Worst Airline Service: Jet Blue

[Bill Greenwood]

Some years back the was a period where airlines completely forgot that they were in the service business to real human beings. They treated people like packages as if they were Fedex, except the packages probably had it better.

One of the worst and earliest incidents was Jet Blue, who left a plane full of passengers, including parents with infants and elderly stranded on the tarmac in NY for over 9 hours. And they certainly didn't seem to care, after all, the CEO wasn't on the plane. It took passenger led protest for Congress to finally act and mostly these really long incidents are gone now. The airlines blamed it on everyone else, but once there were large fines possible, they found a cure pretty promptly,and such incidents are mostly gone now.

Now they have even hit a new low,see the story in the business section of USA Today Monday. The Jet Blue plane was again SITTING on the tarmac, Not Moving for an hour or two, and a Mother needed to take her 3 year old daughter to use the restroom. The flight nazi, refused to let the girl go, even stood in her way, until the girl had and accident and then Brunhilda refused to help the Mother try to comfort and clean up her daughter.

I just saw the CEO of J B on TV and once again he doesn't seem at all embarrased at the lack of concern, even a minimum of decency, of his company toward the public. He's s David Barger, reminds me of Sonny Barger. He makes $885,000 a year so children are likely not his concern.
To be fair, one of their off duty pilots was on board and tried to help the Mother and child and thought the airline was wrong.

To be fair, I have stock on Southwest, of which it is up 225% and I have never ridden on j B and don't own their stock which is down about 20%.

[Bob Dingley]

Truly disgusting, Bill. You can bet this won't be tolerated on Trailways. (Maybe on Amtrac)

Bob

[jaredyates]

Let us know if posting your concern here gets anything accomplished for you!

[Chuck Arnold]

Just for the record, jetBlue has apologized for the incident, and has offered the passenger a credit and a $5,000 donation to the charity of her choice. The "flight nazi," as you put it, would have violated FAA regulations by allowing the pax to use the lavatory after the plane left the gate. (By the way, why does everyone seem to feel the need to call someone a nazi if they do something you don't like? Please, let's leave the nazi label to actual Nazis...) In other words, she would have opened up her company to federal fines and possibly lost her job in the process. To be fair, I DON'T have stock in jetBlue, but I have had very positive experiences every time I've flown with them.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2014/06/16/jetblue-apologizes-girl-urinated-in-seat-during-ground-delay/10572277/

[Bill Greenwood]

Just for the record, Chuck ,I saw the CEO on a tv interview yesterday, and he didn't seem at all bothered by the way his company had treated paying passengers, and as I wrote this is not the first time. I hope the woman does or has lost her job, If it was my company I would not want to be represented by anyone with that cold an attitude toward a 3 year old girl. Regs are one thing, but some humanity and judgement are also called for. The plane was not moving, not taxiing, it was sitting for an hour or two. The flght thug could have asked the Mother to use the restroom and get back to their seat as quickly as possible. It would have been over, no need to involve the FAA or anyone getting fired. I'll bet the if that woman , or any of the crew had a sudden need to use the restroom they would not have sat until wetting themselves, they would have gone in the john.
After the child had wet herself the airline thug threatened to throw them off the plane and call them a security risk. Only the intervention of an off duty J B pilot stopped that lie from becoming a worse embarassement.
It's great that you, perhaps flying in first class have been treated well by J B, but if you were on there for the 9 hour stranded, do you think you might want to use the restroom?
And I hope you don't take any young children with you on your flights.

