I’d like to agree with you and say that every crew or maintenance delay is controllable…it would make my job soooo much easier. But the reality is they are not. The airlines I have been associated have dissected both maintenance and crew delays into controllable and uncontrollable events. I would be stunned if JetBlue DIDN’T use the controlled irregularity card to get out of many delays.

1) Vouchers are not worth anywhere near their face value

2) As I expected The Cranky Flier picked up on the Controllable Irregularity issue and lack of definition. The EU regulation on which this seems to be loosely based does spell out in some more detail what get out clauses the airlines can use (ie where unreasonable to hold them to account). Unfortunately even with legal recourse for dissatisfied passengers it seems the airlines are getting away with a lot more than passengers would expect.

So, I’m with CF – this policy isn’t going to cost Jet Blue very much in the long run.

1) I’m sure I could, but I unfortunately don’t have the time to get to that. I’ll keep an eye out for press mentions, because I’m sure analysts are cranking away at this as we speak.

I do know that the problems last week will cost about $30m. Check out this article for more detail.

It is certainly a potentially large liability, but I would hope they’ve done the math. Hopefully their systems allow them to look at repurchase rate from customers who would receive a voucher. I would assume they’ve decided that the goodwill generated and the ability to retain a customer is worth the extra cost. That leads me to . . .

2) Despite the second comment here, I’m almost positive they aren’t excluding maintenance and crew shortages. In their actual policy, which is now posted here, you can see that they are only paying for some of these things if they occur as a “controllable irregularity.” Unfortunately, that term isn’t defined anywhere on the page, nor is it defined in the contract of carriage, so it’s completely unhelpful. Still, maintenance and crew are absolutely controllable, so I’m guessing they are included. If not, this is a sham.

So, the people who will be compensated are those who were canceled or delayed by a controllable irregularity, those stuck on the ground after landing for more than half and hour, and those stuck on the ground more than 3 hours before departure. Oh, they also added that they’ll pay $1,000 for involuntary denied boardings (updated in the post). That may sound generous, but they don’t overbook. This will be a rare occurrence.

I would bet the big costs are for those controllable irregularity delays. They don’t cancel a lot of flights, so those won’t be an issue. It’s the delays that will get them, but even that is probably low if you don’t count weather or air traffic control.

The compensation will only apply to delays and problems “within JetBlue’s control” and EXCLUDES problems with weather, air traffic control, crew shortages, maintenance problems and failure to recover from any of those problems by the second day.

The two big whoppers are crew shortages and maintenance problems. They are trying to pull a fast one.

1. Is there anyway from available data you can estimate how much this policy would have cost jetblue over the last year (based on assumptions around voucher value)? Is this a big potential liability for them?

2. How big a freakin’ hole is there in this little policy around weather and ATC? I mean, really, they can still argue that ALL their delays and disasters this past week were due to WEATHER! clearly they’re not doing that now, with the full glare of the world’s media on them, but let me see you get your voucher in two months.

- The Cranky Frog