flightaware, and the JetBlue website, show just about everything B6 has into and out of Boston is cancelled for today. With winter storm Harper being a mostly non event snow and ice wise, why? Delta, B6's most direct competitor at BOS, hasn't cancelled a single flight. Did B6 hit the panic button to soon? Is there another reason why B6 has cancelled all flights at BOS? Same with AA, only one or two cancelled BOS flights.


Not really picking on B6 but again, this shows how vulnerable a carrier can be when they place most of their assests in two of the biggest east coast cities prone to weather delays and cancellations. You would think B6 by now, with close to 20 years in the business, would have a better meteorology and operations department.


How do you explain this to the business traveler who needs to get to XXX and he/she sees the rest of airlines at BOS operating all their flights and pretty much on time? If B6 wants to be the dominant airline at BOS, they really should start to act like one. There is a lot more involved than just saying you have the most flights at BOS, you also need to have a solidly run operation and after what I am seeing today, that is not the case.

Some of it depends on the destination.

JetBlue tends to operate on the conservative approach on winter weather after the complete catastrophe at JFK ten years ago.

Other airlines may not be cancelling, but how much are they actually flying? Flightaware only shows three departures from BOS in the past hour...

jumbojet wrote:

flightaware, and the JetBlue website, show just about everything B6 has into and out of Boston is cancelled for today. With winter storm Harper being a mostly non event snow and ice wise, why? Delta, B6's most direct competitor at BOS, hasn't cancelled a single flight. Did B6 hit the panic button to soon? Is there another reason why B6 has cancelled all flights at BOS? Same with AA, only one or two cancelled BOS flights.


Not really picking on B6 but again, this shows how vulnerable a carrier can be when they place most of their assests in two of the biggest east coast cities prone to weather delays and cancellations. You would think B6 by now, with close to 20 years in the business, would have a better meteorology and operations department.


How do you explain this to the business traveler who needs to get to XXX and he/she sees the rest of airlines at BOS operating all their flights and pretty much on time? If B6 wants to be the dominant airline at BOS, they really should start to act like one. There is a lot more involved than just saying you have the most flights at BOS, you also need to have a solidly run operation and after what I am seeing today, that is not the case.

And if they DIDNT cancel these flights (and the weather took a turn for the worse), you would be quick to point out how they stranded travelers at Kennedy.

I’m not in BOS but currently accuweather shows 27 and ice

Forecast is for some SN but mostly PL all day. PL are very tricky to try and operate in, especially departures.

I'm not sure I get why this is even a question. B6 has access to a lot more weather information than any of us, I'm sure they are not making a decision to lose millions of dollars due to cancelled operations lightly. Enough planes skidding off runways in recent days.

NK432 and NK610 just aborted landing and are diverting to ACY.

LY15 from TLV just aborted landing and are circling.

Flightradar 24 looks like spaghetti around BOS.

The OP is wrong. BOS is a mess, JetBlue made the right decision. BTW there are no business travelers on Sunday morning and B6 passenger will be sitting at home while everyone else is sitting at the airport

Bobloblaw wrote:

The OP is wrong. BOS is a mess, JetBlue made the right decision. BTW there are no business travelers on Sunday morning and B6 passenger will be sitting at home while everyone else is sitting at the airport

Yet B6 cancelled operations yesterday too.

How do I know?

A friend of mine was flying a family of four RDU-BOS yesterday to arrive at noon (to take advantage of the MLK holiday) and his flight was canned.

B6 will be taking a big hit on all the cancelled flights.

I think they do realize they suck at IRROPS and have decided to punt the ball early.

It's their choice, but it does come with consequences.

They jumped the gun at JFK too.... the forecast has called for rain only the past few days and currently its 46 and light rain, yet my friends flight to SXM this morning was cancelled back on Friday. They are most definitely gun-shy from past melt downs and recent operational performance.

av8orwalk wrote:

NK432 and NK610 just aborted landing and are diverting to ACY.

LY15 from TLV just aborted landing and are circling.

Flightradar 24 looks like spaghetti around BOS.

Guess what, pilots are trained for events like this. Pilots with their planes and their passengers divert all the time due to weather. Thats a very weak and lame excuse. You cant tuck your tail (no pun intended) between your legs, go home and call it a day without even trying. All I am saying is, if you want to operate on the north east coast of the United States, you need to do a better job than what B6 has shown today at BOS AND at JFK as well,

So, can we consider this the bi-weekly JetBlue hate thread or is there another contender we haven't yet seen?

