Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

In response to the recent debacle with their passengers, Jet Blue CEO David Neeleman, calling the crisis a "a huge bump in the road," has introduced a customer bill of rights in hopes of winning back its customers after the extraordinary delays. There was over 100,000 passengers affected by the delays.

The bill will be based upon compensation connected to the length of time in delays. It could pay anywhere from $25 to the total of the ticket price. The parameters that qualify what a delay is includes airplanes that aren't able to taxi to the gate within a half-an-hour, or flights where waits are a minimum of three hours.

Another element of the bill would be a full refund for customers if the flight is cancelled within 12 hours of departure. Customers would also receive vouchers if the delay is caused by the airline. There is also a stipulation that if there is over a 5 hour delays, passengers would be deplaned.

It was good to hear Neeleman say that, "What we did was wrong and we didn't have a plan, had we had that in place for this event, it would have been much better."

Facing the problem, and not denying it was the fault of the airline would have been a bad move. What he said was the right thing to say and recognize.

Another key factor was that it was responded to quickly, and people weren't allowed to stew for too long, letting negative feelings about the company affect their future decisions to use the airline; although that is still up in the air.

Now the question from the other side of it is have they given away too much.

Terry Trippler, an airline expert questioned the bill of rights, saying "If you start paying people when you're late, other airlines could be forced to join and then you're in a bidding war. And when you're selling tickets for a $100 and giving $100 vouchers away, something has got to give. It doesn't make good economic sense."
 
While there may be some truth to what Trippler is saying, in reality none of this will be known until the changes are implemented and experiemented with. The customers of JetBlue needed to know that something was being done, and that the airline took their complaints seriously.

If it does prove to be too much given away, there can always be some adjustments made as the company goes along. To not of given people something could have had drastic long-term consequences on the airline.