I don’t understand pitting them for their new policies as they are better policies then any other airline I know of. I’ve sat on a contenental jet in Dallas for almost 5 hours in the past. They offered nothing to compensate for the inconvience.
I’ve been very happy with Jet Blue time and time again. Their service is miles ahead of anyone elses.
Is it really the airline’s fault that the delay on the ground is that long? I was under the impression that the planes on the ground can only move as they’re directed by the ground ATC. And I suppose it’s probably not a good idea to be jumping out of the plane into the possible path of another plane moving around. I, for one, wouldn’t want to get chopped by a propellor or sucked into a jet intake.
Now, it’s obviously wrong to be delayed that long on the ground. There surely must be a way to implement a rational system that doesn’t require all that much thought or a decree from heaven to get it rolling.
Random thought…I recall some years ago, a ferry which ran aground on a beach outside Calais (which has a long sand spit and various shallow sandbanks etc.) They waited for several high tides until they got refloated, refusing to make any attempt to disembark, despite the fact that there were low tides where people could almost walk up to the ship. A deciding factor was the difference was basically a technical one, between a delay (which meant that at most they’d have to offer a refund) and an evacuation of the ship (big payouts all round).
IIRC, some of the planes were out on the runway waiting in a queue to take off, and froze to the ground, literally, and had to wait to be defrozen. Letting people out of the plane on the middle of the runway, a 20-minute walk from the airport terminal, in icy/snowy weather, among other airplanes taxiing with limited visibility on unscheduled lanes and runways, is a horrible accident waiting to happen. As bad as waiting in a terminal is, imagine a terminal-bound line of walking passengers getting run over by another plane on a foggy runway path.
Although I do remember reading that they let some woman out on the tarmac to walk her stupid dog, and almost had a riot on their hands with all the stir-crazy passengers who they wouldn’t allow to leave the airplane. Imagine! I certainly would have felt like rioting.
At that point, I probably would have been willing to sign a waiver and run across the runway like Indiana Jones just to get off the fucking plane and back to civilization!
The New York Times Business Section asked the same question on Sunday:
They didn’t really reach any conclusions, though. I think that, as long as they change their strategy for dealing with situations like this, they should be OK. Apparently, their big mistake was in not canceling flights. Southwest canceled a whole shitload of flights and managed to avoid stranding passengers in planes, but JetBlue tried to get too many flights off the ground. That sort of optimism came back to bite them on the ass.
Well, some politicians have already started making noises about legislation.
Also, while last week’s JetBlue fiasco might seem like a very rare occurrence, in 2006 over 7,000 flights sat on the tarmac for more than 2 hours before departing, although only 36 were there for more than five hours. Another 60,000 took between one and two hours to get airborne after pushing back from the gate.
I’ve been through a fair number of delays, and in my experience you’re almost never told how long it’ll actually be.
Oh, I don’t know, because when you are in the air you can usually stand up and walk a bit, and go pee if you need to? Whereas if you are in “impending takeoff” mode you can’t get up to stretch or go pee?
Yep. And as the NYT article i linked to says:
Not to worry. The invisible, self-correcting hand of the free market will fix this problem eventually.
Of course a lot of passengers will have spent a lot of time sitting around, but then freedom is not free. 
Actually it is JetBlue’s fault. Notice how other airlines didn’t have people sitting in planes on the runway? JetBlue’s strategy was to push out of the gate on time. (I believe this gives them some sort of "On Time Stat to brag about) That means that even though planes were not taking off, they were still pushing off from the gate and going to the runway to wait. This way, if the weather cleared, their planes would be in position to take off, even if it cleared for just a few minutes. Their inbound flights were still landing. They pulled up to the gates and disembarked. Now the weather is not breaking and the gates are full. Apparently there is no way to pull out the empty plane and pull back in the full one.
But the ‘depart from the gate no matter what plan’ was all JetBlue.
When you are sitting on the runway you are supposed to be ‘prepared for takeoff’. From the time they close the door and push off from the gate, all passengers are supposed to be seated, belted, chairs and traybacks in their upright position and no electronic devices. These are not JetBlue’s rules but the FAA’s who could come down hard on them. Plus, they want to be ready to take off at a moments notice so they try to keep everybody seated.
Answering the questions a couple of folks had, I seem to remember from the last time this sort of delay was in the news that people who demanded to get off the plane after a few hours were threatened with arrest - I think they were told it would be a federal offense to defy the crew and attempt to leave the plane.
Does anyone remember reports like this?
Stock price was down about 4% today but, frankly, I don’t see these issues as prone to repeat. Are they now the only ones with a Passenger Bill Of Rights? They’ll be making monumental efforts to insure a return of passengers and no more bad press. I’ve never flown them before but would definately look at them first now based on the repair issues alone. I give 'em way better than 75%. They’re beyond lipservice. Question is, who’ll follow? That’s what will impact them longterm… competition’s response.
That would be my response. I’d take the federal rap, just so I could file suit against JetBlue for kidnapping. Past a certain point, delays are an unjustified (and to my mind illegal) restriction of my freedom. If they refuse to allow me to leave, then that constitutes flase imprisonment, at least to a degree that I could get it into court. I’d probably lose, but it would be worth it to take down a company that so abused its customers.
Where would the prosecution get a jury that had never been subjected to airline indignities? (I have this mental picture of twelve traditionally-garbed Amishmen in the jury box…)
It is my understanding that Amish do not serve as jurors due to their “judge not” beliefs. There was news a while back about Ohio passing legislation to formalize this. 
