What Happened to JetBlue?

I used to go out of my way to fly JetBlue. I love the live TV. And the goofy slang that all their copy is written in (“Hold on a sec, buddy – processing your order now!”) I love the fact that the planes don’t smell like old food. The staff is friendly. The fares are cheap. The website is clean and sublimely usable. What’s not to love?

But all of this seems to be changing for the worse.

I first started getting nervous when I read about the horror of the planes stuck out on the tarmac this past February, when winter storms caused the cancellation of over 1,000 JetBlue flights. I knew some of the people stuck out there for over 10 hours and it truly sounded like a nightmare. One guy told me if it wasn’t for the TVs in the back of every seat there would have been a riot on his flight.

Nobody was sorrier than founder and CEO David Neeleman who issued a heartfelt apology, instituted a Bill of Rights, called himself “humiliated and mortified”, and began paying restitution to the affected passengers. It was heartening to see him so hurt and upset by this; you got the sense that he deeply cared about the experience of his customers and would do whatever he could to right JetBlue’s wrongs.

But a mere one month later, fearing a similar situation as a winter storm approached, JetBlue pro-actively canceled over 200 flights in and out of NYC. Other airlines canceled some flights too, but not as many. And JetBlue wasn’t back in the air nearly as fast as their rivals. People were upset.

Then they lowered their operating margin forecast and 2007 profit outlook. Then they dropped from their #1 position in the annual Transportation Department airline performance report card.

And then it happened to me.

Today I flew from JFK to Fort Myers, Florida and JetBlue lost my luggage. That in and of itself is not a shocker. I’ve had luggage lost before.

What really got to me was JetBlue’s incompetence in dealing with the matter. They had no idea what could have happened to my bag. No way of tracking it down. No information for me other than “hopefully it will be on the next plane"

Plane after plane came in and it wasn’t on any of them. Then the baggage staff simply threw up their hands.

I was really surprised. When I asked how it was possible that my bag, which was checked in along with my wife’s on a direct flight, somehow managed to slip away while hers made it through, one of the JetBlue staffers said, “All we can really do here is hope for the best – but I’m an optimist!” He’d earlier said to me, “We have no way of tracking bags, which is either a good thing or a bad thing.” I explained to him that it was indeed a very bad thing.

This just wasn’t the type of “rah rah, customer’s always right, we’re in this together” service I’d come to expect from the JetBlue brand. It felt more like they’d just given up on all of that. After an hour or so on the phone with various people in various departments I managed to find someone who said he thought my bag may have been mis-loaded and was now in West Palm Beach. He said they’d endeavor to get it back to me sometime tomorrow. But getting this info (assuming it is correct – I still don’t have my luggage) was like pulling teeth.

It’s sad, really. I miss the old JetBlue. I hope they get their mojo back at some point before it’s too late. In the meantime I’m sticking with American.

Update: It was like clown college over at JetBlue for a while today.  My bag didn't show up this morning like they said it would.  Nor was it on the next flight.  Nor the next one.

I called the main baggage office in Utah (the folks who'd told me to expect it this morning) and the guy who answered the phone told me "we don't deal with day-to-day people like you."  Thanks for that.  I called over to the JetBlue baggage department at JFK and they had no records of the bag arriving there from West Palm nor leaving again for Fort Myers.  The worst part was when the woman I was talking to said, "we have so many lost bags here we don't have time to enter data on all of them."  That was frightening to hear.

Eventually the bag did show up here in Fort Myers about 24 hours after I did.  I had faith that it would make its way to me at some point but throughout this process I was continually surprised at how overwhelmed the JetBlue personnel were by what should have been a relatively simple affair.  At every turn I was told by someone "we have no information on that" only to make my own calls to some other departments and uncover more information myself.  I ended up talking to seven different people in four different offices in three different cities over the course of 24 hours in order to put the pieces together.  That was the core of my frustration here, and I think is at the heart of some of JetBlue's current growth pains.

Shoutout for most helpful employee goes to someone named Victor in the Salt Lake City baggage office.  If you ever find yourself in the same situation I was in I'd give a call over to that office at 866-538-5438 and ask for Victor.  He was a rockstar and was the only person to actually dig up info for me on my bag.  He seemed to feel my pain.

