A Warning: Jet Blue

Think, people. Think very hard before you sign up for JetBlue's nonstops from Boston to the West Coast. It turns out that their planes do not have enough fuel to get to the West Coast when the headwinds are strong.

Thus a six hour flight that would be turned into a six and a half hour flight by strong headwinds is instead turned into an eight hour flight by an involuntary refueling stop in Salt Lake City.

And then--because whoever runs Oakland operations for JetBlue does not have an arrangement with Southwest to use some of its open gates--the fact that we were late kept us on the tarmac for 45 minutes waiting for a JetBlue plane departing Oakland to push back from its gates. Flight attendants responded to questions from our seat neighbors about what was going on by telling them that they should call JetBlue on their cell phones: that the flight attendants knew nothing and weren't going to take any steps to find out.

And then--presumably because JetBlue hadn't sprung for overtime for baggage handlers--it took forty five minutes after we docked at the gate for the first piece of the plane's luggage to arrive on the carousel.

So it was your standard late-plane experience: you talk to the spouse, talk to the kids, march up and down the aisle, sit in sullen silence, watch Hellboy read the truly excellent Hour of the Octopus by Joel Rosenberg--a fantasy detective story set in a version of feudal Japan--talk to your neighbors, and finally stagger out of the airport four hours after you were supposed to arrive.

JetBlue won't tell me how often this unscheduled-refueling-in-Salt-Lake-City happens, or why their Oakland operation doesn't seem to have a plan for when it does.

Think carefully, people. Think carefully.

Comments

[christofay]

Is there a way to factor back into productivity measurements flight delays, computer crashes, and errant dashboard GPSers?

[jjb2]

Not only Jet Blue... A similar thing happened last weekend from DEN - LAX on American. Due to KNOWN runway construction at LAX we had to circle for 15 minutes over the Mojave Desert and then had to land at Ontario, a mere 50 miles short of LAX, to refuel. Including the ensuing delays with baggage, this added 2 hours to a 2 hour flight.

[Evan]

I just booked my first JetBlue flight ever, from SJC to Boston *yesterday*. Son of a ...

[Cal]

My family has taken JetBlue from Long Beach to Boston; Long Beach to Dulles and Long Beach to JFK (and back from each destination) and never once encountered any problems. Ever. Our boys like watching cartoons/kids' programs and eating the blue potato chips. My wife likes the fact that the kids can occupy themselves, so she can worry herself sick due to her fear of flying. Being 6'5" 260 lbs, I like the extra legroom to stretch my legs at least a bit. I like picking my seat online. We don't mind bringing on food that we'll actually eat (I wonder if we can do this under new rules). We've never had any delays checking in. I admit, now thinking about it, the luggage is a bit slow getting off the plane. Our biggest worry is getting to the Long Beach Airport in time to make the plane, given the traffic on the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles County, which can be a nightmare.

Too bad for you. Take an appointment at UCLA.

[Mark Thoma]

Slightly different context, but as to the cost, just posted this from Stiglitz on the failure of privatization of airport security:

The magnitude of the debacle can be seen...: if the average passenger makes just £10 an hour, and wastes one hour queuing, and if some 68m passengers pass through Heathrow a year, then the value of the lost time is £680m ($1.28bn) – quite a dent in profits if BAA had to compensate passengers for lost time. And it would quickly realise that it could greatly shorten queues by hiring more security personnel and buying more screening devices – at a fraction of that cost.

[A. Zarkov]

I’ve taken JetBlue flights fairly often between OAK and IAD, and between OAK and JFK. Only one flight was seriously delayed. I can’t think of another domestic airline I like better. I find the crews generally upbeat, and the seats have good legroom. Customer service fixed a booking problem for me by bending their rules. Compare JetBlue to United, where the crews act like they just received an arrest warrant. Last year security froze the inspection lines at SFO for over an hour. My UA flight just took off and left us stranded.

[christofay]

"My UA flight just took off and left us stranded", but in some parallel universe that only the airlines monitor, UA probably got credit for that flight for meeting "on-time" departure rules.

As for the stunned look on the employees' faces, in the future it's gonna be called GM syndrome, the realization that your job only entails lay-offs, pay freezes, pay cut-backs, and shrinking/disappearing pensions while you still have to show up for work. We don't see it on the car factory workers' faces, we do see it in this service sector.

