The Cranky Flier » JetBlue

Trip Report: First Ride on the Embraer 190

CF — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:30:17 +0000

I know I’m a little late with this one. When I rode the A380, very few others had seen the inside. The Embraer 190, however, has been in service for awhile now and it, along with its slightly smaller and larger siblings (Embraer 170/175/195), has seen plenty of customers around the US. That being said, it’s still my first time riding it, so I thought I’d comment for those who haven’t had the chance yet.

For JetBlue, the Embraer 190 was an opportunity to serve smaller markets that could only fill 100 seats instead of the 150 on the A320. Other airlines have used the aircraft in this family as a 70 seat regional jet (United, US Airways) and a mainline 100 seat aircraft (eg DC-9) replacement. (Yes, that’s Northwest.) It was supposed to give the feeling and comfort of a big aircraft cabin but still only hold 70 to 110 people. It’s sort of a hybrid between a regional jet and a traditional narrowbody. Did it live up to its billing?

I’d say it did, although the slightly small overhead bin means that larger regular-sized carry-ons need to be gate checked. If that’s the biggest problem I have, you know it’s not bad at all, even if the inconsistency is a bit nagging. Read below for the full trip report which included an A320 on the way up and the Embraer 190 back down.

August 16, 2008
JetBlue #220 Lv Long Beach (LGB) 700a Arr San Jose (SJC) 815a
LGB: Gate 2A, Runway 30, Dept OT
SJC: Gate C4, Runway 30L, Arr 6m Early
Aircraft: N624JB, Airbus A320-232, “Blue-T-Ful”, ~99% Full
Seat: 7A
Flight Time: 54m

I’ll keep this part brief because there wasn’t much to say. The security line in Long Beach took a whopping 15 minutes. I was surprised until I realized that the bottleneck was the incredibly slow ID checker and the lines to get through the security checkpoints themselves were non-existent. How frustrating.

But it didn’t matter. We made it with plenty of time and leisurely boarded our early morning trip up north for a friend’s wedding. I passed the short flight time by watching Olympic basketball, and before I knew it we were on the ground. I haven’t been to San Jose in a long time, but they are really doing a number on this airport. Terminal B is finally being built, and the old Terminal C, where JetBlue flies, is on its last legs. I’ll still take it over the overcrowded and inadequately-sized Terminal A any day.

After a great wedding, we had hoped to fly back around midday. Unfortunately, JetBlue’s schedule leaves a huge hole in the middle of the day, so we had to wait until an afternoon flight. Fortunately, we had no trouble filling our time by wandering around my old Stanford stomping grounds. I still miss that campus. (And if you’re ever up there, make sure you stop in for a sandwich at JJ&F.)

August 17, 2008
JetBlue #225 Lv San Jose (SJC) 340p Arr Long Beach (LGB) 454p
SJC: Gate C4, Runway 30R, Dept 23m Late
LGB: Gate 4, Runway 30, Arr 25m Late
Aircraft: N193JB, Embraer 190-100 IGW, “Peek-A-Blue”, ~99% Full
Seat: 3A
Flight Time: 59m

We made it back to San Jose with plenty of time, so we grabbed a seat and relaxed. The screen said that our flight was boarding, but the inbound hadn’t even arrived yet. The agents did come on the PA and say that we would be only 10 to 15 minutes late. The plane finally arrived just before our departure time and boarding began.

The agent made an announcement that this was one of JetBlue’s “express” aircraft. (I don’t think they call it that, and if anyone over there is reading this, they might not be too happy.) But the point was that the overhead bins were smaller and wouldn’t fit the bags that you can fit on a regular-sized aircraft. I just had a backpack and a garment bag, but my fiancee had a roller that she thought she’d try to fit.

Upon boarding, my fiancee turned to me and pointed out what looked like duct tape holding the engine onto the wing. I know it’s speed tape, and I’m sure that it’s not actually holding it on the wing, but it still caused some concern among other passengers. I tried to get a picture of it inflight, but it didn’t really come out very well (at right).

Once onboard, the roller bag did fit, but it only fit sideways and her bag was relatively thin so it barely made it. Unfortunately for my garment bag, the bins were short enough to prevent me from fitting the bag on top of other bags. That wasn’t good.