I was once trapped on a runway for several hours in August in Phoenix, due to mechanical problems. It was 107 that day, and there was no air on the plane. They had the doors open, but they were mostly blocked by the flight attendants standing back there to get the air. We were not allowed up. Once they brought around dixie cups with about a mouthfull of water per passender, and people who demanded to leave were, in fact, threatened with arrest.
A woman a few rows up from me told the flight attendants she had heart problems and couldn’t handle extreme heat. They assured her each time we’d be airborn any minute. (What she was doing in Arizona, I don’t know.)
Eventually, she pinged them to complain of shortness of breath and chest pains, and they plane very quickly returned to the gate. As the paramedics took her off, I thought two things: Lady, I hope you’re faking, and a heartfelt thanks from the rest of us. If you’re not-- I hope you fucking sue.
I was trapped on the tarmac in summer on an American Airlines jet, packed to capacity for 11 hours. Can anyone top that?
The experience was terrifying. I’ve never really recounted it online, because when I start to type it up it makes me somewhat ill. I’ll summarize the most brutal points.
No food, no water, no phones (this was before pretty much everyone had a cell phone, and they forbade those who had them to use them even while we sat for 11 hours). Women with infants needed water for formula, and were told to sit down or they would be arrested. As the day wore on and we sat trapped, just 1000 feet from open gates, the atmosphere turned into a controlled panic. By the 9th or 10th hour, the stewardesses were screaming, honestly screaming at the passengers “SIT IN YOUR GODDAMN SEATS WITH YOUR SEAT BELTS ON OR WE WILL HAVE THE FEDERAL MARSHALS ARREST EVERY ONE OF YOU! THE FAA SAYS WE ARE IN CHARGE AND YOU WILL OBEY US!” This was prompted when people began to shout in protest after it was noticed that the First Class passengers had been served all the liquids on the plane, and that even people who needed water for medical reasons (taking pills, infant formula, dying of thirst, etc.) were being told to “shut up.”
The toilets had long since stopped working, and the stewardesses ordered people to “hold it” in their seats. The temperature on the plane was at least 80-85, maybe more. When several men took off their shirts to cool off, they were ordered by the stewardesses to put their shirts back on or they “WOULD BE ARRESTED!”
Finally, after maybe 10 hours of no food, no water, and tremendous heat, some passengers threatened to open the emergency door, and the pilot got on and again threatened to have everyone arrested. “IT IS A FELONY TO TOUCH THAT DOOR!” He also made a ridiculous statement that anyone who so much as brushed against the door would be arrested. I was sitting by the exit door, and a woman who was asleep against it, curled up on a pillow, had it yanked from her head, whanging her head against the door, by a stewardess who asked her if she wanted to go to jail.
And all that time, we sat just 1000 feet from toilets, water, food, and safety. Almost all the gates were open the whole time (we were sitting at MCI, where only half the gates are ever used). It would have been the work of a minute to roll back to the gate. Instead, they tortured a 737 filled with human beings.
When we eventually made it to our destination, at 1:00am, there were no less than 6 police officers, a couple with their hands on the butts of their guns, standing outside the door of the plane. AFAIK no one was actually arrested, however.
I’m still not recounting how bad it was. I saw grown women, and even men, crying. A woman got on her knees in the aisle, on her knees like in a movie, and begged for the stewardess to show some human feelings and get us back to the gate. She cried and said she needed water. She was told to “shut up.” People asking how it was legal, and the stewardesses telling people, in effect, “on this plane we rule you.” I’m not recounting the howling and terrifying screams of children who for hours on end were crying “PLEASE DADDY I’M THIRSTY!” People setting full diapers under the seats and in the overhead bins, because there was no where else to put them. The pilot not getting on for hours, except to tell us to “OBEY THE DIRECTIONS OF THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS OR ELSE.” Never knowing if we would ever, ever, be allowed off the plane.
Those who say “why not just leave the plane” don’t realize the fear that the threat of arrest and punishment invokes. Especially nowadays. All it takes is some dumbshit angry stewardess to just say “they acted like a terrorist” and you’re going to be spending a lot of the next few months or years of your life living an expensive, life-changing legal nightmare. You cannot believe how power-mad I’ve seen stewardesses act. I could fill a thread with stories.
You cannot believe how much I fear being in that situation again.
FTR my compensation for the flight was $0. Not even a letter of apology.
I’m fairly certain that kidnapping isn’t a civil matter, but rather a criminal one. So, where would you get a prosecutor to file charges for kidnapping for this?
Find one who’s been on a plane lately.
I don’t understand how there wasn’t at least one strangulation on one of those planes! Eleven hours!? I sat in DIA on Dec. 22 for 10 hours waiting to fly out, and that was nerve-wracking enough – and I was able to walk around, use the restroom, get a burger. Ye gods, people! Eleven farking hours!
I appreciate **Zebra’s ** last post – it explains a lot. Doesn’t excuse anything (nor does **Zebra ** try to) but it explains stuff. The only part I don’t get is waiting in stand-by-to-take-off mode for eleven hours for the weather to clear. If the weather’s too bad to take off, how can it be good enough to land? Bear in mind, I’m a Coloradoan, and out here, when weather socks in an airport, nothing moves for hundreds of miles around. What about the weather in New York would cause decision-makers think it might clear for a few minutes to launch a plane or two – or that that would even be safe? (These aren’t necessarily rhetorical questions, even though this is the Pit.)