JETBLUE CEO APOLOGIZES
Blames weekend disruptions on severe southern weather
Following a flurry of cancellations that left thousands stranded at airports across the country over the weekend, the CEO of JetBlue apologized Tuesday for service disruptions at Logan International Airport and elsewhere.
“Obviously we don’t want to cancel flights, we apologize to anyone who was caught up in this or disrupted,” he said.
According to CEO Robin Hayes, who was in Boston Tuesday for an announcement of new JetBlue services, severe weather in Florida was the primary cause of the travel disruptions and his airline wasn’t the only one forced to make cancellations.
“There were about 5,800 flights canceled across the industry, we were about 900 of those, so about 15% of the total. About half of our network goes through Florida,” he said.
Hayes is right: almost every airline was impacted by weather this weekend, as severe thunderstorms in the southeast caused Miami and Orlando International Airports to cancel over 150 flights from Friday into Saturday, a disruption that would ripple through the system.
“The challenge that we and all airlines had…Friday and Saturday we had significant weather and delays at multiple Florida airports. That then cascades across the system,” he said.
“We know it’s a very challenging situation,” Hayes said.
In all, the various airlines canceled more than 3,800 domestic weekend flights and delayed thousands more, citing weather in Florida and other issues such as staffing.
“When weather affects a significant part of the operation you end up with a lot of crew out of position and that takes time to reset,” Hayes said.
According to Hayes, staffing concerns were not a problem for his airline this weekend, but he did say JetBlue is planning to hire hundreds of crew members in Boston this summer to support just-announced twice daily service to London.
JetBlue alone canceled nearly 100 flights in or out of Logan on Sunday and several dozen more on Monday. As of 4 p.m. Tuesday the airline showed just three flights canceled but more than 50 delayed.
“I think we’ve recovered,” Hayes explained.
According to online flight tracking service FlightAware, JetBlue made 141 cancellations nationally on Monday.
This means Boston’s 38 canceled flights made up 27% of the airline’s cancellations.
JetBlue posted 135 delays at Logan on Sunday, which was about 47% of the delays there. JetBlue also showed 130 delays in Boston on Monday, according to FlightAware, more than half of all delays at the airport.
JetBlue is Logan Airport’s largest carrier, a position it has held for more than a decade.
The sudden rash of cancellations arrives as air travel shows signs it has recovered from the downturn it suffered during the pandemic.
Increased fuel prices leading to higher ticket prices hasn’t slowed that resurging demand either, leading Delta CEO Ed Bastian to declare in March that he hadn’t ever seen demand to match it.