Winter storm grounds 68 JetBlue flights

JetBlue cancelled 68 flights because of snow Monday, nearly a week after the airline pledged to compensate customers for more than a thousand cancelled flights from a Valentine's Day storm.

The cancelled flights at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York affected flights to or from Columbus, Ohio; Richmond, Va.; Washington, D.C., Portland, Maine; and Chicago. The company also cancelled flights into and out of Chicago and the Washington, D.C., area over the weekend.

The cancellations were an attempt to make sure crews and planes were situated so the company could quickly resume operations after the snow, JetBlue Airways Corp. spokeswoman Alison Eshelman said.

Customers complain of delays, poor communication

Early Monday, customers described delays, bad communicationfrom crew members and general frustration that echoed complaints that led to the company's bill of rights following the last storm.

'I never witnessed this bad of service in my entire life." —Doug Rosenberg, JetBlue passenger

Doug Rosenberg and Segun Akande, 22-year-old college students at Duke University, had their flight from New York to Raleigh, N.C., cancelled after being delayed on the runway for hours.

"It was so bad," said Akande. "We were waiting on the plane for so long. You would think they would tell us to go back to the terminal after an hour or two."

Rosenberg said the airline did a poor job telling passengers about what was going on and offering service after the flight was cancelled.

"I never witnessed this bad of service in my entire life," said Rosenberg.

Eshelman said that in accordance with the customer bill of rights, each of the 100 passengers would receive $100 vouchers good for any future flight and their choice of either a refund or accommodation on a future flight.

"I'm not upset that the flight did not take off," Rosenberg said later Monday morning after rebooking his flight and finding out about the voucher. "I just wish there was better communication."

February storm left passengers stranded

Earlier this month, JetBlue, which is popular with many Canadian travellers who drive across the border to catch discount flights departing from U.S. airports, was heavily criticized after bad weather stranded passengers in planes at Kennedy for up to 10½ hours.

The company, which had hoped to ride out the bad weather without cancelling flights, later admitted it took too long to call airport authorities for help in getting the passengers off the grounded planes. It couldn't resume normal operations for days because flight crews weren't where they were supposed to be.

More than 1,000 cancellations were caused by the Feb. 14 winter blast, and more than 100,000 passengers were affected.