But other than that, the product was similar to what you’d find on any other JetBlue airplane. It was nice only having 2×2 seating so there was no middle seat, but it definitely gives a more claustrophobic feel to the cabin. It was at least a taller cabin than a regional jet, and the cabin height was plenty for most people.

The only other thing that stood out for me was the window size and spacing. The windows were nice and big, but they were relatively far apart. It left for plenty of wall space and imperfectly placed windows, as you can see at right.

I had plenty of time to pay attention to these things since the television system, though working on the ground, shut off before departure and didn’t start up again until we were at cruise altitude. They were clearly having trouble with the system on that flight, but it did finally stabilize. We came down to the west of LA and had a spectacular view all the way down. Then we flipped around over Catalina and came in for a nice landing to the northwest.

Trip Report: Back to the Bay

CF — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:40:53 +0000

This weekend, we had a quick trip up north to do some more wedding planning. We took JetBlue up since Long Beach is always our first choice. But we saved over $100 flying back on Southwest, and they had a better schedule for us anyway. Since a friend offered to pick us up at LAX, it was a done deal. Flights were good both ways.

July 26, 2008
JetBlue #242 Lv Long Beach (LGB) 8a Arr Oakland (OAK) 917a
LGB: Gate 2A, Runway 30, Dept 3m Early
OAK: Gate 9, Runway 29, Arr 2m Early
Aircraft: N566JB, Airbus A320-232, “Blue Suede Shoes”, ~90% Full
Seat: 18F
Flight Time: 52m

We left home at 7a for our 8a flight. Security lines were short, and we had plenty of time to spare. They boarded the front rows of the plane first, strangely. Apparently they hadn’t pulled up the stairs to the back of the plane yet, so they just made us wait. When they did get that ready, we went toward the back and I snapped this great shot of the tail. I love boarding via airstairs.

Not much else to say about this flight. It was good and the flight attendants were friendly. The only thing of note (at least in my warped mind), was the snack selection. Apparently Frito Lay has given up innovating completely and has now decided, “Hey, why don’t we just throw all of our chips into one bag and sell it as something new and cool?” Behold, the Munchies. They also threw in some of those fancy 70% organic cookies. I still think that’s funny.

We landed and grabbed our Budget rent a car (with the awesome 9,999 bonus Delta miles). It was a nice weekend, and we got everything done that we needed to do. The only downside was that it was race weekend in Sonoma, so we ended up paying $150 for a Quality Inn that should have been half that price.

July 27, 2008
Southwest #1655 Lv Oakland (OAK) 2p Arr Los Angeles (LAX) 320p
OAK: Gate 28, Runway 29, Dept 5m Late
LAX: Gate 5, Runway 24R, Arr 5m Early
Aircraft: N455WN, Boeing 737-7H4, Canyon Blue, ~99% Full
Seat: 12E
Flight Time: 54m

We did our work in Napa yesterday morning and then we raced to the airport, hoping we’d make our 2p flight home. We dropped the car off and took the 30 hour shuttle ride back to the terminal. Man, that thing is far. It took 10 minutes to print our boarding pass and get through security, and then we went to the brand new concourse that Oakland probably is now regretting they built (traffic . . . dropping).

One complaint for the folks at OAK. There are some prime airplane watching areas when you’re walking down toward the new concourse (picture above), but they covered it up with art. Give me windows! When you get into the new area, it looks a lot like a nice version of LAX Terminal 8. There are stores on one side and gates on the other. They couldn’t have built gates on both sides, because that’s basically at the perimeter of the airport and planes don’t enjoy parking in the bay.

Southwest has rolled out some parts of its new gate area design here and it’s pretty nice. They had normal gate area seating, but there were a couple rows at each gate with these comfy chairs. The best part? You can see the USB ports and power outlets in there. Nice.

Anyway, boarding worked as well as it should these days. Nobody lined up until the gate agent called for it. And then, plenty of people tried to cheat the system. The gate agent stopped them all and said it happens all the time. Glad to see they’re enforcing it.

For some reason, Southwest couldn’t get their stuff together here and we pushed back 5 minutes late for no good reason. At this point, the captain apparently decided it was time to make up for lost time. I can’t think of a shorter taxi that I’ve had at an airport before. We headed right out to the runway and entered it part of the way in (taxiway U for those who care). I don’t think he used the brakes at all when we taxied and soon enough, we were airborne and through the low cloud layer.

