“The good guys won!”

Today’s award for most creative definition of an airline cancellation goes to JetBlue Airways. Back in February, after canceling Judith Ganz’ flight from Dulles to Boston — that’s right, canceling — it redefined its action as a “schedule change” in order to pocket her money.

But the airline split hairs with the wrong passenger. Turns out she was uniquely qualified to question JetBlue’s claim.

In March, I got an email from JetBlue: “We want to inform you about a change to your scheduled flight. Your flight 1252 … has been changed. You are now confirmed on flight 1254 …”

The later flight got me into Boston too late to connect to my confirmed 11:30 Cape Air flight to Nantucket. After speaking with customer service rep, supervisor, and submitting email complaint, I was told this was a schedule change not a cancellation, and that I was only entitled to a credit.

Flight 1252 continues to fly on weekdays — apparently JetBlue canceled flight 1252 on weekends.

I do not fly JetBlue — this was a rare trip to the East Coast to see an old friend. I would like my refund.

Ganz’ rights are spelled out under JetBlue’s contract of carriage. Paragraph 25 is clear:

Whenever Carrier cancels or otherwise fails to operate and scheduled flight, Carrier will, at the request of the Passenger either (i) transport the Passenger on another of Carrier’s flights on which space is available at no additional charge or (ii) provide Passenger with a full refund …

I recommended Ganz send a brief, polite email to JetBlue, pointing out this paragraph, which she did.

Now, it may have helped that Ganz is a lawyer, so her letter might have carried some extra weight. But in this case, the airline had apparently redefined a cancellation as schedule change, to its own advantage. That’s just unacceptable for passenger with law degrees and without them.

Yesterday, she received the following note from JetBlue:

Dear Ms. Ganz,

Thank you for your additional correspondence with JetBlue and for providing the information we requested. We have refunded $99.70 to your Visa credit card. Those funds will be available within 4-7 business days and can take up to two billing cycles to appear on your statement.

The credit originally issued to your JetBlue Travel Bank will be voided and no longer available.

Judith, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience the schedule change to your flight may have caused you. We appreciate you as a JetBlue customer and hope to welcome you onboard a flight in the future!

Still sticking with their story, huh? But JetBlue did the right thing — at last.

Ganz is happy with the outcome.

Thank you so much for all your help. Writing a letter and referencing the contract of carriage did the trick as you suggested. Whew! The good guys won!

If JetBlue hadn’t come around, she might have contacted the Transportation Department, which monitors airline complaints and might have been able to help. Or she could have threatened to take them to court.

(Photo: g Tarded/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • SirWired

    I would still complain to the DOT. The contract of carriage (and DOT policy) is quite clear, and it should not have even required an escalation to a supervisor; a front-lines customer service rep should have issued the refund without hesitation.

  • larry

    This is one of the reasons why JetBlue, AirTran and Southwest continue to make money while profit evades the so called Legacy carriers.

  • John R. Strohm

    In light of the myriad “where’s my refund?” cases documented elsewhere in Chris’s writings, let’s don’t say “The good guys won!” until the money is actually back in her account and posted to her credit card statement.

  • Mike

    I still think this should be escalated to someone in the transportation department because the airline is still attempting to change the definition of something so simply defined. A cancellation is when the flight is no longer operating on the schedule that it was supposed to. It was not delayed as the airline scheduled her on a different numbered flight. Others who may not have quoted the contract of carraige might still be getting the runaround.

    Jet Blue may have changed the schedule for future flights, but it cancelled her flight that was already paid for.

  • Carver

    @ Larry

    This is one of the reasons why JetBlue, AirTran and Southwest continue to make money while profit evades the so called Legacy carriers.
    ===============================================

    Why? Because they artfully redefine contract terms, or because they capitulated when the OP, an attorney, refused to back down? Jet Blue does NOT look good in this story.

  • Steve

    I agree with SirWired and Mike. This isn’t a case of a simple misunderstanding where, as long as this customer gets her money back, all is well. This is a clear example of an airline deliberately reneging on its contract of carriage, and as such they should be reported.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    I agree with Mike…she needs to report this to the DOT so that JetBlue and the other airlines should follow their own rules.

