Jet Blue's Mea Culpa

David Neeleman, the Mormon founder and CEO of JetBlue,  has mastered the mea culpa. But he and his airline don't seem to be getting any credit for it. Could this fall from grace radically change the perception of the company that empowered and entertained zillions of passengers?

Reaction to the Valentine's Day snow storm debacle is surprising because no one wants to cut JetBlue any slack. Maybe consumers and commentators seem genuinely shocked because they never really thought of the brand in the airline category populated as it is by odious but necessary carriers. Or maybe we are in shock that the organization who embraced the great unwashed can actually screw up and make travel miserable for old ladies, families with small children and people accompanied by farm animals.

Yet persistent bad-mouthing in face of apologies, refunds and a proposed Passengers Bill of Rights -- things the other carriers never do in spite of regular greed-driven screw ups -- is counterintuitive. No one expects a brand to be perfect. That's why marketers and customer service people do everything they can to make deposits in customers' emotional bank accounts as a hedge against the invariable foul-up.

You would think that JetBlue should have a healthy balance with its core audience and with the public in general. So when they hit the bump, where is all the word-of-mouth marketing celebrating their many acts of contrition? Where is  the user-generated content celebrating their apology, leveraging their can-do attitude and celebrating the promise to do better and to recalibrate expectations for all airline passengers? Why haven't those millions of bloggers taken to cyberspace to defend the franchise? Is it easier to dump on Brittney than back-up JetBlue?

The Wall Street Journal reports that the competitors are pissed that Neeleman's bill of rights might provoke Congress to get involved. They don't want anyone messing with how they run their mediocre shows. Rex Hammock forgave them on his blog, but not before taking a shot at the apology e-mail. And Maria Palma while crediting JetBlue with zero common sense praised their use of YouTube as a means of transmitting their message and as a tool for communicating Neeleman's sincerity?

Is it me or are you amazed at the absence of grassroots defense? Other airlines have committed similar and even greater sins against their passengers without any contrition or public confessions. Why aren't JetBlue's legion of happy passengers standing up and differentiating JetBlue for truth, honesty and a plan to regain the American way?

    

Comments

[Lynda K.]

Greetings,
I am SO very glad you submitted your blog to the delightfulblogs directory and I've immediately bookmarked it for reference, inspiration and support for our launch of Delight.com. Your blog roll alone is a treasure for marketing and ecommerce info.

thanks!
Lynda
www.delight.com
www.delightfulblogs.com

[Maria Palma]

Danny,

You've made a great point here. We all make mistakes and I do think JetBlue has enough happy customers that more of them should have come to the defense of the company.

By the way, thanks for the mention ;)

[Jim Logan]

People hate winners. I'm not sure that explains it, but it's the first thought that hit my mind.

There's a a huge segment of the population that loves to see the ices skater fall, the gymnast miss the bar, and the hero lose.

Jet Blue fell. And many seemed to enjoy the fall.

[Busby Seo Test]

You've made a great point here. We all make mistakes and I do think JetBlue has enough happy customers that more of them should have come to the defense of the company.

yah right!