[JetBlue Just Can’t Get Back On Track, Preemptively Cancels Over 100 Flights Tomorrow] Airline Operations Are Melting Down, Yet Again

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Update, 4/13: JetBlue has already cancelled over 100 flights for tomorrow, wreaking havoc with people’s Pesach plans as I warned may happen, as they continue their weeks-long operational incompetence. I stand by the headline I wrote last week about their proposed merger with Spirit…

JetBlue has cancelled all of their flights from JFK and Newark to Cancun and multiple flights from JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Grand Cayman, Houston, Jacksonville, Miami, New Orleans, Orlando, Palm Springs, Punta Cana, Tampa, San Juan, Sarasota, S. Maarten, and West Palm Beach.

If your flight is affected, in addition to calling JetBlue, you can try sending them a DM on Twitter and chatting with them online or in app. Expect availability on alternate flights to fluctuate as people are reaccommodated. You can also book travel on another airline and receive a refund for your cancelled flight.

JetBlue plans to cut their summer schedule by 10% to create more system slack and avoid having to cancel as many flights.

Was your flight cancelled? What is your backup plan?

Update, 4/10: JetBlue and Spirit continue their weekend woes, with hundreds of cancelled flights.

Update, 4/4: While airlines have mostly recovered, Spirit and JetBlue continue their days-long meltdown.

  • So far today:
    • Spirit cancelled 290 flights (35% of their schedule) and delayed 221 flights (26% of their schedule), meaning 61% of their flights have been affected.
    • JetBlue cancelled 142 flights (13% of their schedule) and delayed 485 flights (45% of their schedule), meaning 58% of their flights have been affected.

Originally posted on 4/3:

With passenger numbers that haven’t been seen since before the pandemic, airlines are finding themselves woefully ill-prepared for the influx. JetBlue, Spirit, and Southwest have been hit especially hard this weekend, though even Delta has hit some turbulence.

Airlines have little slack available due to shrinking their fleet and employee base during the pandemic, so small weather issues can wreak havoc throughout their system like never before.

Worse yet, trying to reach airlines can mean waiting on hold or in a line for hours. Your best bet may be messaging your airline via Twitter or in-app messaging.

But with most flights running nearly full, passengers on cancelled flights have been told that it will be days until they can get on an alternate flight.

With Pesach and Easter holiday travel over the next couple weeks and planes running even closer to capacity, further cancellations may ruin people’s plans for days on end. It’s always a good idea to travel a few days early when possible, in order to allow for contingency plans.

As always, pay for your tickets on credit cards that have generous trip delay and trip interruption insurance in order to cover out of pocket expenses during a delay. Those include cards such as Chase Sapphire Reserve®, Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, AMEX Business Platinum Card and the AMEX Consumer Platinum card

  • Here’s how things looked yesterday,
    • JetBlue cancelled 162 flights (15% of their schedule) and delayed 596 flights (57% of their schedule), meaning 72% of their flights have been affected.
    • Spirit cancelled 222 flights (27% of their schedule) and delayed 280 flights (34% of their schedule), meaning 61% of their flights have been affected.
    • Southwest cancelled 520 flights (14% of their schedule) and delayed 1,563 flights (44% of their schedule), meaning 58% of their flights have been affected.
    • Frontier cancelled 51 flights (10% of their schedule) and delayed 163 flights (33% of their schedule), meaning 43% of their flights have been affected.
    • American cancelled 364 flights (12% of their schedule) and delayed 632 flights (21% of their schedule), meaning 33% of their flights have been affected.
    • Delta cancelled 238 flights (8% of their schedule) and delayed 587 flights (22% of their schedule), meaning 30% of their flights have been affected.
    • United cancelled 53 flights (2% of their schedule) and delayed 529 flights (26% of their schedule), meaning 28% of their flights have been affected.
    • Alaska cancelled 79 flights (11% of their schedule) and delayed 114 flights (16% of their schedule), meaning 27% of their flights have been affected.
  • Here’s how things look so far today,
    • JetBlue cancelled 373 flights (34% of their schedule) and delayed 458 flights (42% of their schedule), meaning 76% of their flights have been affected.
    • Spirit cancelled 308 flights (37% of their schedule) and delayed 243 flights (29% of their schedule), meaning 68% of their flights have been affected.
    • Southwest cancelled 400 flights (10% of their schedule) and delayed 1,459 flights (38% of their schedule), meaning 48% of their flights have been affected.
    • Frontier cancelled 85 flights (15% of their schedule) and delayed 181 flights (33% of their schedule), meaning 48% of their flights have been affected.
    • Alaska cancelled 66 flights (8% of their schedule) and delayed 148 flights (19% of their schedule), meaning 27% of their flights have been affected.
    • American cancelled 271 flights (8% of their schedule) and delayed 570 flights (18% of their schedule), meaning 26% of their flights have been affected.
    • Delta cancelled 41 flights (1% of their schedule) and delayed 637 flights (21% of their schedule), meaning 22% of their flights have been affected.
    • United cancelled 12 flights (<1% of their schedule) and delayed 334 flights (16% of their schedule), meaning 16% of their flights have been affected.

