JetBlue Blog

The theme for this week is snore! Aside from just a couple of items, it was an extremely quiet week for the airline industry, not that we’re complaining! It was so quiet, in fact, that media outlets jumped perhaps higher than usual on an incident that occurred weeks ago whereby an air traffic controller at JFK made a bad judgment call and allowed his children to talk to pilots via the intercom. The FAA has taken this seriously and are further investigating the issue and their employees that were involved.

Chile experienced an 8.8 earthquake, with devastating damage incurred, including to the airport in Santiago.  Thankfully, the quake’s epicenter was over the sea and not on land and the country has a stronger infrastructure than Haiti, so Chile didn’t experience nearly as catastrophic an event as did Haiti several weeks prior. And speaking of breaking ground, JFK’s Bay Runway closure is near the top of this week’s worthy news items. This week Monday began a four-month-long project to repave and revamp JFK’s busiest runway. The biggest airlines at JFK (that’s us!) have agreed to reduce flight schedules to help minimize the impact the closure will likely have on Customers and June should bring a brand-spanking new runway that reduce delays by 10,000 hours, according to the Port Authority.

To be very blunt, the remaining news for the week threatens to cause ennui. Continental Airlines will be charging for extra legroom on their flights (been there, done that), some Canadians are crossing the border for cheaper flights in the U.S. (not nearly as exciting news as their clampdown on peanuts), Vancouver saw its busiest day as folks fled the scene following the closing ceremonies of the Olympics (it’s fair to say that a busy day in Vancouver is a cakewalk for JFK…but no bitterness! We are huge Vancouver fans here, even though we don’t yet fly there!), and former security chief at Chicago’s O’Hare is suing because he doesn’t think safety and training standards are up to snuff.

And to stick with the theme of snoring, good ole Sully is ready to hang his badge and embrace afternoon catnaps on the La-Z-Boy. After 30 years of flying, Captain Sully is retiring.

As always, be safe and have a great weekend!