DTW fiasco myself. Ignoring the obvious point - that perhaps other airlines should have learned something from the well-publicized event in DTW - there were some key differences:

1. NWA didn't have any workers at the airport. Seems the City of Detroit coulda used more than the 3 snow plows they operated at the time...

2. NWA had just come off an even more incredible event in NRT, where hundreds of pax were stranded on B747's for over 20-hours!...and it didn't cost them a penny in "damages". That builds a (in this case false) sense of invincibility.

3. NWA management was predictable in their post-event behavior: "So sue us!" (The settlement was for $7-million. Record load-factors followed...) Delta and American were handling a lot of International pax last week...and their options for recourse against those airlines is a bit weaker. Not to mention they're scattered in several different countries.

4. Most importantly: NWA management knew what the heck was going on...they just didn't think it was a big deal. jetBlue management does not appear to know what happened. NWA pilots didn't get an e-mail from our boss asking for gouge. The Routing Planner in NWA Dispatch was taken out behind the hangar and shot (proverbally...no letters please!) for piling aircraft (including mine) into DTW when there were no carbon-based units in the terminal to welcome them...and no hope for relief.

 

[Turtle21]

95 hours in 18 days..............care to elaborate????

Yeah, they finally cleared the ramp enough for us to pull in to the gate this morning. Our block time must be a record. Hope we don't make the news.

 

[SonicPig]

If history repeats itself, then Jetblue will overcome this issue and be much stronger for it. This "perfect storm" has exposed some weaknesses in our operation, but management has proven to me and others that they are committed to doing the right things. I don't expect anyone to be perfect. I don't know one airline out there that is "perfect", but if you can learn from your mistakes and move on, which this co. has done before, what more can you ask for?

That's some wicked strong Bluejuice you're drinking. I guess you must have mine. That's OK, I don't need it.

The Pig.

 

[FlyBoeingJets]

I...respectfully...very much disagree with what I think you are implying here. If we have any Captains that are too afraid of management to be Captains then I haven't met them yet.

Originally Posted by FlyBoeingJets
Note quite the issue here.

11 hours on the ramp held hostage in an airplane = passenger ire strong enough to generate congressional action.

Passengers DO NOT want it to happen again. If we have Captains so afraid of management that they can't treat their passengers humanely then something needs to intervene to prevent it in the future



So you get to the ramp and there isn't a gate open....for 11 hours! Management is screwing up or the airport is screwing up. What do you do?

Don't get caught up in defending the Captains. I'm not bashing any particular company or individual. If employees fear the FAA, airport authority or management so much they let them sit on the ramp all day, then something has to change. Laws or rules to better support Captain authority would be a good thing. But the Captains would have to feel safe if they had to do the right thing, even against management's wishes. Knowing our system, new rules may instead tie our hands. Don't fear this change. A system that allowed passengers to be held hostage needs to be changed in some way. One can argue the current rules gave management TOO MUCH LEEWAY and their failure to flex caused everything. Tieing our hands, and scheduling's, to be more conservative will help prevent management from putting us into another bad situation. If you aren't allowed to lean forward until your face hits the ground, you won't be tempted too.

I used to work for a boss that said, "I've given you just enough rope to hang yourself. Be careful." If you weren't careful you were restricted the next time until you could prove more adept at predicting/handling changing conditions.

Airlines just showed they couldn't handle the responsibility previously given them. (Written or implied)

BTW, I believe the snow situation got us into trouble because no one (management, scheduling, FAA, airport authority) felt it was their responsibility to help solve the situation. They defered to other decision makers. One or more of these parties were incapable of solving it with current lines of communication and procedures. Hence the need to restrict their flexibility in the future.

 

[whymeworry?]

The public pats themselves on the back for getting a cheap fare then whines when they don't get the service they expected.

Ya' get what ya pay for.

Not a slight at the pilots of JB. I know you are professional. But I also wonder if an on-property union would have enabled you to do your job better. No way I would have stood for that kind of treatment of my pax and I know my union would have my back no matter what decision I made so long as I had my pax best interests at heart. I also wonder about your mgmt team. Are they trying to build an airline without the proper infrastructure in place (staffing)? What happened to Captain's authority. Never forget, pilots run the airline. The PIC is the final authority. Nobody, not even the president, can change that.