It seemed like we were ascending pretty quickly and my ears were feeling it. It wasn’t long before we settled at the extremely high altitude (for such a short flight) of 41,000 ft. They threw a few peanuts and drinks at us and then it was time to land. We were at the gate 5 minutes early and on our way home in no time.

JetBlue to Make Portland Oregon a Focus City (or Is it a Glitch?)

CF — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:44:30 +0000

Sometimes, it pays to have good timing. A fellow airline dork came across a very interesting message on the JetBlue website. Unless there’s some sort of technical glitch, it appears that JetBlue will be starting up a Portland (Oregon) focus city on October 9. Flights will begin that day to Long Beach, Austin, Chicago/O’Hare, and Las Vegas. Don’t believe me? Head to jetblue.com or just take a look at this screen shot.

I tend to think that the IT team screwed up and put this up there too early. My guess is that we’ll see an announcement as soon as tomorrow, but really who knows? Those other flights on there have already been announced. Richmond to Orlando came out yesterday, White Plains to Tampa came out today, and so did Washington/Dulles to three new sun destinations.

So, I’d imagine we’ll see the announcement that the airline is going to bump up service in the Rose City come out very soon. This is an interesting move, and Alaska won’t be happy. Last time someone tried this, I believe I was able to fly a Delta MD-11 up to Portland from LAX. Ok, so that was more about Delta creating a Pacific gateway, but this is still not exactly a place full of successful airline moves.

One thing I’m curious about is the Long Beach flights. Where did that slot (or slots) come from? My first guess is San Jose, because there have been some low fares in there lately. Something tells me business hasn’t been so great. But maybe it will come out of the long haul world instead. Time will tell.

UPDATE 7/16 @ 814a: I’ve received word that only Portland to Long Beach will be starting. The press release will be going out soon. That means the others are connecting opportunities. Two daily flights - the first starts October 9 and the second on November 2.

Southbound
PDX 730a LGB 945a (begins 10/10)
PDX 210p LGB 425 p (begins 11/2)

Northbound
LGB 1110a PDX 135p (begins 11/2)
LGB 505p PDX 730p (begins 10/9)

Also, I’m told that slots will come as a result of the usual “pulldowns from Long Beach in the off-season (mostly transcons).”

Yapta’s Glitch-Filled Launch On the Web

CF — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:35:27 +0000

Has anyone had the chance to check out Yapta yet? The site originally launched as a way to see if the price of a ticket you had purchased had gone down. Since some airlines will give you a credit if the fare goes down, this could be a handy little tool to help you save some money. When it first launched, it required you to download a browser plug-in to work, but now you can get Yapta on the web. Unfortunately, there were some kinks that made the site unusable initially, but while some of those have been fixed, there’s still a ways to go before this is a helpful tool.

I decided to go to Yapta (Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant) and put in four itineraries I had already purchased to see what I could find.

Northwest to Indianapolis
This one ended before it started. You can’t check Northwest flight information on Yapta (maybe they won’t give you credit for a lower fare?), so I moved on.

United to Indianapolis
By entering my confirmation number and last name, Yapta originally told me that fare had gone down, but that’s because it saw our total price (for two people) as the per person price. Bzzzzt, no good. Now that’s been fixed, and it’s saying that the fare has gone up from $242 to $349. That’s still not quite right. I go on to United.com and it tells me that the price is $370 for that flight right now. So I’m not sure where this is coming from. True, the outcome is the same, but it won’t necessarily always be that way.

JetBlue to San Jose
I figured the third time would be the charm, right? Not quite. Yapta came back saying that the price has gone up from the $109 we paid to $149 per person so there’s nothing to gain here. But just out of curiosity, I checked JetBlue.com and the price is actually $139. Still nothing to gain, but it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when the fares are not accurate on every itinerary I try so far.

Alaska to Seattle/Portland
This one I thought would be interesting. I’m flying out of Long Beach, going to Seattle, and then flying back from Portland to Orange County. This time, it was just me traveling so there was no issue of viewing two fares as one accidentally. The result? It says that the fare has gone from $310.57 all the way up to $744. Whoa, not so much. I did pay $310.57 (with a % discount certificate), but the current fare is $324. For those keeping score, Yapta was 0 for 3 in getting the correct current price of the ticket. Not good.

