Incompetence is a better explanation than conspiracy in most human activity. | | | | JETBLUE. Once great. Incompetent now. Doesn't five 12 f***s.
(Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Incompetence is a better explanation than conspiracy in most human activity.”
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| | rantnrave:// No takes on media today. I am announcing a new column called BRANDS THAT F*** US. The first subject in the next week will be the once mighty JETBLUE. I am still not lucid from an 11-hour delay for my 7 am flight from LAX to JFK. I landed at 1:30 am. I got off the plane at 2:30 am. There was some tough weather in NYC. Many planes were delayed. None of us want to fly unsafely. That was part of the delay. Maybe half the time at most. But JetBlue took that and turned it into a disaster. 12 delays. And they knew from the first delay, even though they announced 12 of them over 11 hours, that we were not taking off for a long time. I heard them talking to each other. But they didn't tell the truth. Gate agents snapping at us. Walking away. Disappearing for hours at a time. Refused to book us on other airlines. Didn't move us onto planes that were leaving. Mine was the first flight. But was not the first flight to take off. Then they boarded us about 7 hours in. Then they deplaned us. Why? Weather? Nope. Ooops. No crew. They knew the crew before were over their hours. But planned nothing. Oh and oops, no food. No end in sight. The incompetence was fascinating. The chaos at the gate worse. The answers non-existent. The ones creating the problem vacant or gone. New ones coming in without the history. The new boarding. No flight plan. Food had gone bad and then needed to refuel. Oh, and they let the plane sit there for another 30 after all that to wait for 4 more passengers probably having nothing to do with the 7 am flight. You tell me what's wrong. You tell me there is bad weather. OK. I want to be safe. You lie to us. You f*** with our day. You give us no options. You slight us. We'll hate you. We take off. The in-flight crew was gracious. We land and sit on the tarmac for another 40 minutes because oh, there are JetBlue planes in our spot, with no one on them. No one boarding. Just sitting there. Brand management. Horrible. Operations management. A HARVARD business case study in failure. Communications. Horrendous. This is an airline that looks down at their feet at takes one step at a time when they get there. No planning. Just amazing. I'm a loyal customer. I'm understanding. But you lie to us. You mess with our day without answers. You give us no options. Your customers will go from loving you to hating you in a day. And they will hate you until their last breath. Just fascinating. I've asked to meet with them. Because I am amazed at how this goes on. People on the front lines that should not be there. The saving graces? The in-flight crews and the MINT service when it works. But JetBlue is a broken operation and yesterday they were a brand that f***ed us. And then how do they say sorry? A $150 credit for the flight and an extra $100 to boot. I'm even more insulted now. It's not a conspiracy, it's incompetence. Oh, and this just happened a few weeks ago. And the CEO's office called me and I spent 30 minutes giving them polite feedback that no one took. Yes, I got there safely. In the scheme of things these are modern problems in the TRUMP era, yes, But, I'm still a paying customer. And they don't seem to care. I had visions of the CEO, who is not on TWITTER, bathing in lobster juice on the AMALFI coast laughing at us while virgins feed him shrimp. My friend MARC ANDREESSEN suggested JetBlue's delay gave me time to work on my mindfulness. But I couldn't watch ANDERSON COOPER's 60 MINUTES piece on the plane. Wifi doesn't do well with video on the plane. I'm not done, this is just the beginning. Get popcorn. This is bitchy me. But I'm not wrong... Oh, one media thing: BOBBY AXELROD bought NETFLIX after the earnings call... Happy Birthday to JOHN FALCO and LEWIS DVORKIN. | | | - Jason Hirschhorn, curator |
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