Jet Blue: 'Your flight is canceled, we won't re-route you, we won'tpay for a hotel, here's a refund of half your round-trip fare, now go away.'

Dave Smith wrote:

What a drag, but I guess them's the breaks when you fly with budget
airlines. I recently returned from a trip planned at the last minute to
Estonia, Sweden and Denmark. I suppose I could have saved a few bucks buying
seats on a a second rate airline but opted instead for KLM and SAS. There
were 6 flights altogether and not one of them was cancelled or late. I guess
it was money well spent.

Ironically, they didn't choose Jet Blue because of the price, they chose
it because it has the only flight between FLL and SFO where there is no
change of planes (there is a stop in Austin, but no plane change). The
other option is trudging down to MIA to get a non-stop flight to SFO,
and MIA is just a horrible airport to deal with even for younger people
(it's the only U.S. airport where I've ever heard gate announcements
_only_ in Spanish).

Every time I've been on a flight that's been canceled, even because of
weather, the airline has arranged another flight, issued food vouchers,
put me up in a hotel. Including Southwest Airlines, which ironically is
now turning out to be the true full-service airline! I just love
Southwest's new ad campaign "Bags Fly Free."

My only other experience with Jet Blue is that I had four tickets from
SFO to SLC later in July, and they dropped this route completely. The
replacement flights on Delta actually were much cheaper (they were more
expensive back when I first booked the Jet Blue flights, but the Delta
price came down in the meantime.

On Jul 9, 4:23*pm, SMS wrote:
Rog' wrote:
Per the JetBlue website: *"All customers whose flight is cancelled by
JetBlue will, at the customer's option, receive a full refund or
reaccommodation on the next available JetBlue flight at no additional
charge or fare. If JetBlue cancels a flight within 4 hours of scheduled
departure and the cancellation is due to a Controllable Irregularity,
JetBlue will also provide the customer with a $50 Voucher good for
future travel on JetBlue."

They didn't do this. They said the next days flight was full. They
didn't go beyond the next day. It was not the customer's choice, it was
their choice.


the next available flight. Since the next flight was full, it's not
available. a team of lawyers went over this with a fine tooth comb.

In message

PeterL wrote:

On Jul 9, 4:23*pm, SMS wrote:
Rog' wrote:
Per the JetBlue website: *"All customers whose flight is cancelled by
JetBlue will, at the customer's option, receive a full refund or
reaccommodation on the next available JetBlue flight at no additional
charge or fare. If JetBlue cancels a flight within 4 hours of scheduled
departure and the cancellation is due to a Controllable Irregularity,
JetBlue will also provide the customer with a $50 Voucher good for
future travel on JetBlue."

They didn't do this. They said the next days flight was full. They
didn't go beyond the next day. It was not the customer's choice, it was
their choice.


the next available flight. Since the next flight was full, it's not
available. a team of lawyers went over this with a fine tooth comb.

Well, if the next flight is full then it's not available -- That would,
by definition, make the "next available" flight the one after that. Or
the one after that. Or the one after that.

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:33:44 -0600, DevilsPGD
wrote:

In message

PeterL wrote:

On Jul 9, 4:23*pm, SMS wrote:
Rog' wrote:
Per the JetBlue website: *"All customers whose flight is cancelled by
JetBlue will, at the customer's option, receive a full refund or
reaccommodation on the next available JetBlue flight at no additional
charge or fare. If JetBlue cancels a flight within 4 hours of scheduled
departure and the cancellation is due to a Controllable Irregularity,
JetBlue will also provide the customer with a $50 Voucher good for
future travel on JetBlue."

They didn't do this. They said the next days flight was full. They
didn't go beyond the next day. It was not the customer's choice, it was
their choice.


the next available flight. Since the next flight was full, it's not
available. a team of lawyers went over this with a fine tooth comb.

Well, if the next flight is full then it's not available -- That would,
by definition, make the "next available" flight the one after that. Or
the one after that. Or the one after that.

You flunked math in high school didn't you?

They refunded half the fare. The outbound flight had
already taken place.

In that case, JetBlue's offer to return 1/2 the fare seems reasonable,
although I can understand why it wasn't what your parents wanted.


They said the next days flight was full.
They didn't go beyond the next day.

It's possible that the agent didn't suggest waiting 2 (or more) days
for an available flight because your parents' comments indicated that
waiting even 1 day was unacceptable.

I'm not trying to take JetBlue's side in this; I'm just suggesting
some possible explanations.

James

"PeterL" wrote in message
...
On Jul 9, 12:10 pm, SMS wrote:
PeterL wrote:
On Jul 9, 11:01 am, SMS wrote:
This morning my mom (83) and her husband (79) were scheduled on JetBlue
1402 from SFO to FLL. When they got to the airport, they were informed
that the flight was canceled due to mechanical problems.

