The Incredible Discoveries of Ian J. Spector

I wrote this all out quite some time ago, but I figured with so many people travelling to and from Austin for SXSW that it was finally time to wrap it up and post it.

I began flying on JetBlue when they were brand new. So new, the concept of TV at every seat for an affordable price was revolutionary, they were sharing Terminal 6 with at least one other airline at JFK, the flight numbers were all single or double digits, and they stood out as the newcomer airline ready to put up a fight against the old, ‘bad,’ carriers like American, Delta, and United whose unmotivated and mediocre flight attendants wouldn’t dare give away unlimited drinks and snacks to flyers without charging a fee.

As time went on, JetBlue would become the rockstar of common sense aviation. Then some strange things started to happen. Virgin America launched in 2007. Delta announced in 2008 to roll out in-flight WiFi on all domestic US flights. Soon enough, all the other carriers jumped in and began introducing in-flight internet service.

To their credit, JetBlue rolled out their BetaBlue aircraft in 2007, an Airbus A320 hooked up for very limited access, providing passengers with only Blackberry service, Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Chat. Possibly some other Yahoo! stuff, but no ‘normal,’ ‘full’ internet. Unfortunately, there have not been any breakthroughs in JetBlue’s in-flight entertainment to this day. Sure, they recently announced that they’re working on implementing the world’s most amazingly amazing satellite-based in-flight entertainment and internet system. It isn’t supposed to be up and running until at least 2012.

This brings me to my dilemma. What is special about JetBlue anymore? Are they just experiencing growing pains? They no longer have the same sparkle they once had. Air travel in the US is very commoditized. You get more or less the same experience on a flight from New York to San Francisco on Delta as you do on American. Carriers like JetBlue, Virgin America, and to a lesser extent, Southwest, stand out from the old dinosaurs, though.

You could fly in a 14 year old American Airlines jet where you’re going to end up being forced to watch Enchanted on a 13” CRT five rows down followed by listening to one of a dozen radio channels for the next 3 hours because there’s no power at your seat to recharge your laptop/phone/iPad/etc…

Or, you could fly on a brand new plane on JetBlue, where you get over 30 channels of satellite TV which you get to control at your comfy leather seat, munching on free blue potato chips and ginger ale. The pilots are funny. The flight attendants are perky. There’s no soulless safety video, they act it out, props and all. Oh, and it might cost less.

When put in this context, you can see how there’s pretty much no more reason to fly AA when you can land in style riding JetBlue. Because of their recent plateaus related to in-flight tech, the airline has - amidst some very serious media-worthy incidents - been able to nonetheless compete quite well as a result of improving amenities, a great website, and some clever marketing ploys. 

Find me another airline with trendy wine and booze selections, free WiFi at many terminals, ticket giveaways on the streets of New York City, and the All You Can Jet Pass. That may be fine, but here’s where we pull off into the next level of dreams, because as JetBlue stagnated, my now-favorite airline, Virgin America, has taken the lead in unbelievably amazing, classy, affordable, and innovative flying. What JetBlue had done to Southwest, Virgin America has done to JetBlue.

In this light, it puts JetBlue and it’s older cousin, Southwest on a platform not all that much higher than all the other airlines. 

You could fly in a 14 year old American Airlines jet where you’re going to end up being forced to watch Enchanted on a 13” CRT five rows down followed by listening to one of a dozen radio channels for the next 3 hours because there’s no power at your seat to recharge your laptop/phone/iPad/etc…

You could fly on a plane less than ten years old on JetBlue, where you get satellite TV which you get to control at your comfy leather seat, munching on free blue potato chips and ginger ale. The pilots are funny. The flight attendants are perky. There’s no soulless safety video, they act it out, props and all. 

Or you could fly on a plane less than 3 years old on Virgin America, where you not only get satellite TV, but also industry-leading in flight entertainment and technology, in-flight internet, the coolest ambiance in any passenger airliner, awesome in-flight service, not to mention the best safety video ever produced for an airline. There’s also a power outlet at every seat. A normal power outlet. At every seat. Oh, and it might cost less.

Since I first flew Virgin America, I’ve still always rooted for JetBlue in the back of my mind, hoping that True Blue would do something spectacular to put them back on top. I realize that amidst all the not-doing that I’ve described, they did build a new terminal at JFK, which is no easy (or cheap) feat, as well as significantly grew their destinations, but I won’t address those because a) I don’t want to and b) There are usually separate budgets for each of those things.

Year after year, though, I’ve been disappointed. I actually purchased the All-You-Can-Jet pass this year hoping that I could maybe convince myself that I was just talking crazy and they weren’t as bad as I thought. I suppose it was a big decision, after all, because of this pass, I was guaranteeing myself up to several dozens of hours in their planes, terminals, and general custody. Such relative repetitive exposure will undoubtably have a significant impact on my impressions of the carrier and the brand for quite some time. Hypothetically, if all the flying was perfect and I just happened to have terrible times wherever I went, I would still probably leave with a bad taste about JetBlue since they were the carrier which brought me to all those bad times. 

One of my nightmare experiences with them was during the last All You Can Jet promo, and I’m pretty sure it’s what, in my mind, made me lose loyalty to them.

Before I begin, let’s lay out some facts to put things in context.

JetBlue Airways:

• Owns over 110 Airbus A320 planes
• Each plane has 150 seats and several trained JetBlue employees
• Each A320 in 2008 cost between $73.2 million and $80.6 million.

Now for the story:

I flew out from JFK to LAX last fall. My original flight, JetBlue 671 was scheduled to leave at 11 AM.

Sometime The Night of 9/30/10: I check in online for the flight.

9 AM, 10/1: Leave for JFK. 

10:50 AM: Arrive at JFK.
As anyone who lives in the NYC area remembers, we got hit in the fall with some ridiculous winds and rain, which led to my being delayed en route to JFK. The weather reports were saying there would be up to 50mph wind gusts, so I also sort of assumed there would naturally be some delayed flights. I kept checking the status of my flight at mobile.jetblue.com, and TripIt Pro was monitoring the flight. No notifications of delays. Crap. 

10:50: After running like a madman the several miles from the AirTrain Station to JFK’s T5, I finally reach the full-service help line. I also made sure to notice along the way that the in-terminal displays with flight status information said that my flight was still scheduled to depart on-time. 

11:01: I tell the associate that I just missed my flight because of weather-related delays getting to the airport. I’m informed that there is a later flight available that I can be re-booked on. The associate needs to call the home office to straighten things out because I had booked the trip using All You Can Jet (which is handled separately from regular flights). The associate is put on hold several times and each time apparently is reconnected to someone else, requiring a full re-telling of the situation. Along the way, the associate said she got locked out of her computer terminal and has to share the terminal next to her’s with another associate.

11:30: I’m told that because I’m an AYCJ’er, I don’t have to pay the $100 same-day change fee. Instead, I only have to pay $40. Considering I’m not ‘really’ paying for the flight, $40 isn’t so bad. The associate is still on hold.

11:40: I am finally given a ticket for a new flight that left later that afternoon. I reach the security checkpoint

11:55: Out of Security, into the Terminal. I grab a bite to eat because I now have about 5 hours to kill.

Noon/12:30 (forget exactly): I hear a strange announcement:

“Attention Ladies and Gentlemen: This is the final call for JetBlue flight 671 to Los Angeles. All ticketed and confirmed passengers must be on-board at this time.”

Now, because I’ve had so much time to kill along the way, I’ve been checking my phone like crazy. For kicks, I’ve been refreshing JetBlue’s flight status page for 671 as well as TripIt and both said the flight was on-time and had in fact departed at 11am. For some additional context, if you’ve never had TripIt or some other service track your flights, they usually will send SMS updates instantly as information is provided from the airline/airport/etc… Several times, I’ve received updates about delays both several hours in advance of the flight as well as sitting inside the plane on the tarmac. Today, nothing.

Needless to say, I was a bit confused. I went to the JetBlue “Ask” desk in the terminal and inquired to see whether or not I had misheard the announcement. I didn’t. The plane I thought I had missed had in fact been delayed. 

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I owned JetBlue, I’d know where my fleet of $70-$80 million jets are every second of every day. Given all the technology available on-board and at the airport, one would think it’s quite easy to know whether a plane is where it’s supposed to be or not as well as where it is. Makes sense, right?

1:49 PM: Because I’m already ticketed for the next flight and have time to kill, I call JetBlue asking for a refund of the $40 change fee. Here’s my logic:

• JetBlue being the airline has a responsibility to their customers to reasonably alert them of any major deviations from a confirmed itinerary.
• In the case of my flight, they appeared to be negligent in updating whatever system to indicate the flight being delayed. I have a hunch these things are mostly automated in the first place, but honestly, who knows these days.
• Because of their negligence, I could have easily been on the plane that had left, even after waiting forever at the full-service line and at security. Now I’m supposed to arrive at least 4-5 hours later than I expected and now my plans for day one of my LA excursion are out the window. So why should I have to get dinged $40 bucks to arrive later and be inconvenienced?

Their logic:

• Delays are unpredictable, we don’t know when a flight will be delayed until it actually happens. Neither do you. Because nobody can see into the future, it’s not unreasonable to make you make you pay the $40. Plus, at least it’s not $100.

I don’t like to get angry with people on the phone, especially in an airport, but the way the phone rep explained things sounded pretty reasonable. I calmly agreed with what she said and realizing I was probably wasting my time, thanked the representative for her time and moved on with my day. 

Moral of the story? Always show up even earlier than you think to the airport.