Dear JetBlue,
My flight was originally scheduled for 7:15 but delayed due to a late incoming flight, although the gate board never showed a revised time nor even the word “delayed,” and no intercom updates were given after we changed gates. We were further delayed by a mechanical problem once we were on the runway, three hours later, and had to deplane.
When the replacement plane arrived, we were told that the pilots were updating logbooks, which would take “3 to 5 minutes.” Two hours passed with no further updates, and then we were told, just before midnight, that the pilots had just realized that they couldn’t fly any further hours by regulation (which would imply that either we should have had a different crew to begin with, or that they should have called a replacement crew while getting the replacement plane).
The biggest problem is the following: we were told that it was “highly recommended” that we wait for the replacement crew to arrive, as the flight would “definitely be taking off” tonight, and that the replacement crew had a hard 2-hour time limit to arrive. We were discouraged from cancelling or rebooking because the next day’s flights would be full and we couldn’t be guaranteed a seat.
So nearly everyone stayed for the duration of the next one and a half hours, during which we were served snacks but given no updates about the status of the replacement crew. At the end of this period, we were suddenly told that there was no replacement crew after all and that they decided to cancel our flight instead. No explanation was given for why the replacement crew never showed or why they could not keep the promise that the flight would “definitely be taking off.”
A new flight is supposed to be created for tomorrow morning, but we received no receipt, boarding pass, or even flight number for this new flight. Regardless of whether the new flight exists or not, after the initial weather and mechanical delays, there were clear points when there was inefficiency and blatant misinformation which compounded the delays. The cancellation came with no explanation and completely contradicted what we were told hours beforehand, capping off a frustrating 8-hour episode in the airport.
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