JetBlue told them that they could take a taxi to OAK and get a Jet Blue
flight to JFK and then a Jet Blue flight to FLL, but that Jet Blue
wouldn't pay for the taxi, and the taxi ride was about $90. The airline
wouldn't schedule them on the next day's flight 1402 because it was
already full. They wouldn't rebook them onto another airline (JetBlue
doesn't do this). They wouldn't pay for a hotel or meals (no point I
guess, since they wouldn't rebook them for the next day anyway). The
only thing JetBlue would do was to refund half the cost of the
round-trip ticket. They had to buy a full fare one-way ticket on
another
airline. The one-way Continental flight cost much more than the whole
round-trip on JetBlue.

Apparently there are no longer any rules that require that an airline
get you to your destination. They are free to simply give you your
money
back and tell you to get lost. It's a real problem with airlines like
JetBlue that have very few flights to each airport they serve.

JetBlue doesn't abide by Rule 240, and never had to deal with it
because
they came into existence after the CAB was eliminated.

Yes so? It's tough, but then again, life is tough. They could've
taken BART to Oakland airport, it'd be a lot cheaper. But for them I
guess it's difficult to take your luggage on BART.

I would have gone and taken them to OAK, but it really is too much for
them at their age to be dealing with the extra flight time and the plane
change at JFK. They chose the Jet Blue flight because there is no plane
change between SFO and FLL, which makes it much easier for them. SJC is
closer to me, but it's hard for one of them with the stairs on Delta or
Continental or U.S. Air.

I fly a lot, and have had flights canceled, but the airline always
either put me up for the night and sent me on a flight the next day, or
found a flight on their own, or another airline, to complete the
journey. It seems like the airline has an obligation to deliver the
second half of a round trip flight in some way. I would have expected
them to say "we're going to put you in a taxi to Oakland airport, and
route you on some of our other flights." I've had this happen between
SJC and SFO.

What about all the other people on this flight?

Same result. Here's your money, bye. Well I don't know if anyone took
them up on their offer to fly out of Oakland, with no transportation
between the airports, but according to my mother, no one appeared to be
interested in that option.

In any case, it's something to keep in mind when choosing one of the
second-tier airlines. I don't know what happens if the passenger doesn't
have enough money to buy a ticket on another carrier.-

You expect the airline to put 90 people on taxis to Oakland?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd expect them to lay on a bus

tim

"tim....." wrote:

In any case, it's something to keep in mind when choosing one of the
second-tier airlines. I don't know what happens if the passenger doesn't
have enough money to buy a ticket on another carrier.-

You expect the airline to put 90 people on taxis to Oakland?

Considering that they had contracted with them to transport them to a give
location and they couldn't complete their part because of an equipment failure,
it is not unreasonable. They could have chartered a couple buses. Equipment
breakdown is a fact of life in the airline business. The bug guys know that,
and they charge enough on their ticket sales to account for such
contingencies. Then you get the second rate airlines who undercut the major
carriers to get their customers, and when something goes wrong the customer is
SOL.

"Dave Smith" wrote in message
...
"tim....." wrote:

In any case, it's something to keep in mind when choosing one of the
second-tier airlines. I don't know what happens if the passenger
doesn't
have enough money to buy a ticket on another carrier.-

You expect the airline to put 90 people on taxis to Oakland?

Considering that they had contracted with them to transport them to a give
location and they couldn't complete their part because of an equipment
failure,
it is not unreasonable. They could have chartered a couple buses.
Equipment
breakdown is a fact of life in the airline business. The bug guys know
that,
and they charge enough on their ticket sales to account for such
contingencies. Then you get the second rate airlines who undercut the
major
carriers to get their customers, and when something goes wrong the
customer is
SOL.


you snipped the bit that I wrote!


tim

tim..... wrote:

You expect the airline to put 90 people on taxis to Oakland?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd expect them to lay on a bus

tim

I'd have expected them to provide some sort of transport to OAK. Bus,
taxis, vans, whatever the airline wanted to do. It's unbelievable that
they'd reroute you from a different airport that's 31 miles away, and
expect you to arrange your own transport between the two airports, at
your own expense.

BTW, I wonder if SFO should start some kind of ferry service to OAK to
use OAK's runways, since SFO is so over-crowded. When it's socked-in,
SFO can only use one runway. The two airports are quite close by water.
There's been talk of another bay crossing between 238 and 380, but
that's years or decades away.

In message
(John Kulp) wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:33:44 -0600, DevilsPGD
wrote:

In message

PeterL wrote:

On Jul 9, 4:23*pm, SMS wrote:
Rog' wrote:
Per the JetBlue website: *"All customers whose flight is cancelled by
JetBlue will, at the customer's option, receive a full refund or
reaccommodation on the next available JetBlue flight at no additional
charge or fare. If JetBlue cancels a flight within 4 hours of scheduled
departure and the cancellation is due to a Controllable Irregularity,
JetBlue will also provide the customer with a $50 Voucher good for
future travel on JetBlue."

They didn't do this. They said the next days flight was full. They
didn't go beyond the next day. It was not the customer's choice, it was
their choice.


the next available flight. Since the next flight was full, it's not
available. a team of lawyers went over this with a fine tooth comb.

Well, if the next flight is full then it's not available -- That would,
by definition, make the "next available" flight the one after that. Or
the one after that. Or the one after that.

You flunked math in high school didn't you?

95th percentile. Why?