Thumbs-down for worst service goes to someone named Mike in the Fort Myers baggage office.  He was one of the least sympathetic, most unhelpful people I've dealt with at an airline.  Which is saying a lot.  When I called him to say I was looking for a lost bag he cut me off to say, "it's not lost, it just wasn't on your plane."  Um, thanks.  If you could tell me where it was I might have that opinion as well...  Very un-JetBlue if you ask me.

Finally, if you're hitting this post in a Google search for "lost luggage Jet Blue" or something along those lines, you may want the following phone numbers:

JetBlue Main Baggage Office: 866-538-5438
JetBlue Baggage Room @ JFK: 718-632-6355
JetBlue Baggage Expediter @ JFK: 718-632-4986

Here's to hoping JetBlue doesn't become the next People Express, as this MSNBC article fears it might: "'They can't keep running off a legal pad and No. 2 pencil,' says a longtime industry executive."  Indeed.

Comments

[Matt]

Sorry to hear about your troubles with this, but this is a really great post. It's the sort of thing people should print out and take with them if they're flying JetBlue...

[Greg]

thanks matt. i'll try to make sure some of the jetblue brass (or at least their pr people) read this as well!

[andrew]

I had a bag with film/photo gear stolen from the "inside" of the Jetblue JFK baggage claim area after I saw it on the belt and couldn't get to it before it went "back around." it never came out again. Jetblue took about six months to offer me about 1/3 the value of the stolen items, never claimed responsibility, and continue to claim that it was lost. A condition of accepting their money would prevent me from speaking about this, so unless they give me some confidence that they are pursuing the CAUSE of this theft I am not inclined to accept their petty offer and in fact will begin to make a bigger fuss on the internet and maybe in the terminal too.

[David Altieri]

Like you, Jet Blue lost my luggage. Unfortunately, they also lost my wife and daughters luggage during the same Newark to Orlando flight. Like you, the baggage claim people told me that the luggage was not lost and would be on the next flight. Unlike you, my baggage was not found the next day or the day after or the day after that. After days of phone calls with 8 different Jet Blue representatives, from Orlando, FT. Myers, NY, NJ and Salt Lake, my luggage was found 5 days later and brought to my hotel on the sixth day. Just in time to return home from our business/family vacation. I too was told that Jet Blue had no luggage tracking system. I too dealt with representatives who had no sympathy, no answers and no real suggestions other that to say they would enter the information into the system and would contact me when luggage was found. Of the 8 Jet Blue reps who promised to call me back, only one ever did. ( Thank you Donna ) As for calling out the worst of the Jet Blue employees, someone named Assanatou, who handled the original claim at the Orlando airport offered me these jems of service. Even after correcting her three different times, she incorrectly discribed the lost luggage in the origional baggage report. On my third attempt to get it right, she said "It doesn't matter, they will understand what I wrote". I guess the wrong color, size and general discription would some how be pieced together by whomever was looking for my families luggage. She also uttered " Sir, we are very busy because of the heavy travel and flight cancelations this week. We have many lost bags". Lastly she answered her phone two times during our conversation to handle other peoples lost luggage claims. No doubt, people just like me desperate to find their luggage. They also told me that they had no real tracking system but I would have my bags soon. No one could prove their last name or a direct phone number so over five days, my family logged over 4 hours of hold, transfers and dropped calls. I could go on about the lost luggage but would like to say that the recovery of luggage is only half of the process, the other half is compensation. Two weeks later, I have been told that there was no mention of the $75 per day, per person compensation that a supervision named Kim in Orlando authorized. And so the story continues. I was given great advice by a co-worker which I would like to pass on. It is wise to take a photo of your luggage so if lost, you could provide an actual picture which can be added to the baggage claim report.

Dave

[Deborah Sharp]

I flew with JetBlue on 6/23/07 from Richmond to Ft. Lauderdale with a layover @ JFK. At Ft. Lauderdale my sister-in-law's hook from her garment bag turned up missing. Funny thing, my hook turned up missing @ Richmond between Ft. Lauderdale to JFK to Richmond. It is like the hook was removed from both garment bags. I have seen these garment hooks being sold on e-bay. It makes you wonder about the integrity of the employees @ JetBlue. Plus they have damaged the strap on my luggage and is not taking responsibility for this mishap. States they have a 4 hour time period that it has to be reported. I had been trying to get in touch with the claims dept the same night I returned on 6/30 and never received a response. So how can a person make a claim on damaged report if no one ever picked up the phone. This is very bad publicity for JetBlue. I will never fly with JetBlue again and I will never refer any friends/relatives to fly JetBlue again.

