Everyone likes to poke at the airline industry for its lack of humanity. Then along comes a story like this, leaving you with a lump in the throat and moist eyes. Here's something to restore cynical comments and make you proud to be a human.

Take a look (Kleenex recommended) here.

One more thing – bravo jetBlue! Were it not for Chris Elliott, this story would have probably gone largely untold and without fanfare. An even greater reason to admire this remarkable company.

We want the whole world to know. Because the lesson taught here is that important.

Here is a great story worth reading. This should be required reading for every airline CIO. And a few other C-level officers. The failures at JetBlue were amazing – and not unique, other airlines also crapped out that day. But JetBlue got nailed the most. It was unfair, but that is the way it goes sometimes.

Here is a great story worth reading. This should be required reading for every airline CIO. And a few other C-level officers. The failures at JetBlue were amazing – and not unique, other airlines also crapped out that day. But JetBlue got nailed the most. It was unfair, but that is the way it goes sometimes.

I've got a couple of issues here.

Before I start, I just want to say that despite previous rantings, I am actually a fan of JetBlue. In concept. I believe in competition. There are worse ideas for airlines that have gotten off the ground. Some of the people at JetBlue I have worked with in a previous life. All that said, I do have some issues with the recent meltdown. There are some questions that need to be asked going forward. Not just to see what went wrong, but to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

1) Early over?
I am a bit concerned that JetBlue was having crew hour overages so early in the month. Is this not usually more of an end-of-quarter or end-of month issue? And is JetBlue scheduled so tightly that 8 hours of extra time throws dozens of crews into illegal status? Further, why would crews that are so close to going over being scheduled for trips during a time period when it is generally known that there will be lengthy delays and many opportunities for crews to have a great deal of unproductive time being charged? This is an experience issue in the in-flight department. Were they overly optimistic?

Were they misled by Air Traffic Control? Was this just a mistake? There may be equal parts of each involved, but this is the kind of problem that should not be the biggest contributor to the meltdown. I have to stress that if one day of cancellations causes your system to go into flux for 5 days, it is too tightly scheduled. Sure, it works for 360 days of the year, but that just means you have to be all the more proactive and preemptive in the days leading up to bad weather. They can’t be making the decision 5 hours out, they need to be thinking 24 hours out. Juggling too close to departure time is asking for trouble.

2) Eating crow not important if you don’t get gas.
Neeleman’s various speeches have been sincere and honest. I do believe he means what he says. The problem is that this is not being translated to the passengers and future passengers. He can get on and tell what mistakes were made and pledge that they are never going to do it again, but this is basically useless. It is a lose-lose. If he does not sound convincing, people won’t trust the carrier. If he really gives a good explanation, the vast majority of passengers won’t understand. These are hard things to explain and many people don’t care. They just want to go to Cancun. At the end of the day, the less face time the better. Say sorry, say it won’t happen again, and move on. It would have been more effective. The airlines are an industry notorious for not truly defending itself, but there is a reason. The airlines are disliked by the media, barely understood by passengers, and held in contempt by government, not to mention not being trusted by anyone. Yes, JetBlue has wanted to try to change that image, but it is one voice in a raging whirlwind. Cut the loses, move on, and try NOT to stay in the news or get back into the news. The best cure for this is to get people to forget about it. Stop reminding them.

3) The brand took a hit this time
Ask anyone who flies with JetBlue what the experience was like and what is the firs thing they talk about? The television. It’s THE thing that people talk about and its what differentiates the product. So now they charter aircraft from other carriers to help move people. Sounds expedient. Sounds effective. But now what will those passengers shoved onto some 30-year old DC-10 and shuttled down to Ft. Lauderdale remember? It will not be cheerful crew members, clean planes, new planes, blue chips and television. It’ll be just another flight like so many others. Will the passengers be understanding? Maybe, if they are close to on time. But more likely, they will start to believe that a tube is a tube and they will not be thinking wonderful thoughts about JetBlue in the future.

And this has to have been incredibly expensive. Having a system meltdown when everyone else is full means no rebooking and probably paying a premium to charter a plane.

It should also be noted that part of the JetBlue experience is the pleasant, fun, kind, classy in-flight crews. How did they react during the crisis? Easy to love the customer service when there aren’t problems. Easy to be a great representative of the airline if things are running smoothly. I will assume the crews did well, or at least as well as could be expected. My question is whether the passengers will still give JetBlue a pass knowing that, yes, bad things can happen to non-legacy carriers too. Will they come back knowing JetBlue is fallible?

4) The New York Magnifying Glass Effect.
It happens to athletes all the time. They aren’t used to just how much scrutiny they get in New York. I bet Neeleman is not liking the idea of JFK as a HQ now – all those New Yorkers and they really know how to complain when you give them a reason. If you screw up here, you're screwed up everywhere! Not only that, but this stayed as a major story, even outside of New York, for 5 days. The AA incident in Austin last year barely was a story for a day. Things that happen in NYC get magnified, perhaps owing to its role as the Evening News Capitol of the World. JetBlue better have its act in order the next time because the media scrutiny will be even worse. And don’t let it be an otherwise low news day!

5) It’s so much easier to talk about fluffy platitudes than to run a country.
First it was studying steroids in baseball (read that as a chance for members of Congress to meet the baseball players they’ve always wanted to do, call it work, and charge the public for doing so). Now they stick their noses into this.

Once again, Congress getting involved in things it doesn't understand and won't take the time to learn. How about this; instead of saying airlines have to do better, how about spending some much needed money on the ATC system and maybe adding some runways around the country. We need to talk about what the government needs to do when we talk about passenger's rights.

Business is business. Sure, no one should be stuck on a plane for 10 hours if it can be helped, but can it be helped? The fact that this seems to happen two or three times during every major climatic event seems to bespeak a situation that is impossible to completely avoid. The solutions may be in other places. If JetBlue has to pay passengers based on delays, perhaps Neeleman should ask the government for a rebate on some ATC fees since the system not working optimally may be his biggest enemy. So where does this leave us?

Of course it’s easy to sit here and criticize JetBlue. But I will state for once and for all what the problem was. They didn’t start canceling flights early enough. In Chicago, United and American preemptively canceled at least 700 flights between them in anticipation of the bad weather and likely heavy delays. It is interesting that we are not hearing about other similar meltdowns with other carriers. Practically everyone has a cell phone with a camera on it. I’ve heard nothing about similar hostage situations aboard Continental at Newark. There have been no incriminating pictures from aboard their planes. Nor aboard Delta at Kennedy. Everyone else seems to have avoided similar situations. How? Miracles? Are Legacy carriers better run?
More like more experience. Is this a matter of JetBlue operational professionals just not having extensive experience in poor-weather operations? They are based at JFK, they should be used to having poor operational days.

There is a financial consideration beyond the mere cost of compensating passengers. JetBlue is going to offer a sliding scale of customer compensation, an industry leading compensation plan. It’s great to offer industry-leading compensation, but only if you are achieving industry leading revenue. If JetBlue were getting a premium from its passengers, this would make sense. And while this may be a case of developing a plan and hoping never to have to use it, they are based at JFK and even with good weather they are going to occasionally have issues. Where will the premium required to pay for this be coming from? Brand loyalty? I just hope the passengers realize that!

Paris Tyler

I've got a couple of issues here.

Before I start, I just want to say that despite previous rantings, I am actually a fan of JetBlue. In concept. I believe in competition. There are worse ideas for airlines that have gotten off the ground. Some of the people at JetBlue I have worked with in a previous life. All that said, I do have some issues with the recent meltdown. There are some questions that need to be asked going forward. Not just to see what went wrong, but to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

1) Early over?
I am a bit concerned that JetBlue was having crew hour overages so early in the month. Is this not usually more of an end-of-quarter or end-of month issue? And is JetBlue scheduled so tightly that 8 hours of extra time throws dozens of crews into illegal status? Further, why would crews that are so close to going over being scheduled for trips during a time period when it is generally known that there will be lengthy delays and many opportunities for crews to have a great deal of unproductive time being charged? This is an experience issue in the in-flight department. Were they overly optimistic?

Were they misled by Air Traffic Control? Was this just a mistake? There may be equal parts of each involved, but this is the kind of problem that should not be the biggest contributor to the meltdown. I have to stress that if one day of cancellations causes your system to go into flux for 5 days, it is too tightly scheduled. Sure, it works for 360 days of the year, but that just means you have to be all the more proactive and preemptive in the days leading up to bad weather. They can’t be making the decision 5 hours out, they need to be thinking 24 hours out. Juggling too close to departure time is asking for trouble.

