Reading Response
Do I think JetBlue handled the situation effectively? I believe they did what they could with the situation handed to them. It would be easy to say just pull up to a gate and unload the passengers and have them in the terminal instead of the plane. It could be easy to say that they should have cancelled flights and called passengers before the storm ever hit. Realistically, they wanted to maintain operation while trying to satisfy their customers. They never had a situation like this before so a plan of action for something like this could be hard to write. They did what they could with what they were given. They rode out the storm and dealt with the consequences of their actions later. It may have made people unhappy but JetBlue did the right thing.
As for if they handled the situation ethically, I feel as though they did. Ethics was defined as the study of moral rightness or wrongness which is limited by human reason. JetBlue did what it had to do, no matter if the people on board liked it or not. They made a business decision and dealt with the consequences later. They tried to help people by waiting for the weather to break but it just didn’t come. JetBlue has a responsibility to provide a service, but under conditions that are in their control. They may be the "experts" of air travel but certain things are out of their control. They took the financial burden as they were the ones with deep pockets as they should. It seems as though they followed the 3 standards of business ethics.
This whole event will affect my writing next week depending on who I am writing for. For the press release to the general public, repetition and conciseness will be key for explaining what happened and how they have gone about placing a plan of action in order that it never occurs again again. For the letter to the passengers, it will be about how they apologize for the events and how they will try to earn the passengers business again. Never will there be blame put elsewhere or excuses made.
Comments
Reply
I also believe that JetBlue handled the situation effectively and ethically. On the day of the events many of their customers may have not felt that they handled the situation very well and I can see where they are coming from. I think the most important thing to look at is how they handled the situation after it occurred. They acknowledged what they had done wrong and apologized to everyone involved. Their CEO became very involved and did not try to hide from all that went wrong. The most important thing that I think that he did was advise a plan to make sure that this never happened again and how to compensate those that did have problems with their airline. You can many times admit to the blame and apologize, but I believe more people will have faith in what you say if you take action and show them that you are serious about doing what is right for your customers.
Reply
I agree with you that JetBlue handled the situation effectively. They definitely could have done things differently such as allowing the passengers off the planes and back into the terminals to wait. The weather complicated all their decisions a lot. I agree that they did what they could. You can’t control the weather so you have to go with the flow. They acted in the moment and dealt with their decision afterwards. I agree that they were ethical since they admitted their faults and were ready to rectify the problems. It would have been difficult to have an emergency plan in place before this situation since you can never know what exactly will happen. I know I probably would have made some of the same decisions as JetBlue given the difficult situation.
RR 3 reply
Although I think it would be easy for them to drop off their passengers at the gate rather than having them sit in on the plane. Their may have been safety issues or something we are unaware of that prevented them from doing this. However, I think an 8 hour wait on a plane is completely unacceptable. I myself would go crazy. Just because this had not happened to JetBlue doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have been aware of this potential problem. Events like this have happened before. Jet blue eventually did ethical things, and if this all would have happened very timely I think that would make things different in my mind.
"I think an 8 hour wait on a plane is completely unacceptable"
I could not agree more with your comment. The only reason I have heard that the customers were not taken to gates is that they were all full due to the overflux of planes. The reason they did not get off the plane is for safety issues. To me, that whole situation sounds like an excuse. Someone should have been busting their butt to get those people off those planes no matter what it took! I was watching the petition to congress on televisions awhile back. The customer (a women) was explaining the conditions that her and 100 other people went through on that plane. I am not sure if it was Jet Blue Airlines or not. However, she was saying they ran out of water and there were many elderly people on the plane. Also, young children that needed food and water. The restrooms overflowed. She pretty much described horrible situations that those passengers had to withstand for nearly 11 hours. I was shocked to hear her story. I think it is easy for us (as nonparticipants) to say that Jet Blue handled the crisis effectively and ethically because we did not suffer through it!
I completely agree that Jet
I completely agree that Jet Blue handled the situation to the best of their ability. They did not try and make excuses; they just accepted that they made a mistake. An airlines first responsibility is passenger safety and Jet blue made sure that their passengers were safe!
Also I appreciated the fact that they took financial responsibility and compensated all of their customers. I think it is the ethical stand that they took that pulled the company out of this crisis
"compensated all their customers'
I do not think not compensating their customers was even an option. Not only were they facing law suits, but they faced loosing hundreds, if not more customers from their business. While I agree that it was honorable and the right thing to do to compensate those passengers for their time. I think it was the only thing to do. There is no question about it. Jet Blue pretty much had to do that.