[Judy]

Jet Blue has never lost my luggage, however, I do have three $100.00 gift certificates that they will not honor because they say they have expired even though there is no expiration date printed anywhere on the cerficiates. No matter who I talk to they say there is nothing they can do because they don't have it in their system. No one will give me a supervisors name they say a supervisor will say the same thing that they are saying. the thing that really bothered me is that they will not give me their corporate address in New York. If anyone out there can help, I'd apprecate it.

[Alvaro]

I am currently in the same EXACT situation as I write this comment. I have never been so dissapointed in regards to JetBlue's service before. I used to recommend JetBlue to everyone. Never again. I have taken it upon myself to search Google to find multiple phone numbers and this article in search for the lost bags myself. I flew into JFK from Seattle on Saturday July 14th from a wonderful Alaskan cruise. Not to mention, my wife and I were celebrating 35 years of wonderful marriage and her 61st birthday. Upon our return, we decided to take a couple of days and visit our children in NY before flying back to Ft. Lauderdale. So the story begins. In JFK, we picked up 2 of 4 of our bags. The 2 bags that never came were the larger bags with all of our clothes, photos, and gifts from our trip. It has been 3 days and I have spoken to numerous reps, called every number and even took it upon myself to try to contact Seattle and Ft. Lauderdale with no luck and only answering machines. The only answers I get is, we have noted it on the claim report, we'll call you back, it may or may not be in Seattle, and the latest is that there is a possiblilty of the bags being on a plane to Boston. No one can give us a clear answer as to where the bags actually are or even if they actually have my bags. No call backs and no tracking as to the wereabouts of our bags.....We even checked into Seattle 2 hours before our scheduled flight, so to insure we did not rush with the possibility of this happening. My daughter has also called the many numbers and searched on the internet, only to find articles and posts like this one. And everytime I read this, it worries me more and more that I will not recoup my luggage. I have JetBlue to thank for making the end of my 35th Anniversary trip an unhappy one.

[alprimo]

i flew from jfk to ft. myers also, and it has been two days and no one knows where my luggage is..and no one seems like they care where it is

[jay]

JFK --> SFO 8/26. Lost both bags. Calling those numbers results in "voice mailbox is full." JetBlue was a New York success story. It seems that in February the really smart operations people behind the scenes left the company. I guess at some point in every company's growth the brain trust eventually walks out the door.

[Alex]

All the lost luggage stories I've heard involve a trip through JFK.

I wonder if there is an unresovled issue between JetBlue and a local union or syndicate.

Or more paranoid... if some other airlines decided to buy trouble for JetBlue.

[Lydia]

I didn't lose any bags, although I did have my camera stolen out of my checked bag. I have another complaint, regarding a flight attendant who wouldn't let me (8 months pregnant) use the bathroom while the flight was still BOARDING. I am having the same problem as other people - the people that I talk to refuse to give me names for supervisors, or addresses for the corporate officers. They simply say they'll get back to me. It's been 3 weeks and no one has. If anyone has gotten the corporate address, I'd appreciate it.

[Craig]

Jetblue's employees or subcontractors ripped off my sunglasses and MP3 player on a flight from San Diego to Boston. The person I spoke to on the phone and the person who responded to my email could have cared less. Jetblue should have at least offered a free flight or two, but nothing was offered.

[Anna]

Jet Blue just lost my bag on a flight two days ago and just like you said in your post, everyone I talk to has no idea where it is. Thanks for the info though...I'm calling Victor! I'm glad you got your luggage back too...it gives me a little smidgen of hope.

