System meltdown prompts airline's customer bill of rights

Discount airline JetBlue Airways introduced a customer bill of rights on Tuesday, following a difficult week that saw the company struggle with operational delays, grounded flights and stranded passengers.

The bill of rights will offer consumers compensation vouchers in the event of delayed, cancelled or overbooked flights. The airline, which is popular with many Canadian travellers who drive across the border to catch discount flights departing from U.S. airports, also promised to deplane passengers if an aircraft is grounded for five hours.

David G. Neeleman, JetBlue's founder and chief executive, described the company's service failure as "absolutely painful to watch.

"I want to assure you as the CEO of this company that the events that transpired last week and the way that they transpired will never happen again," Neeleman said in a video posted on the company's website.

Last Tuesday, heavy snow and frigid temperatures grounded JetBlue's planes at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. In one instance, passengers were left inside the aircraft for more than 10 hours.

1,100 flights cancelled

The company said it delayed calling for help to assist passengers off the planes because it expected the bad weather would ease.

More than 1,100 JetBlue flights in 11 cities have been cancelled since last Wednesday.

'JetBlue tried to do their best, tried to keep the system rolling.' —David Stempler, Air Travelers Association

Travel analyst David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said the airline should have cancelled its flights, as other airlines did, when the ice storm hit.

"Most airlines don't try to operate when there is an ice storm problem. They've learned that it's better to cancel all flights at the outset and then try to get back to normal operations as quickly as possible," Stempler told the Associated Press on Monday.

"JetBlue tried to do their best, tried to keep the system rolling," he said. "Their heart was in the right place, but their head was not."