Sry about your dilemma gents, but y'all decided to work for a non-union carrier and have been happy to keep it that way. Your pax all decided to go with the cheapest deal they could find, and now they're learning a lessons of building an airline on the cheap. The lack of a union puts pilots in a precarious position when it comes to making decisions that are outside the box... Nobody has your back if the decision doesn't go your way. You can get fired in a heartbeat and it will break your bank to hire a lawyer to get your job back. JB guys and gals like to poke fun at the problems with unions but I would rather have the worst union than none at all. There are plenty of ways to get your pax off the plane without a gate. Even if the company refuses to give you a gate, your responsibility is to the pax first.

Dare I say, the new Kia SUV looks almost exactly like the Lexus RX300. Some people would rather save the money and drive a KIA. Whaddya' gonna' do? Those $60 airfares to FL don't give you enough cashflow to build up the right staffing and infrastructure that is needed for a growth airline.

All that said, don't worry. You will recover. The public has a very short memory.

 

[bigboeings]

I DHed on them JFK-BOS on Friday. I was shocked by what was going on in the terminal, only to get in the airplane and have the FA make there normal announcements about "The Jetblue experience" Maybe in light of all this fiasco they could have dropped that catchy phrase.

 

[IB6 UB9]

I DHed on them JFK-BOS on Friday. I was shocked by what was going on in the terminal, only to get in the airplane and have the FA make there normal announcements about "The Jetblue experience" Maybe in light of all this fiasco they could have dropped that catchy phrase.

If they had they would have been written up by one of their supervisors...you know...the ones that run around with a ruler in their holster measuring heals on inflight shoes.

 

[Occam's Razor]

I used "The Jet Blue Experience" line in my pre-departure PA at JFK. I told everybody we would have a bit of a delay getting airborne due to the congestion caused by so many abandoned Airbii on the field. Then I told them the cabin door was still open if they would prefer The Jet Blue Experience. I closed with a maniacal laugh...

I keed!

What I really said was: "We'd also like to extend a special Northwest Airlines welcome to our friends from Jet Blue management who are on board today...on their way to interview with FEMA."

Ok...I'm done.

 

[Mr Hat]

11 hours on the ramp held hostage in an airplane = passenger ire strong enough to generate congressional action.

Passengers DO NOT want it to happen again. If we have Captains so afraid of management that they can't treat their passengers humanely then something needs to intervene to prevent it in the future

I'm not quite sure that was the case. There were no gates....planes came up, they pushed what they had on the gates off (because they expected to take off), The arrivals took up the gates.....and the stand off begins. There were no gates. Then I also heard that it was so bad that some of the airplanes actually froze to the ground! Which doesn't happen everyday but being that cars froze to the ground on some highways on that day, it doesn't suprise me.

I am sure that their Captains would have done something if there was something they could have done. But being that there were no gates and they couldn't take off....what are ya gonna do? Deploy the slide and send em out on the ramp? They got caught with their pants down in an unusually bad ice storm....it happens.
I'm not flaming anyone, I'm just saying that before one points fingers at Jetblue, understand that it could've happened at your airline. In fact it DID happen at other airlines that day (I know of at least one Delta where a news reporter called in complaining about being on the ground for 6 hours) but because Jetblue had the longest and the most...they are bearing the brunt of all the bad publicity. We could just as easily be talking about anyones airline.
I remember when this happened at Northwest during a bad storm in Detroit in 98. Same exact thing. Did Northwest go out of business because of it? Nope, people forgot a few months later. And they will again. The media is blowing this up and out of proportion....Don't be lead by the media, they just want your ratings, not a passenger bill of rights.

 

[dtfl]

Bavarian is correct:

This airline is on the wrong path and the main reason is the egotistical behavior of our CEO. No matter what experts you hire from other companies, if you constantly know it better and surround yourself with yesmen it really does start to look like the "Fuhrers bunker" there in Forrest Hills. The man is in over his head and need to depart the fix. Certain promoted individuals (good intentions understood) appear not to have a clue how to manage operations. And it flows from the top on down.

The Valentine's Day disaster will have repercussions far into the future.

As far as going union, it is high time to extract ourselves from indentured servitude and have some sort of protection from idiotic business plans, haphazard policy changes, lack of forsight and the hypocrisies of selective application of the so called 5 values that are touted every day.