[Robyn]

Well, JetBlue has lost me as a customer! I was flying from Orlando to Newark and upon my arrival my luggage was missing. It has been 3 days and no one knows a thing about the where abouts of my luggage. I was told it was on the next flight. A delivery was attempted but I was not home due to New Years Eve. I called Newark prior to the delivery to have them deliver the luggage (if it came in) tomorrow. Well, 3 days has gone by and I've called Newark, the delivery company (NBS), and Jetblue baggage and NO ONE has been able to locate my luggage. NBS gave me the # to the driver that "has the bag" but it was a fake #. Then NBS claimed that Newark has my luggage. Yet, I went to Newark today and there was no luggage! I don't know what to do!!! I have been promised over and over that it will be delivered but I have nothing. I just want someone at JetBlue to take responsibility! It seems as if everyone is blaming someone else for this mistake. I blame JetBlue for this mess! I will NEVER fly them again! I don't care how many vouchers I get for my trouble.... (I've not been offered one!)

[dean cameron]

Jan. 15, 2008. I flew from JFK to Burbank.

One bag made it, the other didn't. The employee at Burbank was extremely helpful and she immediately discovered that the missing bag had been "accidentaly" sent to Ft. Lauderdale.

It was delivered to my home the following day by a very nice young man.

Unfortunately, the computer bag with two Macbooks inside were gone.
Everything else inside the suitcase was there, except for the computer bag.

It's interesting; on the trip *to* New York, I discovered one of those very sweet "the tsa has searched your bag" notices inside the *computer bag* which was, again, inside another suitcase.

I had no problem getting through to speak with a very sympathetic Jet Blue rep, but was told that they don't cover electronics inside baggage. No mention of any "we'll look into it" or "contact this person" only "most people use their homeowner's insurance for things like this".

It certainly sounded like the voice of experience.

I sent an email and snail mail to Jet Blue and, while the one follow up email, received today, was kind and considerate, the tone was fatalistic; "nothing we can do... hope you fly with us again..."

I'm fairly certain that someone involved with baggage at JFK rips stuff off then sends it to Florida to provide some sort of cover something or other.

All of the posts on this blog have New York and Florida in common.

Also: These incidents simply provide more evidence that the TSA is completely and utterly worthless. If the TSA is watching baggage and an employee can remove an item from baggage, then it's just as easy for an employee to put something *in* baggage.

By the way, my homeowner's insurance is giving me the runaround. What a surprise.

[MIKE]

I ALSO FLEW JETBLUE AND 1 BAG DID NOT ARRIVE ON MY FLIGHT, BUT HEY IT HAPPENS ITS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD, GET OVER IT. IT CAME ON THE NEXT FLIGHT. ITS JUST CLOTHES, NUTTIN MAJOR!! SO IF ANYONE IS READING THIS GET A LIFE AND WORRY ABOUT MORE IMPORTANT THINGS LIKE THE WAR!!

[laura valentine]

my 17 year old daughter left from jfk 3/24/08 she arrived in SanDiago that night mising one of her bags of luggage containing all her clothes. She had an interview with a college today and could not attend wearing the sweats she did on the plane to be comfortable. Jet Blue has no idea where her luggage is what can I do

[pposil756]

My wife and I are/were loyal Jetblue travelers. Jetblue cancelled a flight on us and rescheduled us on a flight that did not meet out work/travel schedule. I called Jetblue to reschedule a flight that would work for us and they wanted to charge us a $50. penalty "change" fee per person. I explained to them that they were the ones that cancelled our flight and i will not pay a penalty fee. After supervisory involvement, they did not charge us the penalty????!!!!! We rescheduled and booked a new flight. the next day we received an e-mail that flights booked within our parameters were entitled to triple points with a new jetblue promotion.I called to be assured we were getting this promotion and rather rudely we were told we are not entitled to this because we rescheduled a flight. They do not consider this a new booking-even though they cancelled the flight causing me to make a new booking..THANK YOU JETBLUE for understanding that loyalty does not mean anything anymore.

[MC]

I am reading these comments and saying to myself "WOW!". I just flew jetblue yesterday for a business trip to find out they lost one of my luggages. !AGAIN! I brought both luggages at the same time and the one that jad all my clothes, work material was lost. It's been more than 24 hours and no one from LGA or Jetblue has picked up the phone while leaving several messages nor try to contact me. When I filed the report I had asked the guy if they had any way of tracking the bags like a scanning or some similar technology...He told me that they had the technology implemented, but they were not using it...huh!? Incompetent is the correct word for these fools. The worst part is...imagine coming back to your kid with nothing on hand after a week. I am not waiting for the 3rd strike...Last time I fly Jet Blue.