I flew MSY-SEA on AS yesterday and noticed that a B6 flight to BOS using a nearby gate was canceled, even though the A320 was sitting at the gate.

There’s always going to be second guessing with these storms, because the details (beyond “there’s going to be a storm”) are difficult to forecast accurately. I think there’s plenty of justification for B6 in particular taking a conservative approach. B6 schedules extremely high aircraft utilization, and one consequence of that is that it’s very hard to recover from cascading delays.

I am looking at flightaware right now. There were 11 departures from BOS between 8.10 AM and 11.45 AM, when I am typing this.
4 of those 11 are DL.

hmmmm, I'm in B6 executive management, I see a storm coming that's going to cover 2 of my main focus cities. JFK and BOS.

Do I:
a) cancel my flights, making sure that I have planes in better places when the storm lets up?
b) understand that MLK is a holiday for many businesses, so fewer business travelers would be flying anyway on Sunday then normal
c) advance warn my customers so that if needed they can make alternative arrangements even if it's not on my airline, i have happy future customers
d) don't give a flying monkey's about my completion or OTP number for a day when everyone is more focused on the storm, no matter what format it ends up in, because that's the weather for you.
e) watch for complaints on aviation forums, because that's going to have a massive impact on how i inconvenience passengers.
f) try and complete all my flights because another airline will do it, but have a PR nightmare when passengers get stuck in the airports or on the tarmac for hours on end, complain about it on twitter and facebook and get the media involved like they did before AND end up having a bigger IRROPS issue that really only a few people on some aviation industry forums even care about.
g) A,B,C,D

i have a feeling i know which options i would choose.

Don’t feed the troll. jumbojet appears to be some sort of marketing/social media troll for DAL, as every post is a bash at xxx airline while pointing out how superior DAL is.

Still fresh in my mind is 2017’s total meltdown by DAL for trying to operate a full schedule at ATL. 5 days of misery from a small event for untold number of DAL customers.

https://money.cnn.com/2017/04/10/news/c ... index.html

Now, for the rest of us who don’t have an agenda. WX is HARD. It’s tough to predict exactly how things are going to play out and how it’s going to effect your operation. Winter storms can change from snowpocalypse to nothing with a couple of degree temp change.

I'm 15 mi North of BOS and sleet is coming down fast and it's not melting. B6 made the safe bet on a long weekend Sunday.

DL was mocked in our local media recently because basically everyone pre-canceled flights due to an impending snowstorm, but DL tried running a full schedule. Lo and behold, four DL flights ended up diverting and spending the night at other airports. This same thing happened to them not more than two or three weeks prior. It happens. Weather is difficult to predict; sometimes it works out and sometimes not.

This is the only western country where an airline is criticized for putting safety first.

Inconvience business travellers?? Seriously?? Its a SNOW STORM.

Let's see here....I don't have time to look up actual numbers for today so I'll round them out.

B6 has ~1000 flights/day

Their BOS operation has ~150 departures/day so ~300 flights. So roughly 30% of their entire operation.

Their JFK operation has ~175 departures/day so ~350 flights. So roughly 35% of their operation.

So, with ~65% of their operation being impacted between 2 airports with 1 storm, their recovery from having displaced aircraft, crews and customers from delays and diversions would be a recovery nightmare if they make the incorrect decision or wait too long. Remember the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 2007? That was caused by NOT cancelling flights. Comparing them to the huge US3 who have a drastically smaller % of operation in BOS, or foreign carriers that have 1 or 2 flights/day in BOS is a bad comparison IMHO.

This storm is actually similar to the 2007 one where the snow/ice/rain line is running very close to the airports, and the expected severe drop in temperature after the storm passes will not help either (black ice, frozen jet bridges, etc.).

They are in a "screwed if they do, screwed if they don't" scenario, honestly. If they didn't cancel in advance and had a meltdown IROP, people would be asking why they didn't cancel the flights.

Now, back to my Sunday Funday in Florida where I don't have snow or ice LOL

This thread should be deleted. The OP is being childish and making unsubstiated claims about DL that are easily refutable.

av8orwalk
NK432 and NK610 just aborted landing and are diverting to ACY.

