Q&A
Are there solutions other than a passenger bill of rights?
American [Airlines] made some great fixes after their problem this December [people were on the tarmac in Austin for eight hours]. They now have someone supervising all the regional dispatchers making calls about which planes should stay or go to make sure everybody's operating under the same assumptions. They also put in a four-hour guideline for the pilots, meaning if you've been waiting on the tarmac for four hours, that's basically your hint to come back to the gate, unless you're getting such positive indications from dispatch that you think it's worth waiting another 45 minutes to see if the weather clears. JetBlue put in a five-hour guideline.
Will passengers trust JetBlue again?
If they continue to make changes, I think [JetBlue will] be fine. Here's my point of reference: When you have a plane crash, usually the airline is impacted for about three or four weeks [of ticket sales] before things get back to normal. ... Now being stuck on an airplane for eight or 10 hours is bad, but an airplane crash is worse yet.
Is this a wake-up call for the airlines?
Let's put it this way. I think if something like this happened again in two weeks, it would be lights out, game over, and there would be no stopping legislation. So from that point of view, it's got to be a wake-up call. And you know what? It absolutely should be. Everyone in the airline industry lost focus [on customer service] the last four or five years.
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