JetBlue Meltdown

[bbsearchlight]

Is JetBlue falling apart? I have been reading horror stories all over the internet of them cancelling flights and having crazy delays over the last 2 weeks. I know all the airlines have had delays due to staffing shortages but JetBlue seems to have them much worse than everyone else.

Just to put this in perspective: Today JetBlue had 52% of their flights delayed and 2% cancelled. Compare this with 22% delayed on American, 31% on United, 34% on Southwest, and 19% on Delta.

Going back to yesterday: JetBlue 42% delayed, Southwest 29%, United 31%, Delta 12%, and American 20%.

 

[Robbie Cottam]

I think jet blue books their flights closer together for higher utilization of the aircraft and have few few on reserve.

when you do that a simple weather or atc delay can cascade through out the day, with no time in the schedule to catch back up.

i dont think they are falling apart, they are getting a whole new fleet of planes.

 

[Best Aunt]

I think sometimes it depends on what location an airline uses as a hub.

If JetBlue routes many flights through city X, and Delta routes many flights through city Y, then weather can impact the airlines differently.

 

[Robbie Cottam]

That might have an impact, the fact that Delta and American have countless more aircraft, sitting on reserve allows that to handle that impact better. The extra supply of reserve aircraft is reflected in your ticket price.

 

[Tiggerette]

Jet Blue cancelling flights is nothing new. Since the pandemic they've gone from having multiple daily flights to twice weekly flights for the market I usually fly. It was without warning, and all the sudden you'd have to reschedule/rebook. I gave Jet Blue some slack during the height and gradual ebb of the pandemic. I had to reschedule a few times, but considering the overall circumstance, I understood the necessity. If they are still making dramatic cuts now, I'd be rather upset. I've been on a mix of Delta, Jet Blue and Southwest recently. (Not Leisure) For the most part I've found the schedules to be more stable than 6-8 months ago.

 

[Robbie Cottam]

Another point everyone seems to be forgetting is it takes a lot of man power to add a single flight,. Ticket agents, gate agents, ground handles, etc. some of them are still getting paid to stay home and have not return to work because the is no or little benefit to working.

Without the required crew it just takes longer to do everything on the ground, this again causing a bottle neck in an already tight schedule.

 

[sponica]

They have a small(ish) fleet so it doesn't take much to disrupt their service. Even though they have a non-stop from BOS to MCO and now code-share with AA, I didn't trust them to recover quickly if we had a wacky late April snow storm next year. So we went with AA

 

[disneydreamer1980]

Kind of off topic but Did anyone see the video of the woman assaulting the frontier people at mco? She went nuts

 

[jec6613]

They have a small(ish) fleet so it doesn't take much to disrupt their service. Even though they have a non-stop from BOS to MCO and now code-share with AA, I didn't trust them to recover quickly if we had a wacky late April snow storm next year. So we went with AA

I'm very excited about the codeshare, but I'd still book through AA onto B6 metal if I were flying them lately. They are significantly more impacted by a lot of things, and though they codeshare they don't have ground agreements with AA at their major nearby hub (JFK) so can't take advantage of the enormous extra capacity that AA has on tap.

Honestly though, all of the airlines are a hot mess right now. There are a bunch of issues taking the A320 family out of storage, and flight crew currency is all over the place, to the point that AA, DL, and UA are flying widebody intercontinental aircraft domestically just to keep the crews used, due to seniority list issues to avoid retraining 777 captains onto A320's then having to switch back 6 months later, as it's about a 3 month process each way. Add into that a general delivery strain on Jet A due to lack of truck drivers keeping currency on hazmat tankers during the pandemic, and I'm glad I'm not an airline exec right now.

 

[Cheburashka]

Is JetBlue falling apart? I have been reading horror stories all over the internet of them cancelling flights and having crazy delays over the last 2 weeks. I know all the airlines have had delays due to staffing shortages but JetBlue seems to have them much worse than everyone else.

Just to put this in perspective: Today JetBlue had 52% of their flights delayed and 2% cancelled. Compare this with 22% delayed on American, 31% on United, 34% on Southwest, and 19% on Delta.

Going back to yesterday: JetBlue 42% delayed, Southwest 29%, United 31%, Delta 12%, and American 20%.

They're changing some routes and cancelled a ton of flights due to that. Including a flight we were booked on. We actually ended up cancelling our trip because of it, as without the convenient & affordable JetBlue flight (which no other airline could match) the short getaway trip just didn't work.

 

[cmarsh31]

I've been on hold for over NINE hours. 9. Disconnected after 4, got through to a human after another 3.5, but he said he had to connect me to a supervisor - he came back on and said he'd transfer me, had I known he meant into ANOTHER endless queue, I would have said I'd just pay the extra $20... he never told me that I would be on hold for hours longer. I have a ticket booked for me. After Disney released more Park Passes for the 50th today, I was able to add my DD - I'm just trying to book her flight! She's 13 and I can't do it online without being charged an extra $150. This is a simple online transaction on Southwest, I book my kids separately all the time. I've Tweeted (I didn't even have Twitter until today), IG Messaged, FB Messaged, even tagged JetBlue on my FB page.

 

[Heather07438]

We had our worst experience ever with American and haven't been back. Since then we've always flown JetBlue for trips NY to MCO. I remember many 1 hr delays and a few multiple hour delays that were mostly all weather related. They made a change to our upcoming flight, outbound will leave an hour earlier and return flight an hour later. We get great prices direct on JetBlue and they've done OK so far.

I'll still never forget the Australian JetBlue pilot doing the 8a HPN to MCO flight There was an issue with a door latch or something which made us 45 mins behind schedule. Once the plane was ready he gets on the loudspeaker and says 'I'm gonna fly this plane like I stole it and get us there quickly.' We landed less than 10 mins off from the original schedule.