English 420Y - Business Writing Online

I thought all of the readings for this week were very interesting and brought up good points for consideration. I believe the JetBlue crisis was handled very well and it was good to see the different things that the company did to make sure that this kind of event would not happen again. It was nice to see that someone was actually doing the right thing in handling an event such as the one that they had. It seems that we are hearing more and more everyday about companies trying to cover themselves and not being ethical to their consumers.

This is my final paper for the employment project. Enjoy!

Attached you will find my resume and cover letter along with a job ad and analysis for a position I would apply for with HDR Design-Build.

From my readings and previous knowledge of the JetBlue crisis in February, I think JetBlue could have handled the crisis in a more effective way. In the article, Managing Communications in a Crisis – Chapter 3: “Stakeholders and Audiences”, one of the main points was planning ahead and being prepared for the worst. The article gave examples of the results of companies that planned ahead and those that didn’t plan ahead. With an airline company, like JetBlue, I would think there would be many types of plans for all worst case scenarios, especially dealing with airplanes and weather.

After reading a few articles about the JetBlue crisis, I think the company was downright wrong it their decision making. Not thinking things through long enough did more harm than good in the long run. I read how travelers were stranded in planes for hours on the tarmac because the company did not want to pay the gate fees they would have paid had the planes been waiting at the gates. That sounds like a selfish company not putting their customers first.

JetBlue Airways Ranked Highest in J.D. Power and Associates North America Airline Customer Satisfaction Study.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=12221

The article is written from the point of few of passnegers during the JetBlue "meltdown". It brings up some interesting points that I had not thought of before, but is also a large amount of personal opinion. I think this will be very helpful to the project because understanding how the customers feel and what their attitudes are goes a long way in determining how one would write a response to them.

This article found on NBC talks about the CEO's reaction to what happened as well as how confused the staff was. It also talks about approximately how many flights were cancelled and a passengers experience about what to do. While it was complete chaos for those few days, you are also able to see that the staff was trying to do everything in their power to help the passengers even though they did seem a little confused. You are also able to see that there was a conscience effort by the company to bring the crisis under control.

The article I chose is from the Star Ledger titled "Jet Blue Communication Crisis". The author, Steve Adubato, states that "Jet Blue has a reputation of excellent customer service. They’ve gone out of their way to treat customers with courtesy and consideration." He says communication has been Jet Blue's key success in the past. Unfortunately, the tables turned when the massive snowstorm hit JFK airport. According to the article, it claims that the passengers stranded on the plane were running out of food and updates from the cockpit were rare and inconsistent.

This article titled "Jet Blues -- How NOT to Do Crisis Communications" is very interesting and I believe it will really help when writing our press release and business letter. The article is about how Jet Blue could have dealt with this situation and communicating with customers and employees better. An aspect of this article that I think will really help when doing research for this project is when the author talks about what Jet Blue should have done in this situation. She has a lot of good tips or pointers. I am going to use these when I write my press release and business letter.