  • Carrie Charney

    I wonder how the rest of the passengers on the cancelled flight were treated and how they reacted, especially if they, too, had connections to make.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ larry – “This is one of the reasons why JetBlue, AirTran and Southwest continue to make money while profit evades the so called Legacy carriers.”
    - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –
    What I read is that JetBlue changed their rules so that they will benefit them financially…only when the customer called them on it did they decided to follow their own rules. It is my guess that none of the passengers on Flight 1252 received a cash refund or was put on another airline. This is why JetBlue needs to be reported to the DOT. Is your definition of good customer service is to take advantage of your customers until you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar?

    As a side note, JetBlue did received special financing from Airbus that kept their start-up and operating costs down thus preserving their capital. Also, JetBlue is non-union so they are not paying the same labor costs as the legacy airlines. Furthermore, JetBlue is cherry-picking it routes (having flights on routes with the most passengers)…I will do the same thing if I was starting up an airline.

  • larry

    Carver, They may not look good, but at least JetBlue did the right thing in the end instead of holding firm like so many carriers do.

  • http://noaddedsalt.blogspot.com Elisa

    She’s a lawyer – can someone please explain to me why she needed Chris to tell her to quote the contract? This isn’t a very good recommendation for her services if she didn’t read it herself!

  • Dan

    JetBlue’s CoC defines neither a cancellation nor schedule change. There’s no section for schedule change, either, which is a bit strange. IIRC, most airlines have a section that basically says you have rights if your schedule change gets you in more than two hours later than the ticket you bought. Less than that, an it depends on the agent you get.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ larry – “Carver, They may not look good, but at least JetBlue did the right thing in the end instead of holding firm like so many carriers do.”
    - – - – - – - – - – - –
    JetBlue did what their contract of carriage calls for. Other airlines follow their contract of carriage when it is pointed out to them. It is my guess that JetBlue did not follow their contract of carriage for the other passengers on Flight 1252. Did JetBlue paid interest on the money that they kept since March? Did JetBlue give Ms. Ganz some FF miles? Did JetBlue give Ms. Ganz a voucher? The interest on $ 100 for three months will be only $ 1.50 per month (1.5% interest) and it was stated that Ms. Ganz has no plans to fly JetBlue in the future so the miles or voucher will be worthless; however, it will be a gesture of goodwill.

    Recently, I received a $ 100 voucher from US Airways when I reported an erroneous statement that I heard from an US employee at the airport. I was not even affected by an erroneous statement but US Airways compensated me for bringing it to their attention.

  • Scott

    Seems to me like MOST comments here are not understanding the full situation.

    This is what the INDUSTRY refers to as a schedule change. Airlines are constantly revising their schedules: changing flight numbers, times, adding and subtracting frequencies. You buy a ticket on the carrier, after which the carrier changes their schedule, and they reaccommodate you on the closest itinerary.

    In this case (and it is unclear from the narrative) what SEEMS to have happened is that the customer purchased a SEPARATE TICKET on Cape Air. We have gone into the limitations of separate tickets in many columns here. The carrier only has liability to you as far as the individual ticket, if you purchased a separate one.

    The reason this is most likely the scenario, is that if it was all on one ticket, then JetBlue would have given a new itinerary to the final destination. Since that was the problem, then it is almost assured that the customer bought separate tickets.

    In this case, JetBlue really has no contractual liability to the customer if they bought a non-refundable ticket only to Boston. However, some cases — like this one — need to see the bigger picture. Once that is accomplished, a reasonable carrier or individual will usually give the customer the benefit of the complete scenario, which is exactly what happened here.

  • SirWired

    The flight was not operated as agreed in the reservation. Period. They can call it whatever they want, but voluntarily not honoring the original reservation means you get a refund on request, even for non-refundable tickets. You can request refunds for voluntary (as in, not due to weather or other circumstances outside of the carrier’s control) schedule changes, carrier changes, even equipment changes.

    This is quite clear in the Contract of Carriage, and even if it wasn’t, the courts would require it nonetheless.

    I don’t see any complaints by the customer asking for JetBlue to get her to final destination, nor any requests for compensation for her Cape Air ticket. The Cape Air ticket was merely mentioned as background information as to why the cancellation was unacceptable.