[bff426]

My trip to and from Westchester Airport to West Palm Beach (1/31 -- 2/5) highlighted JetBlue failings. The flight down was canceled for mechanical reasons, and I was diverted to Fort Lauderdale -- my friend had to drive 70 miles to pick me up. Coming back, my flight to Westchester was canceled. No flights were available near my destination from West Palm Beach. The closest I could get was a flight from Fort Lauderdale (again!) to Hartford, where I arranged for a friend to drive up, pick me up, and drive me back to Westchester. At Fort Lauderdale, I inquired as to the reason for the cancellation. The agents checked, and told me it was because of weather.

I checked a website- www.whiteplainsairport.com -- that has real time takeoffs and landings for all airlines. It showed that while JetBlue had canceled flights from Orlando and West Palm Beach, they had other flights going in at the same time as my canceled flight from various other destinations. All other airlines had no disruptions at all. When shown this, the agents shrugged.

In Hartford, I checked with some other JetBlue agents. Off the record, they told me that it was almost certainly an issue of crew availability. I asked if it was possible that the crews were coming in from some other area of the country -- they checked, and told me that the West Palm -- Westchester route is a back and forth between the two airports, and that the crew would've been local to one of the airports. They told me that in order to not have to compensate flyers according to the "Customer Bill of Rights", weather is often blamed.

They advised me to submit an online complaint, as they assured me that they are always taken seriously and acted upon. After I got home that night, I composed one. The website indicated I would be contacted within five business days, with a resolution one way or another. I didn't hear from anyone in two weeks, so I submitted a second, merely referencing the first, acknowledged submission.

It's now been 30 days, and I have yet to hear a single word from JetBlue. So much for customer service and the company's ballyhooed Bill of Rights. David Neelman, the airline you built is now run by a bunch of paper pushers.

[CB1882]

People from my company who attended a seminar in South Florida had the same thing happen. People were coming from various New York area airports, including JFK, LaGuardia, Newark and Westchester. Arrival airports were West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale. When leaving after the seminar, some people, including me, had their flights to Westchester canceled. Some were leaving from West Palm, others from Fort Lauderdale. We were told it was because of weather.

Meanwhile, other JetBlue flights were going into the airport no problem. All other airlines were operating normally in and out of Westchester. It was only those of us who opted to fly JetBlue that had problems. JetBlue also had no problems into the other New York area airports, which were all having the same weather.

I learned my lesson. No more JetBlue.