Jetblue set out to provide its customers with a great airlines experience. Neeleman’s goal was to provide customers with “the types of amenities reserved for the pricier carriers, including wider seats ……and 24 channels of in-flight television” ( Case study pg 400) One of Jetblue and Neeleman’s biggest challenges was to keep offering all these amenities while still competing with the big carriers by keeping their prices 50 to 60 percent lower on the same routes. As they grew and hired more employees they found it harder to maintain the same level of customer service across the board. Also other carriers began to compete with them in the lowprice arena. These bigger airlines had more planes and employees to they were better able to respond to the storm that blanketed New York in 2007. This storm proved to ruin many of Jetblues customer experiences due to the delays and cancellations. Jetblue gave all of their customers refunds and free flights in response to the delays. They were also feeling the effects of the storm longer than their bigger competition since they were understaffed because of pilots being stuck in other states.
When the storm hit some flights set on the tarmac for up to ten hours still chancing to be able to leave during the storm. Jetblue could have cancelled these flights earlier and kept customers from having to endure sitting on planes for extended periods of time. If Jetblue had done this then they would have avoided much of the grief they experienced over the next week. Overall Jetblue should have better prepared for the storm by cancelling flights earlier and having extra staff on hand. Whomever was in charge of overall operations should have planned better and is the one who is the most responsible for the lack of preparation.
Jet Blue did a great job handling the severe weather in February of 2007. They went above and beyond trying to compensate for the inconvenience and loss of time that their customers