Bottom Line
The site has a great idea, but man are there problems. I’m glad to see they’ve worked out the kinks on the fare initially paid. That’s working perfectly now, but every single time it returned the wrong “new” fare that was currently available. Both components need to be right for this site to be successful. Without that component, I still find myself going to the airline website to double-check to actual fare, and that makes Yapta not very useful. Once they solve these problems, it’ll be worth a return visit.

Trip Report: Jetting on JetBlue

CF — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:45:53 +0000

As my wedding quickly approaches, the trips up north to do wedding stuff seem to get more frequent. This time, we crammed a million different things into two days, and really, I’m exhausted. But, I have to commend JetBlue for an almost flawless performance. The flights were on time, the legroom was great, the flight attendants were excellent, and we had an welcome surprise on the return. For $139 roundtrip per person, I have no complaints. (And I wouldn’t have had any complaints at a higher fare either.) If this is why they say they no longer “fly” but rather “jet,” then I guess I much prefer “jetting.”

June 7, 2008
JetBlue #246 Lv Long Beach (LGB) 11a Arr Oakland (OAK) 1218p
LGB: Gate 3, Runway 30, Dept ~On Time
OAK: Gate 9, Runway 29, Arr ~On Time
Aircraft: N520JB, Airbus A320-232, “Blue Velvet”, ~90% Full
Seat: 13A
Flight Time: 55m

How often can you leave your house 1 hour before departure time and still have 10 minutes to sit at the gate and wait? That’s the beauty of Long Beach Airport for us. We left one hour prior to departure with our boarding passes already in hand. Security took 10 minutes (longest I’ve ever seen at LGB), and we were at the gate with plenty of time to spare. The terminal was a madhouse. I really can’t wait for them to build the new one.

We boarded early and took our seats just behind the exit row. Unfortunately, only 10 of the 37 channels actually worked on the TV on this flight, but hey, 10 channels is still plenty to keep me entertained for an hour. That being said, the map is NOT one of those channels. Even with the upgrade to the new Google Map, it’s really pretty weak. You don’t get much info, there’s a ton of advertising on the channel, and the airplane is so big that it takes up half the state. See the picture at right to see the most useless map - the one that was zoomed way out. Fortunately, some were better than this but they still were lacking.

Our flight was a perfect example of how crowded LA airspace is. They held us at the end of the runway for a couple minutes so they could space us properly with LAX flights. Then we departed and headed slightly northwest, holding at 9,000 ft in what felt like slow motion until we turned north over Malibu. Once around Simi Valley, we finally throttled up and climbed on our way to Oakland.

The flight attendants came through with a choice of blue chips or chocolate chip cookies (which were proudly 70% organic - huh?). Then, it was time to descend. We touched down, made it to the gate, and got off the plane in less time than it took to take the bus to the new rental car center, which I believe is located in Berkeley. (Translation: It’s friggin’ far away.)

June 9, 2008
JetBlue #251 Lv Oakland (OAK) 320p Arr Long Beach (LGB) 443p
OAK: Gate 9A, Runway 29, Dept ~On Time
LGB: Gate 4A, Runway 30, Arr ~On Time
Aircraft: N646JB, Airbus A320-232, “Bravo Lima Uniform Echo”, ~99% Full
Seat: 20F
Flight Time: 1h5m

After a morning up in the Napa area, we headed back down to Oakland for our flight home. We dropped our car off at the rental car center and went to the terminal. (Note: Fox Rent a Car tells us that a PT Cruiser is anywhere from an Economy to a Mid Size, so don’t bother renting a Mid Size from these guys - you’ll pay more for the same car.)

The terminal was empty, and we walked all the way down to the JetBlue counters to print out our boarding passes from the kiosks. Then we walked all the way back to the entrance for security screening. (This is why I love common-use kiosks - they’re much more conveniently located.) Security was empty, and I sailed through. My fiancee, however, got stopped for some reason. They looked through her bag, found nothing, and she was on her way. Then we just waited in the terminal which seems to have every single eatery and shop under renovation right now.