[Captain Al]

Your experience was not unique to Jet Blue. While most airline flights leave and arrive on time, the few that are late are usually late for hours or days. It is usually a painful experience. The flight attendants are the least informed members of the crew. They have no means for communicating outside the aircraft and depend on the pilots for information. Although I retired from a competitor, I think Jet Blue offers many nice passenger comfort features.

[Slocum]

"Think, people. Think very hard before you sign up for JetBlue's nonstops from Boston to the West Coast. It turns out that their planes do not have enough fuel to get to the West Coast when the headwinds are strong."

As I understand it, it's a tradeoff. The more fuel a jet carries, the greater the weight and the more fuel it burns during the flight. With $75 oil, this is a major concern. What frequency of unscheduled refueling stops are we passengers willing to accept in exchange for greater fuel-efficiency, reduced carbon emissions (and a lower ticket price)?

[RT]

Slocum, I don't know how much the additional weight of carrying a spare hour's worth of fuel costs on a coast-to-coast flight. But unless it's gonna add >30% to the cost of my ticket, which I doubt, my answer is: I'm not willing to accept even a 1-in-100 chance of an unscheduled refueling stop.

I want to *assume* safety and reliability, and I'll look for the cheapest price within the envelope of those assumptions (plus a few others that, unlike those two, are somewhat negotiable). If someone wants to sell tickets to flights with a significant likelihood of unscheduled stops, but at a lower price, they should state that up front, so I don't have to worry about what I'm buying.

[moonbiter]

Another reason not to fly JetBlue: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/54103

[save_the_rustbelt]

Is Jet Blue managed by economists?

[Big Al]

Ah for the good old days when only the RR was available.

[Paul J. Camp]

If all you did was run out of gas and arrive slightly late (yes, slightly), you're doing pretty well. Flying out of Atlanta, we pretty much have to use Delta, and in the last six months they have done the following:

1. Lost my wife's reservation, then refused to let her make a reservation on my flight because it was full. Only it was just half full, but the frequent flier seats were all filled. I spent 6 hours in the Portland airport waiting for her flight to arrive.

2. Jet broke down at the AAAS meeting in St. Louis. Rather than flying a new jet up from Atlanta, they flew a repair crew in from Salt Lake City. Once they had determined that it wasn't an easy fix, I was first shunted to a new Delta flight, which didn't exist, then to a United flight which took off 3 hours late. I was supposed to be home at 10 AM. I didn't actually get home until 9 PM.

3. Lost my wife's luggage. Policy is: no compensation for lost items for 3 months because it might turn up; receipts needed for all items to prove value (do you keep receipts for 10 year old clothing?); no replacement for lost medicine because it might turn up. Cigna also won't replace it because she is only allowed one refill every 30 days.

My point of view: if you're going to get shitty service from everybody, go for the legroom and the cheap seats. And drive any place closer than 500 miles.

[Brian G]

The Airbus A320 planes that Jet Blue operates has a maximum cruising range (according to http://www.airbus.com/en/aircraftfamilies/a320/a320/specifications.html of 5,700 km. The nautical distance between Boston and Oakland is approximately 4,317 km.

So under nearly the most rigorous flight circumstances, the aircraft would have sufficient fuel to make the trip, save for mandatory fuel reserves and pilot's comfort. i.e. you know how your wife always tells you to stop for gas when it gets below 1/4 a tank (or is that just mine?)

Basically, I love JetBlue. I love the fact they use all new aircraft that are the best of breed technology. The a320 is superior to the 737-800 in every way. I love that they replaced all of their cockpit doors with kevlar after 9/11 before they resumed operations. I love that many of their pilots are women. I love their no-frills, low-cost approach. And I love the way they handled that locked-wheel -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Airways_Flight_292 -- potential disaster at LAX last summer. So I'm an apologist.

However, the question is really, whether any smaller (A319/A320, 737, md88) plane is capeable of making that trip. Any airline serving that route may encounter that same problem. If you want to be safer, check equipment and see if you can fly someone like United who operate 767s or 777s in that market.

[Kirk Spencer]

Fuel logistics and costs for long-hauls is ... interesting. Let's use some nominal numbers for figuring.

The A320 (the aircraft JetBlue uses for long haul) uses ~665 gallons of fuel per hour. It has a maximum capacity of 5,252 gallons of fuel. This means in a perfect world you've got ~7.9 hours of flight (in a perfect world) - less due to on-the-ground use of fuel. Jetblue schedules gate-to-gate Boston to Oakland at 7:25, of which the nominal figure is 20 minutes on the ground (and burning a lot less fuel). Still, if you add half an hour in-flight you are literally arriving at Oakland on fumes -- and hoping there's not a traffic stackup in the air.