Have your travel plans been affected this weekend? Will you plan for extra contingency days for Pesach travel?

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75 Comments On "[JetBlue Just Can’t Get Back On Track, Preemptively Cancels Over 100 Flights Tomorrow] Airline Operations Are Melting Down, Yet Again"

All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.

Mask

Any update on the mask situation?

T

You wear them.

Joe

If the guy next to you is wearing 2 masks does that cover you?

CountValentine

I hope your flight gets canceled

JamesIV

This is the guy wearing 2 masks ^^^

YourValentine

I hope you step on a piece of lego while not wearing shoes.

Steve

I’m immune to that already!

Jew

After Seeing many others not wearing in airport, we took the liberty to keep ours off for vast majority of our trip so that we breath and not sweat etc etc etc
Flew roundtrip and got a total of 2 polite requests to mask
One at security outbound and one at AA lounge desk return
Was a very comfortable ride thank G-D
My 2 year old wore his for about 30 seconds too

Travel Wiz

So we take out of this to fly United airlines.
Old story

Bp

Yes. We live in Miami and got stuck in New York today. We are flying jet blue and were meant to fly out at 1pm today and were rebooked (after waiting on line for hours with three little kids) for tomorrow night. They are claiming it’s weather related so no compensation or hotel voucher. Luckily we have a business Amex platinum that the trip was booked on but the $500 trip insurance is not going to fully cover all the costs associated with this. My parents flew back today as well but luckily through delta so while their flight was delayed, they are getting home today.

Mendy

Yes! They cancelled 2 flights from NY to Dallas and then to Chicag, ended up going to Vail instead.
Tomorrow cloying back to NY with AA, hopefully it will stay “on time”.

JS

Jetblue canceled our trip to Montego Bay and rebooked us on a flight a few hours later luckily. Our luggage however did not make it and there’s nobody to talk to…

C2CMom

Our SWA flight from SLC to Burbank was delayed for 2 hours yesterday. We arrived at the airport 2 hours prior to the original departure time and the board already reflected the delay but I didn’t receive a text from SWA until over an hour later and the text didn’t accurately reflect the delay. It said the delay was 36 minutes while the board at the airport said the delay was 1 hour and 58 minutes. Poor communication but I guess I should be happy we were able to get home the same day.

Fan of the Dan

We were scheduled to leave JFK on Jetblue today at 11:16 am. It was delayed till 1:03pm and then agagin until 2:30. We boarded the plane and then they canceled it after everyone was seated on the plane. The pilots and attendants were all on board. Then they told us it was an error and they are working on fixing it. We sat on the airplane for over 3 hours until they had us deplane to manually check in all the passengers again. The plane took off at close to 9pm. It was a disaster with some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced.

Taxation without representation

And when the airlines cry, we’re broke, guess who steps in to bail them out? That’s right. Us, the dumb stupid gullible worthless taxpayers! We do it every time, and get NOTHING in return!

Jetjew

Legally, planes can’t keep you there for more than 3 hours without suffering massive fines. The airlines get around this by keeping the door open and ‘officially’ letting people walk off. Put a bit of pressure on flight attendants and tell them it’s approaching 3 hours and they must provide water. If they let you get off plane and you want to stretch your legs do it. Otherwise they will be in for some big fines if they don’t.

Yochai

Flew United EWR-JAX today. Only an hour delay b”h

BG

Have these cancellations and delays been affecting international flights as well, or just domestic?

T

If you have to connect from elsewhere you’re missing the connection. Flew Miami to Newark and a lot of passengers missed their connecting flight to Tel Aviv.