I’m not sure why, but our flight didn’t board until 15 minutes before departure. It had been sitting there for awhile, so that wasn’t the reason. The nearly full flight (the seat next to us was the only empty seat I saw) boarded very quickly, and the flight attendants thanked us for helping them get back on schedule. We pushed just about on time, maybe a couple minutes late.

It was a beautifully clear weekend in the Bay Area, and we shot up into the sky for one of my favorite departure views. Just a few seconds after getting airborne, the pilot came on and said while he usually didn’t speak this early in the flight, we had received a gift. The controllers had granted our request for an aerial tour of the Bay Area before we headed on our way. I had done this once on an America West flight out of SFO but never out of Oakland.

So, he leveled off at 3,000 ft and stayed around 220 kts (according to FlightAware) as we looped around the City. Unfortunately, I was on the right side so my views were primarily of the East Bay, Angel Island, and Marin. Up above you can see the view of the new Bay Bridge under construction. And below you can see Treasure Island. The old Pan Am flying boats used to come and go in the area at the bottom of the picture.

Once our tour was through, we were on our way. I watched tv and enjoyed watching the vast Pacific out the window as we headed south. After the drinks had been served, a flight attendant came on and asked that everyone who had a soda can take the pull tab off and hand it to her. She personally collects the pull tabs to donate to her local Ronald McDonald House, and they apparently get a penny for each one they turn in. That was a really nice gesture, and apparently she does this all on her own. Another flight attendant said JetBlue had given her an award for it.

We soon started descending. On my side, I could see glimpses of the Channel Islands and Catalina through the holes in the thin marine layer. We swung around and landed in LGB right on time, but only after touching down closer to the middle of the runway than the beginning. Glad they built that thing for long haul Douglas jets - there was plenty of room. Since we were in the back, we got off on the rear stairs and walked on the tarmac into the terminal and then straight to the curb.

It was a great trip, highlighted by the ease of flying out of LGB. As much as I like trying other airlines when I can, it’s hard to justify doing that when JetBlue can fly me up to the Bay Area out of LGB. I’ll be back again soon.

JetBlue’s Green Initiative Means Only One Change You’ll Notice

CF — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:41:21 +0000

Last week, JetBlue announced its new green initiative called “Jetting to Green.” A lot of it appears to be an effort to put together a nice little PR package of things they already do. I wrote about the details over on BNET, but there was one thing that I wanted to point out because it will change the customer experience.

You know those crappy disposable headsets that they used to hand out? The ones that you couldn’t hear anything from even if you pressed them uncomfortably close to your ear? Those are toast. Oh, the airline will still offer the upgraded headsets for $1, but if you don’t have that kind of big money, then you’re on your own. No, this really isn’t much of a loss, but it’s something to keep in mind for your next JetBlue flight (mine happens to be this weekend). A JetBlue spokesman tells me that they went through about 20 million free headsets last year. That’ll be a nice little cost savings for them.

And that’s really about it regarding the whole “green” thing from the customer experience perspective. Oh sure, they talked about not having an inflight magazine to save the environment, but, uh, they’ve never had one. So that’s not a change. Again, it’s mostly just bundling it up for PR purposes, and as I said a couple weeks ago, that’s smart for them to be proactive here. But for you, well, you might be able to win a Prius, but that’s about the only major change you’ll notice.

Quick Fuel Check

CF — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:37:29 +0000

The price of fuel continues to rise, but I don’t think it’s easy for most people to really grasp how devastating this is, because it’s rarely put in normal terms. $125 a barrel? What the heck does that mean in reality? JetBlue, when they pulled out of LAX before even starting, gave us a number to work with. They say that it now costs more than $15,000 to fly a plane across the country. So let’s do a little math.

Each A320 they fly has 150 seats. Let’s say they fly with 85% of their seats filled on average. That means 127 seats are filled. If you take that $15,000 cost and divide it over 127 people, each person has to fork over $118 each way just to cover fuel.

Seriously. Remember those days of $99 each way across the country? That wouldn’t even cover fuel these days. And that $15,000 estimate came out when fuel was lower than it is now. If you find a low fare, be thankful. They’re going to continue to become more scarce.

