Jet Blue You Suck

I rarely travel for business therefore I usually don't have a tight schedule when I arrive somewhere. Yesterday was one exception. Since I am moving to Napa temporarily I needed to check out various rental properties. I had a very organized and detailed schedule of appts to see various homes away from home. Jet Blue screwed the whole thing up.

The flight was scheduled to depart at 9:06am from lovely Long Beach Airport and my first hint that things would go bad was when I noticed on the boarding pass that boarding time was 9:10am. I estimated that the flight was about 30 minutes to an hour late and I patted myself on the back for having put an hour buffer into my schedule for just such an occasion. We sat in the terminal and it was confirmed our flight was delayed and the new departure time was 10:36. A little more of a delay than I hoped but still acceptable.

At 8:45 they told us that the flight was coming from San Francisco and that it required a part and that the new scheduled departure time was 12:46. What is the deal with 6's? Why wasn't the time 12:45 or even 1pm? They never leave exactly when they are scheduled. Perhaps one of the Jet Blue staff likes 6's. Maybe that person has three of them tattooed on his scalp? Maybe he's the anti-christ? But that's not a nice thing to say (inside joke).

My schedule was now blown out of the water. I was stressed. I was pissed. I tried to find alternates but the Jet Blue people said there was none. I thought of taking the car I parked and driving to Napa but I was already committed to this flight and the agent didn't know what the refund policy from Jet Blue was for delays. Shouldn't she know this? Jet Blue You Suck.

About an hour later they told us that a different plane from Oakland was coming to pick us up after it stopped in SF to pick up passengers that were stranded by the mechanical issue. An hour after that they said the flight was on the way and that the reason for the delay was because the flight crew that was supposed to come and pick us up in the first place had been flying too long without a rest and Jet Blue needed to get a new crew. I think airlines should stop lying to their customers and tell us the problem and how they are going to fix it upfront.

So I waited and waited and finally at 12:20pm the plane arrived, at last I would get to San Francisco International Airport. The plane left Long Beach at about 1:05pm and arrived in SFO by 2pm. After landing we taxied to a spot where the plane stopped because there was another plane in the way. A Cathy Pacific 747 that they were having trouble communicating with. Perhaps they were using the wrong hailing frequency Uhura?

So we sat and sat and more than 30 minutes later they found a different gate for us to park, such ineptitude. Did they not know in SFO that our flight was 4 hours late? Did they not know that there were passengers on this flight who needed to meet a cruise ship? What about the woman that had a job interview at 3:30? What about me? What about Raven?

After we left the plane we walked a rather long distance to baggage claim and then had to take a train to car rental (which was the last stop of course). If we had rented from Alamo I would probably be still waiting for the car as I type this but since we rented from National it was not too long before we had a car and hit the road.

Originally I planned to be in Napa at 12:30. We arrived at the first rental at 5:30. The agent was not too happy since she had to wait all day for us but it wasn't our fault Jet Blue sucks. Once we explained she was a little more understanding. I kept in touch with everyone as the schedule changed but I was pretty powerless to affect it. We didn't make it to the last place until after 7pm and I apologized to the owner on the phone. She didn't hide her anger at me for being so delayed. I completely understand her frustration, I was frustrated too as I had a number of properties on my list that I didn't make it to at all. Jet Blue You Suck.

Had I been at a restaurant and received such bad service I would have gotten my meal for free. But Jet Blue offered us nothing. Nothing for the inconvenience of missing appointments, nothing for the stress, nothing for the added expense that we incurred to the late arrival in Napa. Our original plan was to rent the car for the afternoon take it back to the airport after looking at the rental property and then take BART from the airport to our hotel. By the time we got to the airport last night it as near 11pm and it seemed not a desirable choice to take the subway at such an hour so we took a $60 cab ride. We lost most of our day waiting for Jet Blue and due to Jet Blue's incompetence.

Jet Blue You Suck