Reading Response Week 3
After reading the articles assigned for this week, I can say that Jet Blue handled the situation effectively and ethically.
First of all, controlling the weather is in no one’s hand. We never know when the storm is going to hit. The compensation that they offered in the Customers Bill of rights I feel was apt. In this kind of situation, we would expect any company to apologize and compensate and that’s what they did. I believe they tried their best to avoid the confusion at their airport. We need to understand that they had to cancel 71 flights. Now that is a huge amount. No company would purposely delay their flights in situations where they could fly. I feel that they tried their level best to avoid all the confusion and to get back everything on routine. The fact that they had federal restrictions on pilot working hours, they couldn’t do anything. Now in this case, it isn’t their fault. They are willing to help and remove their costumers from the situation, but if the law doesn’t permit them, they are not going to go against the laws. I feel this was the time when the company acted as one, by effectively not going against the laws as well as starting to fly back normally.
Secondly it is a very big thing that the CEO David Neeleman himself came out on the video. I don’t think any CEO has done that before. His presence made the apology more effective. I feel his act was totally ethical. There was nothing unethical in releasing a video and publicly apologizing. The customers would be more impressed considering it’s the CEO himself who has taken the effort to apologize. In the Video, he talks as a local person and takes the responsibility of everything that has happened. Taking responsibility is not the big deal; coming out on a video publicly is the big persuading aspect. I feel the company tackled the situation well in terms of apology. Though they couldn’t get their flights on time from their planed date, they apologized profusely for it. Releasing a video of the CEO’s apology, a Customer Bill of Rights as well as an apology letter I feel is more than enough.
Luntz Reading could be related to the video. Since the CEO used a specific polite apologetic language to address his audience.
With the help of this Jet Blue crisis, Luntz reading and the ethics reading, I feel I am more than excited to do the next project. I am looking forward to using what I have learnt from these articles there.
Comments
Communication is key!
I agree with you in that the weather is not under control of the company but I do believe that the crisis at hand was. I think that the company did a good job in compensating the customers that were involved, and yes, they had no idea the storm would lead to cancellation of several flights. I think that the staff should have done a better job at communicating with the customers at the airport. By simply posting a sign or having staff on the floor to talk to customers may have informed the customers of the situation and in the end resulted in less irritable and angry customers.
Reply
I completely agree that the situation was mostly out of JetBlue's hands. The company has no control over the weather and no control over federal restrictions. I think JetBlue handled the situation to the best of their ability. No airline company would ever choose to cancel that many flights, nor would they want to cause that much upset among the customers. Every flight that was cancelled was done so because it was necessary and unsafe. I can't imagine what it must have been like to try and handle 71 flights worth of people and deal with finding new flights for all of them. There will always be someone who thinks a situation should have been handled differently, but in this case, I think they handled it very well.
Comment
I agree that Jet Blue handled the crisis to the best of their ability. However, I don't agree that they didn't know the storm was going to hit. Being a airline I would assume that they have some sophisticated equipment that alerts them to upcoming weather problems. Considering the severity of the storm, I think they probably had some sense on when it would arrive. You do make a good point about the amount of flights they had to cancel. In addition there were lots of other airlines that canceled and delayed flights during the storm.
I also thought the CEO made a good choice in apologizing on video. I was more impressed with that then I would have been with a written apology.