LY15 from TLV just aborted landing and are circling.

Flightradar 24 looks like spaghetti around BOS.

Quite a few more planes also diverted today, including LH422 a 744 from FRA, and a UA from ORD both diverting to PHL. DL 986 from RDU diverted to BWI, and DL2201 diverted to EWR. The UA also had to declare emergency, after circling numerous times, and after it tried to divert to PVD.

mm320cap wrote:

Don’t feed the troll. jumbojet appears to be some sort of marketing/social media troll for DAL, as every post is a bash at xxx airline while pointing out how superior DAL is.

Still fresh in my mind is 2017’s total meltdown by DAL for trying to operate a full schedule at ATL. 5 days of misery from a small event for untold number of DAL customers.

https://money.cnn.com/2017/04/10/news/c ... index.html

Now, for the rest of us who don’t have an agenda. WX is HARD. It’s tough to predict exactly how things are going to play out and how it’s going to effect your operation. Winter storms can change from snowpocalypse to nothing with a couple of degree temp change.

Also quite ridiculous to compare a 1000 flight Atlanta Delta hub vs. Boston JetBlue hub.

SFOtoORD wrote:

NickolayAv wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

No it should not be deleted. I am the OP. Name one claim I made about DL in this thread. This is about B6 cancelling all their flights to/from BOS with weather that for the most part, is relatively calm.

I have no idea where you live, however, coming from someone who lives 10 minutes away from Logan, I can promise you we got dumped with a nice 6-8 inches of snow which was followed by a nice amount of freezing rain and a rapidly dropping temperature. Not really "relatively calm" weather. For more info go read the BOS forum where FGIDT (who works in Logan) described what's actually going on there.

It’s clear this thread wasn’t started with the intention of focusing on facts.

Well lets add a few facts then:

Southwest, Westjet and JetBlue canceled everything at Logan today.
Spirit canceled all but two flights today.
American canceled everything this morning but is operating with delays currently.
Delta, Air Canada and United are operating but with cancellations and delays.
Alaska: Mostly ontime

BOS is a mess as it, and a good portion of the country, were hit with a snow storm. B6 made the right operational choice and one that will let them restart the airline properly tomorrow.

LHUSA wrote:

Wasn’t the OP banned for a bit? Can we go back to that?

That would be nice. He is trolling in the UA diversion to YYR thread as well

ncflyer wrote:

I'm not sure I get why this is even a question. B6 has access to a lot more weather information than any of us, I'm sure they are not making a decision to lose millions of dollars due to cancelled operations lightly. Enough planes skidding off runways in recent days.

They are probably saving money since this is such a slow travel period. Now their flights tomorrow will be full.

With less assets around the country, JetBlue is also very particular about ensuring that equipment is placed where it can best restart the operation. An earlier poster commented that a plane was sitting in MSY, but the flight was canceled. This became a more standard practice toward the end of my time working at JetBlue so that the fleet would be best positioned to launch upon better circumstances.

After spending enough years at the company to form an educated opinion, I believe that JetBlue's biggest issue with IROPs isn't about airport conditions at all. Their issue was - and still somewhat is - more about positioning assets (planes, crew, etc) for restart.

Also, re: Northeast flying, for those keeping score on Sunday's regional operations.

BOS-PIT
JetBlue operated 0
Delta operated 0

BOS-ROC
JetBlue operated 0
Delta operated 0

BOS-JFK
JetBlue operated 0
Delta operated/is planning to operate 3 of 5 (the early AM departure is only now waiting for takeoff at 19:17 local and the other 2 are still delayed)

BOS-LGA
JetBlue operated 1
Delta operated 2

Not drastically different. I don't know what planet the OP lives on or what drug is being pumped through his veins, but I'd like to be feeling whatever kind of reality he's feeling because it sounds deliriously delicious.

I was supposed to fly with B6 LGA-MCO today. Thursday they began allowing you to make changes due to the approaching storm. I switched my flight to SWF-MCO with no penalty (that's the airport I wanted anyway, but didn't have enough points for the ticket, so yay me!). When I saw the forecast Friday, I moved my ticket to Monday.

I'm way more relaxed than sitting around all day today wondering if my 5pm flight was doing to depart or not. It did end up departing, but saved me having to drive through the slush, still nervous it might delay or cancel.