The trade-off - that is, managing your flight so you have essentially zero chance of an unanticipated stop en-route for refueling - is to change flights midway. Most travellers have their tales of the things THAT can entail. Pick your risks and frustrations accordingly.

[Steven]

"JetBlue won't tell me how often this unscheduled-refueling-in-Salt-Lake-City happens..."

But they will tell the federal government.

Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Airline On-Time Performance Data:
http://tinyurl.com/gum5a

If you want to figure out the probability that any given flight will be diverted or delayed, you'll need to divide the raw number of diversions from the above database by the number of flights from the following database:

Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Form 41 Traffic Data:
http://tinyurl.com/r8mqw

From this data, I can tell that in June 2006 (the most recent month for which the data are available), JetBlue had 18 flights from BOS to OAK that arrived more than a half hour late. Of these flights, 8 arrived more than an hour late, and 4 arrived more than 2 hours late. Full list of minutes late: 31, 31, 34, 35, 36, 38, 44, 47, 51, 60, 78, 84, 89, 89, 154, 195, 237, 357.

In May 2006, JetBlue had 7 flights from BOS to OAK that arrived more than a half hour late, only one of which was more than a hour late. Full list of minutes late: 31, 31, 37, 41, 49, 57, 174.

For comparison, in May 2006 (the June numbers are not available yet), JetBlue flew 85 flights from BOS to OAK, with zero cancellations.

Hope this helps.

[elliottg]

Well, Southwest had my 10 month old booked on a different flight than my wife and I insisting that this was my fault. This was after losing my reservation the night before departure. They then wanted $200 to fix the problem. Fortunately, the judge saw it a different way so at least I got my money back.

[Movie Guy]

Come on, Brad. Fess up. What did Jet Blue comp you?

At a minimum, the crew should have handed out Blockbuster pre-paid plastic, mugs, or something. Anything.

Do you mean that you received NOTHING!!?

Why Oh Why did you let them get away with that...

Negotiate, ALWAYS negotiate, and look pitiful toward the end of the exchange.

:)

[frank]

BOS-OAK is at the ragged edge for non-stop west bound flights with fully loaded A320's;Jet Blue has the highest load factors in the US; when the winds are adverse, the plane takes off and refiles its flight plan with FAA based on actual fuel burn an hour or so into flight; either it confirms OAK or goes to an alternate. This will get worse in the winter when the prevailing winds are higher. Jet Blue's only alternative (once the flight is scheduled) is to reduce its load factor which it may do in the winter (given the the higher probability of high winds) but refiling in the summer may make perfect economic sense since the refueling stop should be a relatively rare event. Feel free to use this in class as an example of decision-making taking account of risk.

[Cranky Observer]

> 5,700 km. The nautical distance
> between Boston and Oakland is
> approximately 4,317 km.

Depending on weather, a commercial airplane on an IFR flight plan (which they always are) must have enough fuel on board to fly to the destination, then fly to the alternate, and hold there for 45 minutes before landing. No exceptions - even if you are over Riverside and can see LAX, if you are short you still have to land at ONT. The airline's operating manual may be more restrictive (say, requiring 15 minutes holding at the primary) and if so the airline must follow the more restrictive of the two.

If you ask around on the aviation boards you will find that stopping for gas in Denver is fairly common as the jetstream velocity is unpredictable hour-to-hour. A lightly-loaded 757 can make it no problem, but I haven't flown on a lightly-loaded flight for quite a while.

Brad has simply described the realities of post-9/11, post-airline-rightsizing air travel.

Cranky

[Aaron]

Was your family's utility differential between the way you spent your time while the plane was late vs. the way you would have spent that time otherwise weighted by the distribution of JetBlue arrival + luggage delivery times vs. the distribution for the next cheapest carrier greater than the difference in ticket prices? My guess is no, and that your decision to take JetBlue was rational ex ante with full information but without complete foresight.

[marcel]

Well, you could always fly NWA, but supporting that early 21st C brand of compassionate conservatism that may trash your reputation.

(Click on my username to see what I am talking about - can't put html links in properly. It looks like the onion, but it's not!)