[MB]

Flew from Las Vegas to JFK May 2008 - one bag made it and the other is in the black hole of the JetBlue lost baggage system (which would be appropriate if they had an actual system). Similar to many other posts, the baggage staff at JFK are completely useless and seem to take pride in explaining they have no information and really have no idea how the process to find lost bags works. Like others I started calling Utah to get answers from people that actually finished high school and get the concept you may want to keep customers happy by offering information - even if that information is extremely limited. As for me, I'm still in the "we have nothing on our computer screen" stage and will continue to keep calling back. Needless to say - this experience makes it that much harder to try JetBlue again after taking a year off after previous customer service issues at JFK. Question of the day ... does anyone at JetBlue actually Google "lost baggage JetBlue" and read blogs like this?

[Michael Angel]

Here we go again. Tuesday may 27 2008. I was scheduled to leave JKF at 550pm to go to the west coast San Jose. to my surprise we were taxing going around the airport for more than 2:30 hours until we depart due to some rerouting problems our flight had. half way through the "jet blue experience" our pilot mentions that we had to stop in Utah to refuel b/c we had lost too much fuel taxing at JFK. We finally arrive at sjc Im tired as can be and wait more time looking for my bag. it did not show up.! they have no idea where it is. they say it could have gone to Oakland or, something never heard of before, it will come in the next flight! I hope it will make it here somehow, only faith can help b/c jetblue is incapable of tracking it!

[Jack]

I'm an executive at a global Asian conglomerate who have traveled over 20 years. We have over 250K employees and will make sure to post on our intranet email, never to fly JetBlue agan.

After waiting almost 10 hours at the gate, they cancel my flight from Orlando to Newark when next door, Southwest is flying with only slight delays. On the adjacent JetBlue gate, Orlando to San Juan flight got cancelled after 11 hours of delays and they had to call in the cops for crowd control. Amazing thing is that not one employee came out to the waiting customers apologizing or willing to give any information. Everyone was avoiding eye contact and giving a gesture, "it's not my fault look". I would like to say to the new President of Jetblue who succeeded the founder, your comapany will not be around much if you don't care about customer service!

[Sita]

My daughter was flying from Ft Lauderdale to Rochester to go to her college alone. First, there was a huge delay in her stopover flight at JFK, and when she inquired as to how long it would be and what the cause was, she was treated horribly by the people at the Jet Blue desk. They were incredibly rude and refused to talk to her, a young girl flying alone. Then to make matters even worse, when she finally arrived at her destination (almost 4 hours later than expected), she found that her luggage was missing a wheel. We bought this luggage TWO WEEKS ago and spent a lot of money on it, hoping that a Samsonite would last her a while. When we called to ask for some sort of compensation we were treated very rudely by the Jet Blue people in Utah. They wouldn't even tell us their names when we asked. They said that it was probably a manufacturer's defect and it was normal wear and tear... Let's see. It was a Samsonite suitcase bought two weeks ago?!?!? To add to that, when we started to explain all of the problems with the flight being delayed and my daughter travelling alone, the "MANAGER" simply said that he didn't care. So, Jet Blue, I hope you enjoy losing yet another customer!

[Kathy]

Our daughter flew Jet Blue on July 7, 2008 from Portland, Maine to JFK. Unfortunately her two checked bags were not at the baggage claim. The lost baggage people were difficult, dismissive and rude. She called back for 5 days but was told the bags were not there. Then she was referred to a claims agent at Central Baggage. It has been over 7 weeks and still no sign of bags. She has a photo of the bags but it is not part of any system to send it around to the other terminals or airlines. It seems unlikely that both bags were stolen but there isn't a systematic way for the employees to track the bags. It is in the hands of whoever ends up with them to make the effort to get them back to her. There have been some good people she has deal with and others have been pretty rude, but even the nice ones admit that there is nothing that they can do. I hope that Jet Blue will consider a more effective way to track bags.

[mark]

How in this TSA laiden age can a barcode be slapped on a bag and it not be tracked? What kind of fundamental lapse in security and trackking is this? I can track a fedex or UPS package every step of the way, and they don't have TSA or a precident of safety concerns. Just goes to show you that common sense isn't that common afterall.