JetBlue Issues Customer Bill Of Rights

JetBlue Airways Corp., having suffered a damaging blow to its reputation as a well-run, customer-focused low-fare airline from a Valentine's Day massacre of a storm and its aftermath which affected more than 100,000 customers, today issued what it calls The JetBlue Customer Bill of Rights and announced contingency plans.

CEO David Neeleman called the customer bill of rights an "accountability document" that he said would be retroactive to Feb. 14 and instituted in the event of future uncontrollable events. The program of customer promises and monetary compensation goes beyond current federal requirements to offer customers on flights canceled by JetBlue full refunds or re-accommodation as well as vouchers for future travel. JetBlue also will provide compensation for JetBlue-created departure delays starting after an hour for one-way or roundtrip depending on the length of the delay. JetBlue also will provide customers $1,000 in cash, rather than the $400 the federal government requires, if they are ever denied boarding.

The new JetBlue policies also distinguish between arrival delays and departure delays. It will award compensation if an airplane lands and takes more than 30 minutes to reach the gate as a result of decisions by JetBlue. For arrival delays, customers will receive vouchers valid for the purchase of future flights of $25 for up to an hour, $100 for one to two hours, the cost of one-way ticket identical to the one purchased for two to four hours and the cost of a roundtrip ticket for delays of more than four hours.

For departure delays, JetBlue after three hours will pay a customer a $100 voucher, after four hours will issue a voucher for a new trip and after five hours will remove people from the airplane.

Neeleman said, however, that "customers want to get where they are going, not come back to the gate." He said proposed congressional legislation to get people off of airlines after three-hour departure delays would create more problems than it would solve and not serve customer interests.

Among other contingency plans, Neeleman said JetBlue would be "badging and training 940 crew members in New York with Port Authority IDs" to be able to help serve and communicate with customers should something like this ever happen again. He also said the airline would focus on improving communications with customers at the airport and via jetblue.com.

Neeleman said this is a response "coming from the gut" because "we failed our customers and our crew members." While he said that the airline today is finally back to a normal flight schedule, with all luggage to be delivered to customers by tomorrow, "this was a pretty somber week for us, during which huge lessons were learned."

Calyon Securities analyst Ray Neidl said, "In our opinion, JetBlue is taking the right steps in a tough situation PR-wise by apologizing, offering compensation and outlining corrective actions to be taken."

A contrite Neeleman today said that last Wednesday JetBlue waited on a forecast of snow turning to rain, but the rain never came. "We should have acted quicker and we should have had a better contingency plan," Neeleman said. He said that in canceling more than 250 flights, personnel were displaced, which contributed to "a cascading event into Thursday and Friday. Friday, we decided to cancel flights over the weekend to reset things and in doing so maybe we cancelled too many flights." As a result of the storm, he said the airline would provide $10 million in refunds and $16 million in credits for future flights.

Neeleman said his focus was now on ensuring that this "bad luck will not wipe out the reputation JetBlue had built through seven years of service" and on "wooing back those customers affected and not affected by this huge bump in road that we're going to get over. We're going to do better in the future."