Link c/o Maxspeak

[Matt]

I've had pretty good luck with JetBlue--especially travelling with kids. On the other hand, I have experienced repeated disasters with United, the most recent of which involved a pilot and a plane being in separate cities so that my wife and kids had to spend an extra night in Boston before returning to the Bay Area. Even Southwest--which I consider pretty reliable--can be flakey. I had an experience similar to yours with them. Apparently, because the runway at Midway is so short, one of Southwest's 737 models can't take off with enough fuel to reach the West Coast when the runway is wet. We had to stop in Omaha to refuel.

[Auros]

Heck, even the times that JetBlue is on-time, I found their seats distinctly uncomfortable, and their service sullen and unpleasant.

[Evan Roberts]

The refueling problem is worse in the winter when the jetstream is stronger. Not a common problem in summer.

[a different chris]

Heh. Airline horror stories are fun.

United managed to misplace - not lose - our luggage going BOTH ways on what I vowed would be the last time I ever flew them. Now this sucks ass more than ever when you brought backpacking equipment, intending to, you know, backpack. Serious versions of that stuff isn't cheap, so if they later find their luggage and don't want to reimburse you then it really hurts.

In our case for once we got lucky, we had three days of "bum around" planned before hitting the trail, and the stuff showed up on the third day.

And has anybody used "Simon", their idiotic lost-luggage voice recognition system? That's a tale in and of itself (and, forgetting in my anger that I was in Canada, a tale with a $245 cell phone bill. Which means I should have bought new backpacks...)

And about that United vow...

A few weeks later, trying to come home on Useless Airways, we found that they had just decided not to fly that particular flight. Just didn't feel like it, I guess.

So they - no offers of comp or anything - put us on, you guessed it, a United flight.

A flight which required a changeover in Washington to a very delayed puddle jumper.

Can we pay the French to install and run a decent passenger railway here? And give us an estimate on health care while they're at it?

Don't ever say I am against outsourcing..

[mere mortal]

Ok,

I'm going to zag.

USAir, after comp-ing me a round trip ticket anywhere (Cont.US) after bumping me on a return trip DC from to a later flight, gave me a departure date, in the summer, to SanFran. I had no return date. Got to the airport, turns out I have to have something that they should have mailed me. Crap. No problem, they get me on the flight anyway, after 700 keyboard clicks.

I got there, stayed a week (host's partner had pneumonia, and I felt like it was time to go). By the way, Mark Twain was right (look it up).

I arrived at the airport at 6:00AM, asked if I could get a return (East Coast), he said we got one in 30 minutes, and he got it done.

I'm running to the gate, and I got the terrorist treatment (for anyone who cares, be as nice and friendly as possible, anything else will not help, at all. I took my belt off to be helpful, so they had to x-ray it. I have no idea why.

Got me home, it was great. Everyone who was a USAir employee was as kind and helpful as you could imagine.

So I jock USAir whenever I get the chance.

[jimbo]

Seems to me, this is a reasonable enough policy to have in place (run at the ragged edge, stop for fuel if neccessary), but shouldn't there be some requirement to advertise the flight as "Nonstop (with possible fuel stop)". That way, you could make a reasonable determination between a Jetblue flight and another that uses, say, a 767, based on how important mnor delays are to you.

[jim]

Same thing happened to my wife and I flying supposedly non stop from Ft. Lauderdale to Oakland. Instead of Salt Lake, we stopped in Phoenix. We had BARTed to the airport from SF and expected to return that way. We arrived, of course, after BART stopped running and took an expensive ride home by taxi.

[Duncan Wierman]

I think I must have been on the same flight with you .. lol...
Duncan
http://www.theadventuretrekker.com

[Casey]

wow I don't think I will ever fly again, thanks :)

[John]

The A320 is a bad choice for Transcontinental Flights. It does not have enough range to make it with strong headwinds. Airlines are supposed to have enough fuel to make it to their destination and then have 45mins of flying time left over in the event that they need to land at an alternate airport. The A319 has no problem doing transcons. Bad decision on plane choice by jetBlue.

[swank]

my sister just flew jetblue from Boston to SJC 3/28/08 and her flight was delayed due to a need to refuel in salt lake city. no data was provided to me regarding how frequently this happens. it seems to me that if it happens frequently enough, this becomes a case of false advertising -- the flight is not really a DIRECT flight. any lawyers out there want to discuss whether or not a class action suit is possible? by the way, all she got in reimbursement was a $25 voucher -- a worthless "gift" given that her 3 star michelin prepaid pre fixe dinner had to be cancelled.