JetBlue is proactively cancelling 1,288 flights over the next two weeks as it continues to suffer from a crew shortage it blames on the omicron variant.
JetBlue Is Proactively Cancelling 1,288 Flights
In a memo to pilots and flight attendants shared with Live and Let’s Fly, JetBlue tells crewmembers to check assignments and prepare for schedule changes as it processes the cancellations. The 1,288 cancellations will run through January 13, 2022.
Publicly, JetBlue has blamed the cancellations on a surge of COVID cases in the U.S. Northeast:
“While the new CDC guidelines should help get crewmembers back to work sooner, and our schedule reduction and other efforts will further ease day-of cancellations, we expect the number of COVID cases in the northeast — where most of our crewmembers are based — to continue to surge for the next week or two. This means there is a high likelihood of additional cancellations until case counts start to come down.”
Passengers impacted by the flight cancellations will be re-accomodated, where possible, on other segments and/or routings. If your flight is impacted, JetBlue will automatically rebook you when possible. If the new routing(s) or flight time(s) do not work, you can attempt to make changes on the JetBlue app or website before reaching out to the JetBlue call center, which has been weighed down by high call volume.
Indeed, Flight Aware shows JetBlue cancelled 106 flights on Wednesday and has already cancelled 172 flights today. In addition, 377 flights were delayed yesterday, representing more than one third of JetBlue’s scheduled flights.
Operational difficulties also continue at Alaska, Delta, Frontier, SkyWest, Southwest, Spirit, and United, though American Airlines had a much better day yesterday than its peers.
CONCLUSION
JetBlue and other carriers are blaming the fast-spreading omicron variant for a cascade of flight delays. As cancellations and delays now become a daily occurrence, travelers are advised to keep an even closer eye on their itineraries, arrive early at airports, and be ready to make last-minute changes.
I’ll give them credit for this. Much better to be proactive and give people a chance to rearrange and rebook. Makes you wonder when the other airlines will learn to anticipate better during this craziness.
For some reason, this news got me to thinking about something I had been ruminating about.
In The Jetsons, his wife Jane complains his boss slave drives him 3 hours a day, 3 days a week. In Europe, the standard is 4 weeks a year vacation, with several holidays. USA workers are among the most productive, and hardest worked, in the world.
I was wondering that if pilots and crew had lighter schedules, there would have been sufficient buffer to allow for staffing shortages and fewer, if any, flights cancelled. Employees on leave could have been requested to come in (for additional benefits of course) and perhaps the CEO could have taken a pay cut to help out, but who are we kidding?
When my wife first arrived to the states, she had a strong work ethic and worked as a waitress while going to school part-time. The manager of the place was short staffed because benefits were lousy so he tried to cajole my wife into working longer hours including on days she needed to study. She’d ask for a certain limited set of hours and he’d quietly assign her an additional day. After a few weeks of this, she served her notice and the manager was so angry, he tried to hold her last paycheck. She threatened to go to the state labor board and that was that.
Many service workers who lost their jobs due to COVID didn’t want to come back. Rather than improve conditions, there’s always a cry for more cheap labor immigrants to fill the ranks meaning that only people from worse off countries would put up with the poor labor conditions here.
That’s not to say European countries such as Germany are perfect (Matt and his wife choose to live in the states rather than Germany) but this situation should give us pause for reflection, and soul searching, for how we got here rather than the ambitious futures in old-style Science fiction.
Matt, if you have time on your flights, read some wonderful stories by Philip K Dick or Stanislaw Lem. Solaris was, meh, ok, but there’s so much good out there that makes me sad about possible futures lost.
Have a Happy New Year.
I am originally from Europe, now live in the US and fully agree. In my travels I observe the US staffing policy in most business’s appears to be “barely adequate, less 1”, so any disruptions or sickness results in a total scramble. Also noticeable is how in a 12 hour shift employees slow down so much, less then 8 hours of work is done !.
Europe has it’s issues,,,,,,, though there are good long term reasons 4+ weeks of vacation, paid maternity, paternity, sickness time (with Dr note) etc are good ideas. Happy holidays.
For your amusement: A guy posted his experience as a programmer working in a small office sweatshop and they basically told him, for the company’s own good of course, that he needed to work through Christmas and lose his vacation because of “use or lose”.
So he resigned.
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