I’ve become a big fan of Jet Blue airlines. I flew Oakland-New York yesterday and the back today. That’s not usually the nicest experience, flying roughly five hours each way.
But Jet Blue is wonderful. They have tons of leg room (in fact they cleverly provide more legroom in the rows beyond the first few, to encourage people to fill the back of the plane). There’s nothing more important for flight comfort than leg room. They have DirectTV beamed direct to the plane, so on the flight back today I was able to watch Rafael Nadal take apart Roger Federer in the French Open semi-final (this could be a rivalry for the ages). In JFK airport they provide free Wi-Fi.
And they have a sense of humor. Shortly before we left the gate in NY, they made an announcement: “If Oakland isn’t in your travel plans today, please make yourself known to the cabin crew.” Our airplane, to top it all, was named the Badda Bing Badda Blue.
Yeah, they’re a wonderful airline. I used to like them a lot. Their service is great, and the pricing is sane. Too bad they handed off sensitive passenger data to DHS without telling anyone. Now I’ll avoid them if possible.
Didn’t most airlines do this? I recall that they were singled out first, but later on it came out that Northwest, United, American, etc all turned over the data – supposedly to help setup or fine tune the new tracking software, but we know how that goes.
All of these companies will turn over their data if the Feds push them. I think the deal is along the lines of: If you give it to us now, we won’t publicize it. If you make us get a sopeana, which we will get, then your name will be in the newspapers. That’s a pretty effective technique for shareholder-owned, stock-driven corporations.