JBLUA320 wrote:

With less assets around the country, JetBlue is also very particular about ensuring that equipment is placed where it can best restart the operation. An earlier poster commented that a plane was sitting in MSY, but the flight was canceled. This became a more standard practice toward the end of my time working at JetBlue so that the fleet would be best positioned to launch upon better circumstances.

After spending enough years at the company to form an educated opinion, I believe that JetBlue's biggest issue with IROPs isn't about airport conditions at all. Their issue was - and still somewhat is - more about positioning assets (planes, crew, etc) for restart.

Also, re: Northeast flying, for those keeping score on Sunday's regional operations.

BOS-PIT
JetBlue operated 0
Delta operated 0

BOS-ROC
JetBlue operated 0
Delta operated 0

BOS-JFK
JetBlue operated 0
Delta operated/is planning to operate 3 of 5 (the early AM departure is only now waiting for takeoff at 19:17 local and the other 2 are still delayed)

BOS-LGA
JetBlue operated 1
Delta operated 2

Not drastically different. I don't know what planet the OP lives on or what drug is being pumped through his veins, but I'd like to be feeling whatever kind of reality he's feeling because it sounds deliriously delicious.

Hey, BOS-PIT may not have operated, however, I know PIT-BOS did! I was originally scheduled on UA655 IAD-BOS today, but it was canceled. They rerouted me to PIT on a CR7 and then transferred me over to Delta who then flew me PIT-BOS on time. This was definitely one of the best travel experiences I have ever had considering the circumstances. Kudos to United, I received notification that IAD-BOS was canceled at 11:25 and by 12:20 I was on the aircraft ready to depart for Pittsburgh. The only issue is that my checked bag did not get transferred in time, so they should be bringing it to me sometime tomorrow evening.

I think many people who don't live in the U.S. Northeast don't understand the weather patterns here in Fall/Winter. As a resident here you need to pay attention to the weather. EVERY Winter we are subject to storms that can easily deliver 18-24' of snow, but the movement of the storm anywhere from 25 - 100 miles north or south can change the forecast drastically from snow to ice to rain, or sometimes no precipitation at all.

Schools have been closed when we get about an inch of snow, and there have been times where we got hammered with snow seemingly out of nowhere.


B6 went with the best forecast they had, and many carriers cancelled lots of flights as well. B6 tends to be extra cautious, but a finding out your flight is cancelled while you are at home and rebooking or changing your plans is MUCH less stressful than driving in winter weather to your airport hoping your flight makes it out, or you end up delayed for hours at the terminal or on the tarmac and before you know it twitter is blowing, the angry side of New Yorkers and Bostonians are starting to show and suddenly its "a JETBLUE MELTDOWN"

Non-event?? What the %#€£ are you talking about??

It’s ironic how ignorant people look when they spout things they think appear to be intelligent, well-considered points. The armchair airline ops guys on this forum are an epidemic.

This is not directly BOS, but a case in point about restarting - the only scheduled flight into BTV yesterday, and the only one to leave so far today - B6!

Atlwarrior wrote:

mm320cap wrote:

Don’t feed the troll. jumbojet appears to be some sort of marketing/social media troll for DAL, as every post is a bash at xxx airline while pointing out how superior DAL is.

Still fresh in my mind is 2017’s total meltdown by DAL for trying to operate a full schedule at ATL. 5 days of misery from a small event for untold number of DAL customers.

https://money.cnn.com/2017/04/10/news/c ... index.html

Now, for the rest of us who don’t have an agenda. WX is HARD. It’s tough to predict exactly how things are going to play out and how it’s going to effect your operation. Winter storms can change from snowpocalypse to nothing with a couple of degree temp change.

Also quite ridiculous to compare a 1000 flight Atlanta Delta hub vs. Boston JetBlue hub.

Why is it ridiculous?? We are talking about airlines deciding to do a widespread pre-cancel of their hub flights or trying to operate a full schedule through a weather event. Both DAL and JBLU have had issues before with operational meltdowns by making a bad call in that regard. The OP tried his usual BS of disparaging everyone else while touting DAL. I was merely pointing out DAL has made its own massive blunders.

Give it up already.

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/01/21/ ... s-weather/

Please keep the thread on topic. Just a reminder to users, links posted without commentary are against forum rules. We require users to include some kind of description for links provided to prevent links that might appear to be spam/malicious.

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