AOL Money & Finance

SnowStorm posts

Feed

JetBlue can't catch a break

JetBlue Airways Corp. (NASDAQ:JBLU) canceled 68 flights scheduled to come in and out of its hub at John F. Kennedy International Airport today because forecasts were calling for the region to get hit with as much as 7 inches of snow.

The storm may not be as bad as originally thought. Forecasts this morning on Weather.com are calling for 1 to 3 inches of snow tonight. Did JetBlue overreact? Maybe. But the low-cost airline has good reason to be cautious.

JetBlue's performance is under an electron microscope following the disastrous performance on Valentine's Day in which people were trapped on board planes for hours that never took off. Chief Executive David Neeleman has apologized more than Bill Clinton, Michael Richards and Mel Gibson combined and has offered what he calls a Passenger Bill of Rights that gives vouchers if their flights are delayed.

All hope isn't lost for JetBlue. Judging from the huge response to my previous post, the airline has plenty of fans. The public is fickle though.

People aren't stupid. They understand that airlines don't always run on time and that luggage gets lost. JetBlue will lose the goodwill it enjoys if the public starts to think that it doesn't know what it's doing.

JetBlue's critics should take a chill pill

JetBlue Airways Corp. (Nasdaq:JBLU) is getting beaten up in the press because passengers were left stranded for hours on planes that never took off from their runways because of the snow storm that's pounded the Mid-Atlantic region.

About 10 flights were "significantly delayed" with passengers aboard them at the airline's home base at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the company said. More than 250 out of 505 flights were canceled. The media is reporting horror stories of honeymoons delayed, sweltering cabins and unpleasant bathrooms.

Responding to the outrage, JetBlue called the delays "unacceptable" and offered a full refund and a free roundtrip ticket to customers delayed onboard any aircraft for more than three hours. That seems to be more than fair compensation to passengers who shouldn't have expected that flying would be that fun during bad weather.

I'm sure JetBlue, a Wall Street darling, is sincerely sorry for upsetting people and should find ways to prevent this from happening.Today's bad publicity would have been much worse if the company hadn't acted quickly and decisively to respond to the criticism. Other companies should take note.

Lucky for JetBlue shareholders, there was some good news today as well. Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock from neutral to buy. The shares rose almost 4 percent., indicating that Wall Street is expecting the storm of bad publicity to blow over fast.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+73.0010,270.47
NASDAQ+18.862,167.88
S&P 500+6.241,093.48

Last updated: November 14, 2009: 08:00 AM

BloggingStocks Exclusives

Hot Stocks

DailyFinance Headlines

Latest from BloggingBuyouts

WalletPop Headlines

AOL Business News

BioHealth Investor Headlines

Sponsored Links

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance