JetBlue Airlines Has A Customer Bill Of Rights, But Does It Do Any Good?
So last week my barely legal sister was flying JetBlue Airlines from the Oakland, California Airport to Rochester, New York. As always she was a stickler about arriving early to the heavily crowded Oakland Airport, mainly because she always gets pulled out of the line for “additional security screenings,” so she arrived at the airport around 11:40a.m. for a flight that was due to take off at 1:40p.m.
When my sister went to check in and get her boarding pass, she was told that there was some kind of computer issue and that no boarding passes could be printed. Eventually that problem got sorted out and they allowed passengers to board the plane at 2:30p.m. Then the passengers were told that there was a line of planes waiting to take off; they ended up sitting on the runway until 3:30p.m.
It was only an hour, and thankfully not like the fiasco that happened in February 2007 when 1000’s of JetBlue passengers were stranded over 5 days! The founder and chief executive of JetBlue, David G. Neeleman said he was “humiliated and mortified” by the huge breakdown in communication the airline experienced between pilots, flight attendants, customers & customer service agents during that period. People wanted answers and the agents themselves didn’t have any idea what was going on. He vowed to make sure it didn’t happen again.
My sister arrived in New York City around 11:00p.m. and quickly found out that she, and other passengers, missed their connecting flight by 10 minutes. What, they couldn’t hold the plane for 10 minutes? I can understand if only a couple passengers weren’t on that second plane, but there were a whole bunch; you’d think JetBlue would realize their error and hold the plane.
When my sister talked with a JetBlue Airlines customer service representative to find out when she would be able to catch another connecting flight, the rep told her the next flight was at 9:30a.m. the next day. My sister happened to be traveling with no cash so she asked if JetBlue would be willing to give her a hotel room for the night, or at least a couple of free meal vouchers. The agent said they would not be able to do that because the hold up was due to a malfunctioning computer at the Oakland airport, but she still tried to help by bringing a supervisor over. The supervisor told my sister there was no possible way they could offer meal vouchers or a hotel, because there had been no violation of the Jet Blue Airlines Customer Bill Of Rights. Apparently the fact that my sister was a young woman traveling alone and perhaps shouldn’t be alone in the airport over night was not enough to sway the supervisor.
Here’s a copy of the JetBlue Airlines Customer Bill Of Rights and here’s another one of Jet Blue Airlines Customer Bill Of Rights in PDF form.
Here are the definitions of some key terms that will help you as you read the Bill of Rights.
According to JetBlue:
Controllable Irregularity - “A delay, cancellation or diversion that is not caused by a Force Majeure Event (defined below). Examples include: crew unavailability due to JetBlues scheduling (not due to weather-event related disruption); delay or cancellation due to maintenance; that which is considered reasonably within JetBlues control.”
Uncontrollable Irregularity - “A delay, cancellation or diversion that is caused by a Force Majeure Event. Examples would include things such as weather, a runway closure, ATC delays, airport construction.”
Force Majeure Event - “A Force Majeure Event is an event outside the reasonable control of JetBlue. It includes events such as weather conditions; acts of government or airport authorities such as ATC mandated ground delays or ground stops; runway closures; airport construction that interferes with JetBlues operation and other events that are not reasonably foreseen, predicted, or anticipated by JetBlue. See the Contract of Carriage for the full definition of a Force Majeure Event example.”
I’m guessing the JetBlue supervisor didn’t think the JetBlue computer malfunction was JetBlue’s fault, and therefore a “Force Majeure Event,” and not worthy of food or hotel vouchers. How convenient.
So I’m going with the view that the JetBlue Airlines Customer Bill Of Rights is a whole lot of nothing. I understand that rules are rules, but come on! What if something bad happened to my sister? What would JetBlue say then? Perhaps I’m a bit biased, but I think my sister’s safety is a little more important than some so called Bill of Rights.
What do you think? Have you ever run into the same issue with JetBlue?
Tags: Airlines, Controllable Irregularity, Customer Bill Of Rights, David G. Neeleman, Force Majeure Event, Jet Blue Airlines, Jet Blue Airlines customer service, Oakland Airport, Oakland California Airport, Rochester Airport, Travel, Uncontrollable IrregularityRelated posts
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I’m having a similar problem. My flight from Long Beach to Las Vegas was delayed. The plane was at the gate, we were within minutes of boarding when an announcement was made that there would be a delay. I was sitting by the window and watched ground crew and even the pilot (or co pilot) try to figure out the problem for 90 minutes. All during this time, the gate agents kept making announcements about “fixing the problem” and refunds would be made if people decided not to wait. Some left to take flights from Los Angeles as there was only one other flight to Las Vegas that evening and it was close to sold out. Finally, an announcement was made that a plane from San Diego was coming in to handle our flight. Mind you, this was more than 2 hours after the original departure time.
Jet Blue has twice turned down my request for a $25 voucher for a flight delayed due to mechanical problems. They claim there is NO RECORD of a mechanical problem. I finally called customer service and was told two lies: 1) Severe weather on the East Coast (hello, I’m in California and the plane is on the tarmac!) and 2) Passengers arriving late delayed the flight. Hahaha. Where do they get this stuff? After getting nowhere with the customer service person on the phone, I asked if there was someone else I could speak to because I felt I was getting the run around. The answer was, “No there isn’t, I haven’t enjoyed talking to you for 25 minutes either because you won’t take my word that you won’t get a voucher.”
Great customer service.
Now I’m going to send a letter to the New York office.
So what were all of those ground crew and mechanics doing under the plane?????