Its a long one..so read it if you have the time and energy.
Dear Jet Blue:
This is a formal letter of complaint. My wife and I have been very pleased with your company and have always raved about your service until today. On October 17, 2006, we had multiple (and I mean multiple) bad and unacceptable experiences with Jet Blue. Let me describe our horror.
On the above mentioned date we flew out of Boston’s Logan airport. Our final destination was Las Vegas with a stop over at Kennedy Airport in New York.
Our flight number from Boston to Kennedy was 1007, and it was scheduled to depart at 11:40 am. However, for some reason (I think the plane was delayed in Buffalo) our plane was delayed. Well, it took the Jet blue crew in Boston a while to communicate this delay to the passengers. We overheard one passenger say our flight was delayed, but it took Jet Blue ½ hour later to make an overhead announcement. Weird I thought. Anyway, our flight was delayed one hour. While in the air to New York, the flight attendant pointed out the fact that there were 3 connecting flights in Kennedy that could be missed because of our delay. One was Florida, which the crew was mainly worried about. Another was the Las Vegas connection, our flight, and the crew was not that worried about missing this one.
Anyway, our connecting flight to Vegas was scheduled to depart at 1:40pm, and we landed at 1:30 pm in NewYork. There was not much time to make the connection, but still some time. The flight attendant told us to hurry to our gates and reminded us repeatedly that “Jet Blue always waits for the connecting passengers”. Anyway, we and many other people including elderly people ran to our connecting gates (having to take a shuttle in the process) only to find that all planes took off without the connecting passengers. We were told by the gate attendant at our connecting flight that if our flight attendant called the connecting gate, they may have waited. We then saw our flight attendant who told us that she did call. Well, there is a "call" discrepancy here. Something went wrong with the process. Let me also say that the two female flight attendants seemed more preoccupied with smiling at each other at both ends of the plane during the flight. I got the sense or lack of sense of professionalism.
Needless to say, the next flight to Vegas was not until 6 hours. The customer service person adjacent to the gate booked us for that flight and gave us a gate number. Well, 5 hours later we showed up at the listed gate (We had to take a shuttle to this gate since it was not physically connected to the other gates) only to find the gate number was changed. Well, I ask, where is the communication? Couldn’t Jet blue have made an announcement over the PA system explaining this change? Many people were extremely upset over this lack of communication. Well, we jumped back on the shuttle to the changed gate and boarded our flight to Vegas.
Our connecting flight to Vegas was delayed for an additional hour on the ground due to airplane traffic on the runway. Now, let me discuss the flight attendants on this flight. We sat in row number two and did not realize that we could not get up from our seat when the pilots were on bathroom break or socializing break with the flight attendants. My wife tried to get up to use the ladies room while the pilot was socializing at the front. The flight attendant rudely told us to sit down. There was no “please” in his command. And, there was no instructions beforehand that we could not leave our seat. We felt belittled. Next, we asked if there were any “healthy snacks” when the attendant was handing out the jet blue snacks. The reply was somewhat rude (maybe just trying to be funny). But, the reply was “No, we just have crap, crap, and crap. Well, we chose crap. Finally, we and others were appalled my the flight attendants response to a passengers trash. When cleaning up the plane at the close of the flight, a mother threw a diaper in the attendants trash bag. When the flight attendant realized it was a diaper, he exclaimed that it was "extremely disgusting" for her to do that. And, she should have changed the babies diaper in the changing room. He was not quiet about this, and stormed off to the bathroom to dispose of the diaper like it was nuclear waste. We all (not just my wife and I) felt emabarassed for the woman. She too was belittled. Oh, before I forget, a woman behind me had a choking episode. Upon trying to relieve her choking, huge clumps of mucoid saliva flew onto my head, arms, and another passenger's head. (No, I am not making this up) I thought this was disgusting and thought a passenger spit on us. But, she later apologized to us and explained that she was choking. Anyway, having this body fluid on me, I needed to clean it off immediately. However, it was pilot urinating and socializing break time and I could not get up from my seat. My wife politely asked the attendant for help, but he refused (Actually..he said he would get back to us but never did) and was preoccupied with socializing with the pilot. Well, 10 minutes later, the socializing and bathroom break was over and I could then get up out of my seat (without being yelled at) to go wash this material off of me.
Finally, we arrived in Vegas airport, but the horror was still not over.
When claiming our bags, we discovered that my bag was wet and my wife's bag was completely soaked, drenched and dirty including all her clothes within the bag.
Now, the process of bags must be reviewed here because something very very careless and wrong happened here. Our bags must have been left out in the rain in New York for those 6 hours that we were stuck there. Well, we immediately went to the Jet Blue customer service area next to the bag claim area in the Vegas airport and explained our horror to two woman employees. Alia Cole was one of the employees. They both were nice and professional. They documented and confirmed the soaking wet suitcase, made a note of it in the computer, but could not take a formal complaint. We were told to call the 1-800 number to complain. So, we did. And, the customer service woman told us that we could “vent” but that’s all we could accomplish over the phone. We were told that we must write a formal letter of complaint. So, here it is. Let me add that our return flight was uneventful. We arrived in Kennedy airport early and noted that there was an earlier flight to boston that wasn’t scheduled to leave for approximately one hour. I thought..wow..Jet Blue could make up for all the mishaps of our previous flight if they could put us on this earlier flight (We had a 3 hour layover in Kennedy). We immediately went to the customer service area and requested this earlier flight. However, the woman said there was no way our bags could make it on the plane in time. (I was disappointed since the plane was not scheduled to take off for another hour). I then told the woman about our misfortunes on our flight to vegas. She told me that is was commonplace for the flight attendants to tell passengers that they wont miss their connecting flights. Extremley common. And , she admitted that they send emails complaining about this deceptive practice routinely to Jet Blue.
Well, we did not deserve any of this. I ask, "Where is the company that we once raved about"?
Sincerely,
