Bee Travel
Progress (we'll see)
CHRISTINE HICKS- USTA Travel
Iwas watching the national news a week or so ago, and Brian Williams noticed that a lot of apologizing was going on. He cited several high-profile "I'm sorry's," with a wry suggestion that perhaps it's fashionable to apologize publicly. I mention this as a follow-up to my musings last week on the chronic airport delays that incited travelers sitting on packed planes for periods of time wildly too long if it doesn't involve actually flying.

In my e-mail inbox yesterday was an apology from David Neeleman. Now, I don't know Dave, and I have never (yet) flown his airline. But it was awfully nice of him to send me an apology, nonetheless.

The substance of this note (in case you didn't get one from him, too) was to say how poorly they performed during a time of weather-related stress on the JetBlue system. There is little to suggest anything other than his own frustration at the monumental mess his airline made of an already bad situation. He promises a new plan. The upshot is the JetBlue Customer Bill of Rights.

Now, I won't waste space putting the document here. Here are the salient features.

JetBlue promises to share information of delays to on-time departure, cancellations and their cause, and diversions and their cause. Not a lot new here, but it's nice to have it in writing.

JetBlue promises to repay you (in future travel vouchers) for delays due to a "controllable irregularity." The payoff escalates (in vouchers for $25 up to a free ticket) depending on how long the delay is. For example, a four-to six-hour delay gets you a voucher in the amount of your (current, delayed) one-way trip, valid for future travel, of course.

JetBlue is paying $1,000 to passengers who are involuntarily denied boarding (due to overbooking).

The biggest beef recently, though, was all about (what they call) "ground delays." They separate these into categories: arrivals, departures. Depending on whether you're starting or finishing your itinerary, they will pay (by JetBlue voucher for future travel) from $25 up to a free roundtrip ticket, depending on the length of your delay.

The "hurrah" is in that part of the bill that says: "For customers who experience a Ground Delay for more than 5 hours, JetBlue will take necessary action so that customers may deplane. JetBlue will also provide customers experiencing a Ground Delay with food and drink, access to restrooms and, as necessary, medical treatment."

Perhaps an end is in sight. It may be a premature "hurrah" (we'll see), because deplaning requires that the plane has a place to park where passengers can safely disembark. This requires coordination with airport operations, an entity entirely separate from any airline.

With winter winding down and weather unlikely to cause the perfect storm of delays experienced over the Valentine's Day period in '07, we may have to wait until winter '08 to see these changes in action. This is a work in progress. But it's nice to see progress - even if it only happens after the trendy public apology.

(Christine Hicks-Usta has enjoyed more than 30 years of globe-trotting as a member of the travel industry in various capacities. Direct questions to her at Bee Group Newspapers, P.O. Box 150, Buffalo, NY 14231-0150.)