[Bill Greenwood]

It reminds me of an incident happened 30 years ago. We boarded a Aspen Airways Convair 580 for the trip over the mountains to Denver which can be turbulent. We put our one year old Son in his car seat belted in.
The stew had a fit, and claimed we could not use the seat and wanted us to hold him in our lap. I showed her the highway dept approved sticker on the seat, still she insisted. I ask her if shel was going to use a slat belt for herself, and she admitted yes, and I said I thought our Son deserved the same protection. Finally the captain came out the the cockpit and told her to leave us alone and he would take responsibility, and the flight went to Denver as normal. We always used a safety seat for our Sons in cars, our planes, and on the airlines, and eventually they quit harassing us about it, and we always paid the fare for the seats the boys used. It was a safety matter, not a money matter.
The boys are grown now, but the always wear seat belts in cars, etc.
I wish I had the name of the captain who didn't let working for an airline interfere with being a decent human being.

[Chuck Arnold]

Yup. A three-year-old child wet herself on an airplane. Worst. Airline. Service. Ever. Gimme a break. It's easy to imagine scenarios that would've gotten the child injured, and presumably would have you incandescent with rage at the airline's lapses. For instance, child takes a little longer in the bathroom than planned (That never happens, does it?) Captain starts taxiing, little girl finally emerges from bathroom; captain slams on the brakes to avoid a King Air that taxis in front of him; child's head slams into the edge of a service cart. Now explain that one to the FAA and the family's lawyers at the deposition. The little girl's mother is over the incident. Why aren't you? You want the FA ("flight thug") fired? Really? For following the regs? And you've got your shorts in a knot because the CEO, who makes $885,000 a year (for running a $5B company, by the way), wasn't appropriately contrite on TV? Sorry, I'll save my outrage for something a little more serious than a toddler peeing in an airplane. And as for first class, I wouldn't know. When I fly commercial, it's in steerage with the rest of the peasants. Either that or I fly my Yankee. No bathroom breaks on that either.

[martymayes]

Some years back the was a period where airlines completely forgot that they were in the service business to real human beings. They treated people like packages as if they were Fedex, except the packages probably had it better.

One of the worst and earliest incidents was Jet Blue, who left a plane full of passengers, including parents with infants and elderly stranded on the tarmac in NY for over 9 hours. And they certainly didn't seem to care, after all, the CEO wasn't on the plane. It took passenger led protest for Congress to finally act and mostly these really long incidents are gone now. The airlines blamed it on everyone else, but once there were large fines possible, they found a cure pretty promptly,and such incidents are mostly gone now.


Actually, the DOT 3 hr delay rule hasn't "cured" anything. Prior to the rule, being stranded on the tarmac for more than 3 hrs was a rare event. Since the 3 hr rule, being stranded on the tarmac for more than 3 hrs is a rare event but it still occasionally happens. Flights that will be subject to lengthy IROP delays are now simply cancelled which allows passengers to be "stranded" in an airport terminal instead. Flights that approach the 3 hr limit can provide an opportunity to deplane and the delay is erased. The latter tells the true story: It's amazing how many people choose a 3 + hr delay over cancellation. You'd almost think gov. intervention to end this inhumane treatment of passengers was nothing but a big theatrical production but we won't go that far.

[Aaron Novak]

Hi Chuck,
You don't have kids do you? Obviously not, or your wife did all the raising. Three is not a toddler, and that age is very sensitive to things like this. Regulations make a poor substitute for common sense. Maybe the punishment should have been for the CEO to be denied a bathroom until he wet himself in public? I bet if it had been a WW2 vet and not a kid, there would be more outrage.

[Chuck Arnold]

No, I don't have kids. But I've known many three-year olds. And I've even BEEN a three-year-old. In my admittedly limited experience, three-year-olds get over unpleasant incidents a lot faster than many grown men. Sure, jetBlue probably could've handled it better. Odds are, they could've broken the regs and let the kid go to the john a hundred times without any repercussions. But, let one child get hurt while the airline is violating the regs out of "common sense" and the Feds and the courts and the media (and many people on this forum) will descend on them looking for someone to blame. I don't have a dog in this hunt. I really don't care one way or the other about jetBlue. But, yes, I get a little irritated when an employee making a judgement call gets called a Nazi and a thug for her trouble, particularly by a pilot, who should know better.

