When JetBlue’s chief executive visits Boston Tuesday to announce a new direct flight to London, he could face pointed questions over significant delays and cancellations his airline experienced in the past few days.
More than 180 flights departing Boston Logan International Airport were interrupted on Sunday, according to the flight monitoring website FlightAware. JetBlue canceled 75 flights passing through Logan. That was in addition to 79 cancellations and 243 delays at the airport Saturday, more than 40% of which were from JetBlue, WCVB reported.
On Monday, passengers saw JetBlue cancel another 37 flights and delay another 131 at Logan — 60% of the flights affected at the airport that day.
Cancellations and delays have since mostly stabilized. JetBlue has three flights canceled and 22 delayed at Logan on Tuesday.
But Robin Hayes, the airline’s CEO, could still face questions about the disruptions during his visit to the airport Tuesday, where he is expected to announce long-awaited plans for nonstop service from Boston to London.
The Boston to London trip was slated to be the first transatlantic route offered by the airline but was called off last year. Tuesday’s announcement will come approximately nine months after JetBlue launched its first flights across the pond from JFK Airport in New York City last August.
The reasons behind JetBlue’s struggles between Saturday and Monday remain unclear.
A spokesperson for JetBlue told WCVB on Sunday that severe weather in parts of the country coupled with air traffic control delays were to blame.
“We have unfortunately had to cancel flights this weekend, and [Sunday’s] cancellations will help us reset our operation and safely move our crews and aircraft back into position,” the spokesperson told the news outlet. “We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and we are working to get them on their way as quickly as possible.”
JetBlue is also in the process of hiring more than 700 people ahead of an expected busy summer travel spike, CNBC reported on March 25. In a statement, one of the airline’s top executives urged patience from flight attendants he said were refusing to accept flight assignments.
“Please do not refuse an assignment you are assigned to operate; it is disruptive to the operation, lets down your fellow Crewmembers, and disappoints our Customers who rely on us to safely get them to their destination,” Ed Baklor, JetBlue’s head of customer care and programs, said in an email to flight attendants obtained by CNBC.
The flight attendant union said that insinuations by Baklor saying they were to blame for the airline’s operational troubles “could not be further from the truth.”
“It’s time for JetBlue to stop playing the blame game with their flight attendants,” said Gary Peterson, Transport Workers Union International Vice President and Air Division Director. “Our flight attendants showed up and kept this airline flying during the pandemic. Now it’s time for management to show up for them.”
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- JetBlue announces its first European destination with nonstop flights from Boston to London
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