Now Boarding… Mother Nature

Well, I finally wrestled control of my own Flight Log back from C. Montgomery Burns (see July). I think America is a little sick of airlines run by the likes of Mr. Burns and his cohorts. Even though he took over the Flight Log, there's no way we would let him take over our airline!

We are at the peak of the busy summer season, so of course Mother Nature threw in a couple of floods and tornados in our backyard here in New York. Wednesday morning, the city woke up to find standing water on the Van Wyck Expressway, the major thoroughfare to JFK, our hometown airport. Subway service was completely disrupted, too, and about 1% of our customers flying that day missed their flights. (If you were caught up in the weather mess, please give us a call at 800-JETBLUE / 800-538-2583,and we'll be happy to help you rebook.)

It was confirmed that a tornado touched down in Brooklyn – just a few miles from JFK – the same morning. Is Mother Nature trying to tell us something? Maybe. I guess it depends on your interpretation. I've always been interested in finding alternative fuels and reducing our dependence on foreign oil, but I have to admit that I was first drawn to this subject for economic, rather than purely environmental reasons. I think we can all agree that the environmental imperative is growing every day. There has to be a solution that allows airlines like JetBlue to continue to serve the communities we fly to with low fares while at the same time stabilizing the cost of energy and reducing harm to the environment.

I'm continuing my work on finding that solution, and I'll update you on the progress through this Flight Log. In the meantime, let's talk about the weather…

With the summer thunderstorm season on top of us, we have completely revamped the way we handle weather disruptions. Wednesday, for example, we made it our goal to absorb as much of the weather disruption in the morning, during the actual event, as possible, and to keep our afternoon schedule on track. Thanks to our crewmembers in Boston, Fort Lauderdale, LA/Long Beach and Orlando, we pushed our first flights of the day (what we call "Fleet Launch") perfectly on time, which really helped our JFK operations later in the day.

There's only so much you can do with the weather, and we really appreciate the patience and understanding our customers showed Wednesday morning, especially considering that many of them arrived at the airport after 4 or more hours of driving in one of the worst traffic jams I can remember. (The subways were out of service, so many people hopped in cabs or drove themselves.)

I just checked the weather forecast and it looks like we may have a break in the weather this weekend. I'll be flying JetBlue this weekend, and I look forward to meeting you on a plane or in the airport.

-David