English 420Y - Business Writing Online

One thing I feel the need to point out is that JetBlue's problems were NOT the storms that occured in february. STorms happen all the time and airlines cancel flights with such frequency that im beginning to think that that only certain things in life are road construction in Chicago, flight cancelations, taxes and death. WHat essentially kills JetBlue is that they had to keep canceling flights due to what their CEO calls a "communications crisis". In other words, they couldnt communicate with pilots and stewardesses (i am NOT calling them flight attendants) to update them on new plans.

Chapter 38, Effective Word Use, was useful to identify why we use the words we use. Regionalism is when people use different words for the same thing. Chapter 38 stated, "when in doubt about a word or usage, consult your dictionary." I especially liked the examples for metaphor, mixed metaphor, and cliche'. "The demon of torture returned to the police station."

I believe that the Jet Blue crisis was effectively handled by the management given the circumstances. We need to consider that prior to this unfortunate incident, Jet Blue was an example for other airlines for their customer service standards. It was the first time that anything like this happened. I would like to give them some props due to couple of reasons. The situation was caused due to extreme weather conditions and later on due to government regulations on crew and aircraft flying times.

The crisis that afflicted Jet Blue was obviously mishandled at first, or it would not have been blown into the problem that it was. I agree completely with the articles that point out that Jet Blue was still a relatively young company and did not have the gift of wisdom in many of the decisions it made during the weather conditions that hit the country. This of course is not really an excuse for what happened to the Jet Blue customers, but I thought it helped established why some of the decisions that were made had been made.

After reading a few of the JetBlue crisis articles I have decided that Jet blue handled the situation of the crisis very well. I think that the CEO of the company Mr Neeleman did a very brave and wise think by addressing the people of the United States after the crisis happened. He could have always just stayed out of the public’s eye and let the whole thing just settle down itself. But on the other hand he knew that if he did that it would have brought the company really down even further down than it was already right after the crisis.

According to the article I researched and read earlier this week, I think that JetBlue did handle the situation effectively. JetBlue compensated their customers starting at $25 to a full refund, which in my opinion was really good for the company since not many airlines offer refunds especially if the quantity of customers was really large. The company spent millions of dollars in this, which definitely improved their image.

The situation JetBlue faced in February could have been the end of their company. Costumer disappointment on their service and a scandal of that nature are very harmful to a company and can be solved only with good communication in order to convince the media and their costumers that the company cares about them.

I believe the JetBlue Crisis was handled in the correct manner, but not effectively. With not having experienced a disaster before, JetBlue did not respond quickly nor did they communicate well with their passengers. In an ethical manner, I believe that JetBlue stood by their moral conviction to make reparations to their paying customers. The monetary reimbursement for this unfortunate incident as well as new customer bill of rights was initiated will not be placed into action.

After finishing the assigned readings for this week, I have concluded that JetBlue handled the crisis very well. While the situation was pretty much out of their control, they dealt with the customers as well as they could. When facing the public, the CEO, David Neeleman, was very apologetic and sincere. The fact that he even faced the public is a sign of his sincerity. It would have been very easy for him to have just stayed out of the public eye and to have avoided the situation all together.

I think Jet Blue handled the aftermath of the crisis effectively and ethically. David Neeleman's apology on youtube was necessary, but definitely sincere. It was also very good strategy, and one Luntz points out in the reading. The way Mr. Neeleman apologized was obviously visual (Rule Eight) which had a stronger impact on the consumer. If he had just offered only a written apology, fewer people would respond to it simply because that is less personal.