Putting the Blues in jetBlue

JetBlue, the upstart discount airline that was wowing investors and customers alike, hit major turbulence this past week and is still struggling to recover. Last week's nor'easter resulted in planes being grounded at JFK airport for more than 9 hours with hundreds of passengers aboard. The situation got progressively worse as the airline struggled to figure out what to do next.

JetBlue has been struggling to recover from an ice storm on Wednesday in the eastern United States that stranded hundreds of passengers. The airline, which is the biggest carrier at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, has canceled at least 861 flights since the storm; the 133 flights canceled each day over the weekend represent 23 percent of its schedule, the airline said.

“It was turning from an operational problem to a safety and security problem for our workers,” a JetBlue spokeswoman, Jenny Dervin, said yesterday. “We canceled late departures, upset more customers, met overnight and said, ‘This has just got to stop.’ ”

Irving Fain, a New Yorker who said that his 6:05 p.m. flight Friday from J.F.K. to San Diego was delayed many times and then canceled at about 10:30 p.m., described a scene at gate 16 in the JetBlue terminal with angry passengers crowding around the gate podium, a gate agent calling security, and then passengers and a security officer exchanging heated words.

“It was really a disaster,” said Mr. Fain, who is 26 and works for a radio station. “Passengers screaming, ‘We pay your salary.’ The security guy screaming back. Fifteen minutes into this ruckus, they finally canceled the flight.”

Ms. Dervin of JetBlue said that scenes like the one described by Mr. Fain “happened at a number of gates and at the baggage claim, too.”

The cancellations raise new questions about whether JetBlue’s management is equal to its ambitions. Early last year, after fuel prices had wiped out profit at the airline, it was forced to curtail an aggressive delivery program for new planes and focus more on making its existing operations run more smoothly.

On Friday afternoon, JetBlue’s chief executive, David G. Neeleman, acknowledged that he should have canceled more JetBlue flights on Wednesday to avoid stranding for more than six hours hundreds of passengers on nine planes that could not get to the gates at J.F.K. In an interview, Mr. Neeleman said of the spillover of delays to Friday: “Day three: unforgivable.”

JetBlue said early yesterday that it had scrapped 133 of nearly 600 scheduled flights for both yesterday and today because of a shortage of flight attendants. It essentially grounded its entire fleet of 26 Embraer 190s, which are 100-seat planes, and moved any available flight attendants from those planes to its fleet of bigger Airbus 320s.

I've been a big fan of jetBlue because they've done a good job of getting Mrs. Lawhawk and myself to our destinations with a low fare and with the DirecTV service at our seats. However, this kind of situation would give pause to many casual fliers.

That said, jetBlue wasn't the only airline struggling to deal with cancellations and problems. Delta was also hit with the same problem and was struggling to get back on schedule.

jetBlue has information relating to their ongoing scheduling problems and what they're trying to do to make it up to their customers. Right now, the airline has canceled all flights to certain destinations:

The airline has canceled all flights to and from the following cities through Monday, Feb 19: Richmond, VA; Pittsburgh, PA; Charlotte and Raleigh/Durham, NC; Jacksonville, FL; Austin and Houston, TX; Bermuda; Columbus, OH; Nashville, TN and Portland, ME. In addition, flights to other JetBlue cities may be cancelled, so be sure to check your flight status.