On a different flight the delay was so bad the flight already left Newark and passengers were yelling at the gate agent so much he literally covered his ear and said “please stop yelling”. Some passengers are such boors when it comes to behaving properly.

Jack out of the Box

My friend was booked this week FLL-EWR-TLV with United. Due to a storm in northern Florida the 1st flight was delayed and he would have missed the connection. He managed to get rerouted on Swiss MIA-ZRH-TLV thereby avoiding the storm region.

S

Had an Elal flight scheduled from TLV to Newark yesterday. They canceled my flight and rebooked us for an earlier flight to JFK.

Ash

What trip protection do I get if I booked through Chase portal using my sapphire Preferred points?

1991

“credit cards that have generous trip delay and trip interruption insurance”

What about capital one venture x?

T blais

Capital one denied my hotel claim due to my fathers death. Their insurer Broadspire said only common carriers were covered by trip interruption coverage, not hotels. Very disappointing.

1991

Must’ve been very frustrating.
I’m sorry for your loss,

Dave

My SW flight from HOU to NY was canceled. Had to scramble and pay a boat load for a spirit flight. Craziness. Any chance SW will offer some sort of compensation for messing up a software update.. Maybe companion pass or miles?

Jew

Just arrived in Lax from JFK on AA. No delays whatsoever

yosseld

Based on these numbers, is Southwest really the largest airline in the USA or was this just a busy 2 scheduled days for them?

YoniPDX

We’re Currently in London for another week.

Also meltdowns here and the Chunnel (3 hour delays).

Flying UAL hopefully- praying no challenges flying home next week.

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/04/easyjet-cancels-flights-covid-staff-travel-airports

g

Trip cancellation doesnt work for weather related cancellations and trip delay doesnt pay when you pay for a new flight to get home.

shazz

Flew Jetblue (or..didnt fly) out of MKE to LGA, notified us otw to the airport that the flight was cancelled. used in app chat that said “over 2 hr wait” and got connected to an agent as i was boarding a Delta flight from ord to lga 8 1/2 hours later.
but, once i did, they refunded everything to the original payment method, and also gave me reimbursment forms for the flight diffrences and transportatioin. just dont know if i will ever get it…

Yossi

I’m flying the Thursday before pessach. 2 stop overs with sw. Am I screwed or are they likely to have righted the ship by then?

Dave

TWO stopovers? Wow. You are screwed even if it’s on time. Why did you book a domestic flight with 2 stops?

Yossi

Because it’s less than half price of a one stop flight. The schedule has me arriving in Chicago at 10pm-ish. Around an hour each in Long Beach and Denver. It’s about 5 hours inside a flying can instead of 2.5 but still better than a cross country flight. And I get 2 breaks to walk around and breath the fresh smog in a new place.

Dan Bee

My brother in law was canceled from Utah on Jetblue on Sunday. They didn’t send him a cancellation notice until right before the flight, but he found out when he tried to check in hours earlier. They still haven’t rebooked him. He and his son paid $1400 to get out on Southwest meanwhile yesterday, otherwise they would still be stuck there with no way to get home on Jetblue.

Jack out of the Box

A couple of weeks ago my parents had to cancel a flight on the day of departure due to a family member landing up in the hospital. The Air France flight had been booked with Expedia. AF said Expedia had to deal with the cancellation and Expedia was unreachable (there was no online cancellation option). They never got through and ended up no-showing. Travel insurance company said there is no coverage because they were “no show”. What can be done to retrieve at least a portion of their thousands?

Moshe

Was canceled on flight from Vegas to JFK with jetblue, Saturday night. Still stuck in Vegas. Jetblue hasn’t reached out or anything to tell us (or at least, me) what to do

OMG!

Cancelations continue, now affecting Pre-Pesach flights from NY – Cancun, Orlando and more.

EW

Just got cancelled LGA-MCO for Thursday erev Pesach. No direct flight replacements available, and wait times to speak/livechat are over 2 hours and counting….

Nunu

Just flew jetblue, I was only delayed about an hour, bh

Robert walter

This number goes straight to JetBlue 1-844-538-6468

EW

What are the wait times like with this number?
Been on hold 1-800-538-2583 for hours.

E

Thank you very much for this. I was on hold for over two hours and got through right away with this number.

Barry

This is mint members

1avigrun

Just flew mco to hpn after mco to Lga got canceled 3 hour difference needed someone to pick up my car from Lga
what can we do to end this?