2) Eating crow not important if you don’t get gas.
Neeleman’s various speeches have been sincere and honest. I do believe he means what he says. The problem is that this is not being translated to the passengers and future passengers. He can get on and tell what mistakes were made and pledge that they are never going to do it again, but this is basically useless. It is a lose-lose. If he does not sound convincing, people won’t trust the carrier. If he really gives a good explanation, the vast majority of passengers won’t understand. These are hard things to explain and many people don’t care. They just want to go to Cancun. At the end of the day, the less face time the better. Say sorry, say it won’t happen again, and move on. It would have been more effective. The airlines are an industry notorious for not truly defending itself, but there is a reason. The airlines are disliked by the media, barely understood by passengers, and held in contempt by government, not to mention not being trusted by anyone. Yes, JetBlue has wanted to try to change that image, but it is one voice in a raging whirlwind. Cut the loses, move on, and try NOT to stay in the news or get back into the news. The best cure for this is to get people to forget about it. Stop reminding them.

3) The brand took a hit this time
Ask anyone who flies with JetBlue what the experience was like and what is the firs thing they talk about? The television. It’s THE thing that people talk about and its what differentiates the product. So now they charter aircraft from other carriers to help move people. Sounds expedient. Sounds effective. But now what will those passengers shoved onto some 30-year old DC-10 and shuttled down to Ft. Lauderdale remember? It will not be cheerful crew members, clean planes, new planes, blue chips and television. It’ll be just another flight like so many others. Will the passengers be understanding? Maybe, if they are close to on time. But more likely, they will start to believe that a tube is a tube and they will not be thinking wonderful thoughts about JetBlue in the future.

And this has to have been incredibly expensive. Having a system meltdown when everyone else is full means no rebooking and probably paying a premium to charter a plane.

It should also be noted that part of the JetBlue experience is the pleasant, fun, kind, classy in-flight crews. How did they react during the crisis? Easy to love the customer service when there aren’t problems. Easy to be a great representative of the airline if things are running smoothly. I will assume the crews did well, or at least as well as could be expected. My question is whether the passengers will still give JetBlue a pass knowing that, yes, bad things can happen to non-legacy carriers too. Will they come back knowing JetBlue is fallible?

4) The New York Magnifying Glass Effect.
It happens to athletes all the time. They aren’t used to just how much scrutiny they get in New York. I bet Neeleman is not liking the idea of JFK as a HQ now – all those New Yorkers and they really know how to complain when you give them a reason. If you screw up here, you're screwed up everywhere! Not only that, but this stayed as a major story, even outside of New York, for 5 days. The AA incident in Austin last year barely was a story for a day. Things that happen in NYC get magnified, perhaps owing to its role as the Evening News Capitol of the World. JetBlue better have its act in order the next time because the media scrutiny will be even worse. And don’t let it be an otherwise low news day!

5) It’s so much easier to talk about fluffy platitudes than to run a country.
First it was studying steroids in baseball (read that as a chance for members of Congress to meet the baseball players they’ve always wanted to do, call it work, and charge the public for doing so). Now they stick their noses into this.

Once again, Congress getting involved in things it doesn't understand and won't take the time to learn. How about this; instead of saying airlines have to do better, how about spending some much needed money on the ATC system and maybe adding some runways around the country. We need to talk about what the government needs to do when we talk about passenger's rights.

Business is business. Sure, no one should be stuck on a plane for 10 hours if it can be helped, but can it be helped? The fact that this seems to happen two or three times during every major climatic event seems to bespeak a situation that is impossible to completely avoid. The solutions may be in other places. If JetBlue has to pay passengers based on delays, perhaps Neeleman should ask the government for a rebate on some ATC fees since the system not working optimally may be his biggest enemy. So where does this leave us?

Of course it’s easy to sit here and criticize JetBlue. But I will state for once and for all what the problem was. They didn’t start canceling flights early enough. In Chicago, United and American preemptively canceled at least 700 flights between them in anticipation of the bad weather and likely heavy delays. It is interesting that we are not hearing about other similar meltdowns with other carriers. Practically everyone has a cell phone with a camera on it. I’ve heard nothing about similar hostage situations aboard Continental at Newark. There have been no incriminating pictures from aboard their planes. Nor aboard Delta at Kennedy. Everyone else seems to have avoided similar situations. How? Miracles? Are Legacy carriers better run?
More like more experience. Is this a matter of JetBlue operational professionals just not having extensive experience in poor-weather operations? They are based at JFK, they should be used to having poor operational days.

There is a financial consideration beyond the mere cost of compensating passengers. JetBlue is going to offer a sliding scale of customer compensation, an industry leading compensation plan. It’s great to offer industry-leading compensation, but only if you are achieving industry leading revenue. If JetBlue were getting a premium from its passengers, this would make sense. And while this may be a case of developing a plan and hoping never to have to use it, they are based at JFK and even with good weather they are going to occasionally have issues. Where will the premium required to pay for this be coming from? Brand loyalty? I just hope the passengers realize that!

Paris Tyler