Gripes about JetBlue Airlines

March 16, 2007. 1PM ET. A winter storm has just started here in the Northeast. I know someone with a reservation on a JetBlue flight scheduled to leave tomorrow morning so I went to check the flight status at jetblue.com. Instead I got an error message "Server is too busy". When I was lucky enough to get any response. Usually the website just froze. Someone I know said this has been ongoing since this morning.

This storm, like all storms, was predicted in advance so JetBlue knew there would be many cancellations and thus a heavy strain on their website. And, it is the second, not the first, winter storm since the one where they were embarrassed for leaving people sitting in planes on the tarmac for hours on end. Still, they were un-prepared.

Online Check-in

March 3, 2006. JetBlue offers online check-in at their web site where you can print your own boarding pass and do something with your checked luggage. Or at least they claim they offer this service. When I needed it though, it didn't exist. There error I got is shown at the right.

Flight Status Data on Web Site

April 17, 2003. I was going to the airport to meet someone flying in on JetBlue airlines. The plane was supposed to leave at 2:00PM. As late as 2:45PM, the JetBlue web site reported that the plane was estimated to leave at 2:01 PM. The status was Awaiting Takeoff. Estimated to leave 45 minutes ago.

At the least, the web site should timestamp the flight arrival and departure information. That is, it could say something like "Times are as of HH:MM PM".

In addition, the estimated arrival time was 2 minutes earlier than the scheduled arrival time. A plane that was 45 minutes late in leaving was going to arrive early.

Update: January 18, 2005. It turns out the above gripe is not a reporting bug with the web site, but instead, is somewhat normal. A pilot (thanks John) wrote to say:

It is very possible for a flight to depart its origin airport very late and still arrive on schedule, or even early. This is possible for two main reasons:

1. Airlines "pad" the block flight times between various city-pairs based on historical data on the particular airports. Airports such as JFK, LAX, ORD, ATL, etc. are known to have extended taxi times due to traffic, airport layout, etc. While at some airports an aircraft may taxi out of the gate and in one minute is in position for takeoff, at other airports it may require as much as half an hour just to get to the runway. Add to that heavy traffic and you could find yourself taxiing for an hour before lift off. So, if an airline is counting on, let's say, 30 or 40 minutes taxi at a particular airport for a specific flight at a given time of the day, and for some reason this particular flight only took 10 minutes to get off the ground, the flight is already 20 to 30 minutes ahead of schedule. If this flight left the gate as late as 30 minutes, it will still arrive on schedule, if not ahead of schedule.

2. Winds aloft affect tremendously time enroute. Airlines make only general assumptions when posting flight times in their timetables. For example, in the Northern Hemisphere, eastbound flights are generally shorter than westbound flight between the same city-pairs. The longer the distance, the greater the time enroute difference. So, it is possible for a flight to depart the east coast as late as one hour, but due to the winds aloft it may arrive on schedule or even early (and v.v.)

Finally, us pilots can chose, based on several factors, a faster speed to account for a minor delay.

Jet Blue Gripes

Assorted Web Site Problems

Online Check-in

Flight Status Data on Web Site

Other Gripers

Page created:	Page last updated: March 16, 2007
Prior updates: March 3, 2007 \| January 18, 2005