[ssmdive]

Seems to me that if there is an FAR preventing using the bathroom, then your anger should be at the FAA and not the flight attendant or the airline.

Do you blame Col Sanders when the min wage employee screws up your order at KFC? If not, then blaming an airline for a FA is a bit excessive.

Further, blaming the FA (and calling her names???) would be excessive if she was actually following the FAA's rules.

I work for an airline.... the FAA does not care it was a little girl. The FAA does not care she wet herself. And the FAA would still punish the airline for violating the FAA's rules.

In my daily job I have to correct an instruct both customers and employees on proper methods to prevent FAA fines. Most of these issues seem stupid. The issues are things that common sense if used would if prevented the issue, but the issue will not cause a single threat to life or the flight (paperwork issues mainly). Still, we just had to pay 3,000 dollars in one single tiny paperwork issue, and each and every fine is kept on file for years. The FAA uses each and every one if those files as evidence against us whenever we have ANY issue. We have paid fines as large as 1.6M dollars and they use all these past minor fines to justify the penalty.

Long story short, the FAA has zero sense of humor and even less sense of compassion. We have been threatened with being shut down for what most people would consider a minor paperwork issue.

Lastly, if they had let the girl use the restroom and she had been injured..... Can you imagine the lawsuit?

Your beef should be with the FAA since it clearly seems the flight attendant was following company policy and the company policy was only following the FAA's rules.

Unless you can find the FAR that forbids PAX movement while the plane is taxiing and then show the section that lists bathroom emergencies as a defense against prosecution being listed -Your beef should be against the FAA.

Like I said, they have no sense of humor nor compassion.

You really should not blame the airline for not wanting to piss off (pun intended) the FAA.

[Aaron Novak]

Actually, as I read DOT-OST-2007-0022 on the matter, it implies that the airline is to provide adequate food, water and lavatory access up to the 3 hour mark.

Or, has taken here from Jet Blues own Customer Bill of Rights.


Accommodation during onboard ground delays

JetBlue will provide customers experiencing an onboard ground delay with 36 channels of DIRECTV®*, food and drink, access to clean restrooms and, as necessary, medical treatment. JetBlue will not permit the aircraft to remain on the tarmac for more than three hours unless the pilot-in-command determines there is a safety or security-related reason for remaining on the tarmac or Air Traffic Control advises the pilot-in-command that returning to the gate or another disembarkation point elsewhere in order to deplane would significantly disrupt airport operations.




This sounds more like a FA with control issues....

[Bill Greenwood]

Chuck, I am a pilot as well as some other things that have a title. But more than that, much more than that I am a Father. I am really glad you are not.

Maybe, you can think of it this way. If the U S holds prisoners at Gitmo , and part of the treatment is to deny them access to toilets, do you think that would run afoul of the Geneva Convention or the public perception of fair treatment? It would be a form of torture. And these men are for the most part hardened opponents, not a child. This little girl is an innocent 3 year old, and does not deserve to be treated that way.
Let's say you are flying your plane when accosted by CBP thugs with guns. They might legally be able to detain you for some time, even 24 hours, but would you expect to be given access to a toilet, maybe even food and water?
An innocent child deserves no less. Your hypothetical accident from taxiig is B S, just shows your lack of respect for the child, not to mention the Mother.
The situation would have been so easy to solve so quickly with a little consideration.

[Bill Greenwood]

AAron, thanks very much for your information and input. I hope you have kids.

[Zack Baughman]

Folks, I'm really struggling to see the relevance of this thread to recreational aviation. There are probably better places on the interwebs to argue about airline policy than on the EAA Forums.

[Hal Bryan]

Folks, I'm really struggling to see the relevance of this thread to recreational aviation. There are probably better places on the interwebs to argue about airline policy than on the EAA Forums.

Zack's right, there are many, many better places...This one has run its course.