If this fiasco does not result in management change I see a cloudy future at best.

Hopefully you guys CAN learn valuable lessons from this...but Neeleman's quotes in the articles I have read are too honest and, I don't think, will help yall - the public won't like reading this -

"David G. Neeleman, the company's founder and chief executive, told The New York Times in Monday's editions that he was "humiliated and mortified" by the breakdown in the airline's operations. He promised that the company would pay penalties if customers were stranded on a plane for too long.
He said the crises was the result of poor communications and reservation systems. He said the ice storm had left many of the airline's 11,000 pilots and flight attendants a great distance from where they could operate the planes. He also said JetBlue lacked trained staff to coordinate the flight crews. The reservation system had also been overwhelmed."

 

[CALnTX]

I'm not quite sure that was the case. There were no gates....planes came up, they pushed what they had on the gates off (because they expected to take off), The arrivals took up the gates.....and the stand off begins. There were no gates. Then I also heard that it was so bad that some of the airplanes actually froze to the ground! Which doesn't happen everyday but being that cars froze to the ground on some highways on that day, it doesn't suprise me.

I am sure that their Captains would have done something if there was something they could have done. But being that there were no gates and they couldn't take off....what are ya gonna do? Deploy the slide and send em out on the ramp? They got caught with their pants down in an unusually bad ice storm....it happens.
I'm not flaming anyone, I'm just saying that before one points fingers at Jetblue, understand that it could've happened at your airline. In fact it DID happen at other airlines that day (I know of at least one Delta where a news reporter called in complaining about being on the ground for 6 hours) but because Jetblue had the longest and the most...they are bearing the brunt of all the bad publicity. We could just as easily be talking about anyones airline.
I remember when this happened at Northwest during a bad storm in Detroit in 98. Same exact thing. Did Northwest go out of business because of it? Nope, people forgot a few months later. And they will again. The media is blowing this up and out of proportion....Don't be lead by the media, they just want your ratings, not a passenger bill of rights.

True crews can't really control delays...but cancelling flights 5 days later to "recover"

Even XJT recovers(ed) quickly at EWR and CLE (and you know that) as do most others s well

 

[HalinTexas]

How did other airlines handle the mess in JFK? I didn't hear about any problems they had.

What about LGA and EWR? Did they not get any extreme winter wx? How did the operations at those airports handle the mess?

 

[737 Pylt]

How do you log taxi cab time?

Depends on which side you were sitting on. Were the exterior lights on? Then 10% of that you can log as IMC!

737

 

[JAM-BRO]

The reason they took the cab ride.... Simple.... They were commuters and did not want to pay for a hotel in NYC. Then again, there weren't any hotel rooms left in NY. So why not pick up the plane and fly down to sunny FLA where there is a hotel room waiting(company paid). I would have done it too. It's all 'bout me!!!!!

 

[jbucpt]

The reason they took the cab ride.... Simple.... They were commuters and did not want to pay for a hotel in NYC. Then again, there weren't any hotel rooms left in NY. So why not pick up the plane and fly down to sunny FLA where there is a hotel room waiting(company paid). I would have done it too. It's all 'bout me!!!!!

no they were not commuters...nice try though.

 

[JetFumes]

That's some wicked strong Bluejuice you're drinking. I guess you must have mine. That's OK, I don't need it.

The Pig.

I got paid doubletime for working this last weekend, plus got some free food at the terminal at JFK, plus the company is working hard to repair some of the damage. Does this situaton suck, did management blow it, do they continue to make mistakes, ......yes. You can yell and scream and point fingers or you can try to help figure out a solution to the problem. Bitching about a problem solves what?

 

[Mr Hat]

Even XJT recovers(ed) quickly at EWR and CLE (and you know that) as do most others s well

Whaddya mean EVEN Expressjet?!?!?

In all seriousness, yes it took them a while to recover. I don't know why, but I'll bet you they do. And I'll bet you they don't get caught like this again.

 

[DOJET1]

did anyone vist jetblue open house on the 17th ..and the outcome of the open house any info will be great.

 

[waterski]

the company is working hard to repair some of the damage. Does this situaton suck, did management blow it, do they continue to make mistakes, ......yes. You can yell and scream and point fingers or you can try to help figure out a solution to the problem. Bitching about a problem solves what?

Great Post