J

Same issue. I had to fly into HPN (originally EWR flight that was cancelled) when I live 20 minutes from EWR. Took an additional $100 cab ride to get home…JetBlue offered a $50 voucher and that’s it. At least I got home – they originally told me it would be another 2 days.

sa613

Note to self: Stay home next Pesach

Sruly

Flew past night and had a 1 hour delay which worked out well because the expedited security line at JFK took 50 minutes to get through.

Anonymous

How many people are sleeping and don’t know their flights tomorrow morning are canceled?

Sean Fulda

Was booked JFK to CUN today 4/14 @ 659 am got emailed flight is cancelled … all flights on JetBlue today to cancun are canceled

Adam

I booked two mileage tickets on United 2 weeks ago as a backup – one for Wednesday night and one for Thursday. I’m 1K so no cost to cancel. With storms in NY for tomorrow, I flew tonight on United with minor delay and canceled my JetBlue flight for tomorrow and took the travel bank to use when it isn’t a crazy time.

Yochai

Next time wait till they cancel the flight and get a full refund

Dave

Who would have thought that Jetblue would have subk completely to the bottom, becoming a bigger disappointment than Spirit? I’m reading articles about JB keeping folks on tarmacs for hours, skipping out on providing hotels, and canceling flights while nearly every airline is on schedule. I personally gave up on JB years ago because I need something more than a free can of soda and a couple extra inches of legroom when I fly. It’s n airline falling apart, with no plan forward, and with no desire to get out of last place

Jbscm

After seeing all the delays and cancellations of Wednesday’s flight I booked a back up delta flight for my thurs trip, jfk to mia. And I’m so happy I did.

Murray

10PM last night Jet blue cancelled by flight for today to Newark. Was able to get 2 seats on a United flight for today at around the same time. Jetblue put me on a flight to Westchester for tomorrow. Cannot get thru to cancel just going to dispute the charges. Turned into a terrible airline.

Barry

please update here if people are seeing Jetblue allowing ability to rebook
i’m going down to Sarasota on Monday.. i can’t stomach a late flight due to plans
If they are allowing rebook, woudl be amazing (i booked on miles, they don’t seem to allow online)

Steve

my flight was cancelled by JetBlue and I just cannot get in touch with them. Other flights are $2k a pop. Youre saying I could just book them and they’ll refund me after?? (Obviously I can’t just book if not…)

Agoldsc1

JB will refund you only for your flight with them. They will not refund you for any alternative flights booked.

Steve

Insane. Because they’re refusing to put us on a flight that will get us to our destination before the chag

Aaron

JetBlue cancelled my 245 jfk-Mia flight for today. They then added a a new flight with an identical itinerary with a new flight number and actually sold seats for the new flight number while the rebooked me for Friday night! Outrageous!

S

I got a call yesterday that my flight was canceled. Funny thing is I never booked a flight with them to go to Orlando today.
Did they just call all frum people assuming they are on the flight.

cant access my reservation

i have a confirmation # from jetblue – but when i go to manage booking to try and make a change it keeps on spinning until it times out – what can that mean? any other way for me to make changes to my reservation. I did get emails from jetblue regarding departure and general flight info – so the reservation is in their system

Dave

Dan, when are you going to add “friends don’t let friends fly Jetblue”? Seriously…. it’s become an embarrassment to tell someone you are flying Jetblue these days

D Gold

Dan, my 445 JB flight on Wed April 13 from Ewr to MCO was canceled at 11am same day. Their email notification had us rebooked at 6am Thurs to Boston with 4 hr stopover before flying to MCO which was not acceptable. After 2 hours on hold, only flight available to FL was to Tampa at 8pm from JFK. They charged $365/each ticket (we were 6 ppl) to change airports! Had no choice. Then had to pay $265 to get to JFK and then with no cars left in Tampa, had to Uber to MCO at 4am to get the car I reserved. Booked tickets through Chase Sapphire Reserve. How can I get a refund for the Tampa upcharge? Thanks!

Adam

Well the JetBlue nightmare just doesn’t end. So this is my DansDeals $64 flight home on Isru Chag. Scheduled for 10:38 am from FLL to EWR. Cancelled at 2 am. Rebooked us tomorrow on a midday flight. No weather issues on either end. Claim it is an operational decision.

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