Reading Response Week 3
The JetBlue crisis was chaos that could have been avoided given proper preparation. JetBlue gave a valiant effort to try to keep the composure of the customers, but if they were more careful from the beginning, the fiasco could have been avoided. During February of this year, the airline experienced turbulent weather that resulted in the cancellation of numerous flights. Instead of taking the best precautionary methods to avoid the problem, JetBlue decided to keep the flight schedules on as planned. They chose an unethical method worrying about making a profit rather than taking care of their employees. I’m sure they figured if they allowed the flights to take place while other airlines were postponing and cancelling their flights, they would gain a much bigger following and receive more business from individuals who preferred flying with other airlines. JetBlue was always very popular for their low prices and good customer service, but when the strong weather hit and they had a weak plan to attack the situation, the whole condition got out of hand and some people spent almost a full day in the airport just waiting for their flight to takeoff. If JetBlue would have taken the proper precautions to handling the weather, they would have been able to avoid the whole situation, and would not have to form a Bill of Rights that would grant passengers an allotted amount of money given the amount time spent waiting for their flight to leave.
After reading the article that I researched from the New York Times website, I know that when the chaos took place, JetBlue was unprepared with amount of skilled employees they needed. It even noted that employees needed to train other employees to perform different areas of work so everything could go as planned. The company tried to get in contact with flight attendants and pilots looking for more help with the situation but because of the storm, they were unsuccessful. The company had to deal with the complaints of the customers as well as the situation at hand. JetBlue decided to take a gamble thinking the weather would disperse, but unfortunately they subsided to failure. The method was unethical because, according to the ethics reading and Luntz reading, JetBlue should have come up with a backup plan before taking into action to make sure something like this could have been avoided. The C.E.O David G. Neeleman had to suffer the consequences for his actions, and the crisis ended up costing him millions of dollars. When I start to write my press release I will focus on how a problem of this magnitude can be avoided in the future so JetBlue will keep earning a revenue as well as keep good business.
Comments
RE: Reading Response Week 3
After reading your post, I have shifted my views a little bit about the situation. I still stand by my ground that they could have made announcements or had one person dealing with the crowds instead of leaving them all in the dark. I think it is almost disgusting that they would choose profit over safety on a day when flights from other airlines were being cancelled. Because they were short-handed, however, I have a little bit more sympathy toward them. They took the monetary loss that they needed to in order to save face in the public eye, and that is pretty admirable, considerig they are not a high-profit airline. Your thourogh and clear explanation of the situation opened my eyes a bit, and I wanted to let you know that you have nailed the "clear writing" ideas expressed in The 10 Successful writing habits we read in the artible this week.
RE: Reading Response Week 3
Your perspective is valid, but we do want to make sure that we don't dismiss the company's actions as simple greed. The actions of institutions result from very complicated motivations, because there are many human and non-human elements in the decision process. Indeed, even if there is one person calling the shots, the way things play out is the result of filtering through multiple layers. As such, it can be reductive to dismiss JetBlue's action (and inaction) as solely profit-driven. I would presume that many people in that organization weren't thinking primarily of profit, particularly the ground-level employees who probably had to deal with the greatest portion of ill-will from individuals. What's interesting about cases like these is that they resist being traced to a single cause. We want to be able to point to one thing and say that it's the problem (hence the removal of Neeleman), but in scenarios like this there seems to be many places where the whole system just collapsed. It was a systemic failure, and JetBlue has taken steps such as the passenger bill of rights and a change in leadership to correct what must have seemed to be a flawed organization.