Random Bits of Info - What I Missed in the Domestic World

CF — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:33:35 +0000

Hey everyone. I made it back from Peru yesterday morning, and let’s just say it’s going to be a VERY busy end to the week. I hope you enjoyed the guest posts while I was gone, and hopefully we’ll get both Henry and Benet to return at some point in the near future. I think I’m going to spend the rest of this week catching up on snippets of what happened while I was gone. You’ll see more in depth discussion about my trip which included new airlines, airports, and airplanes, starting on Monday. For now, let’s see what I missed while I was away.

Continental Tells United to F*&# Off - This was a welcome surprise, I must say. Continental decided that it won’t be merging with United or anyone else for that matter. That left United to go lick its wounds and see if US Airways would come out and play. Meanwhile, Continental, not exactly thrilled at the prospect of playing second fiddle to DL/NW in SkyTeam has started looking elsewhere as well, including a possible oneworld membership.

Eos Won’t See Another Dawn - Just before I left, Eos quietly disappeared from the skies. This one is a little bittersweet for me, because I actually worked with the founder back in 2003 as he was just getting this idea off the ground. I always believed in the idea, but it was going to be tough to succeed even with fuel prices at lower levels. With fuel where it is, the only funding available appears to have been from foreign sources and that wouldn’t have worked with existing foreign ownership rules.

Virgin America Pumps Up the Frequency - You know I’ve been strongly against Virgin America’s strategy of entering highly competitive markets with low frequencies. Well it looks like the airline has finally realized that’s a bad idea. Business travelers will see a more frequent flight schedule on transcontinental routes as well as Seattle to SFO. While I still think these are bound to lose a ton of money with fuel where it is, it’s still the right strategy (except for that SFO-SEA route), if there is such a thing for them at this point.

JetBlue Goes Ex-LAX - While Virgin America builds up, JetBlue walks away. The airline now says it will “delay” its new LAX service. The airline says fuel is too expensive, but you know that also means revenue isn’t where they wanted it to be. It must have been really bad to cancel this service within a few weeks of it starting. This is of course good for Virgin America, but it also shows how hard this market is. Congrats to JetBlue for not being afraid to walk away.

Alaska Throws Down with Virgin America - Alaska, meanwhile, is not going to throw Virgin America a bone at all. Right after Virgin said it would beef up flights between SFO and Seattle, Alaska said it would do the same. Oh, and how about some double miles on the route? This looks like a losing battle for Virgin America, but Alaska’s going to bleed in the process.

Southwest Turns the Knife Further - Fresh off the latest round of Denver increases, Southwest is at it again. On August 4, the airline will start nonstops to Ft Lauderdale, New Orleans, and Sacramento. You’ll also find another daily nonstop to Phoenix. The good news for Frontier? Um, well, they don’t fly to New Orleans, so, uh, that’s good, right? Also, in unrelated Southwest news. If you haven’t seen Southwest’s new blog setup, check it out. The airline continues to be leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else.

That’s all for today. You can expect an international edition of what I missed tomorrow. Then I’ll have more on Peru next week.

JetBlue Won’t Let You Use Credits Online

CF — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:06:18 +0000

My fiancee and I were supposed to fly JetBlue in February, but our trip plans changed. I had them move the fare amount into a credit, minus the change fee, knowing I’d use it some other day.

That day came this week, and guess what? Using your credit on JetBlue isn’t very easy. In fact, you can’t do it at all online unless you sign up for a frequent flier account. That’s really annoying and probably Cranky Jackass material. For some reason, I’m feeling benevolent today and will just let them off with a stern finger-wagging (and a post for all my readers to see).

So what happened? Well, I found the flights, filled out my information, and then went to the payment screen. Here’s what it showed me.

Um, so how do I use that credit again? Clearly it’s not a voucher - I don’t have a “voucher code” or anything like that. This is a credit, and there’s no way to use it. So, I called up reservations and asked what to do. That’s when I found out that, well, you can’t do it unless you’re a TrueBlue frequent flier program member.

What? That seemed ridiculous, but sure enough, you can’t use your credit online unless you sign up for an account. Then, they’ll transfer your credit into that account, and the payment-by-credit option will come up.

Personally, I didn’t want to join TrueBlue, so what could I do? Well, I could book it on the phone, but they charge $10 more per ticket to do that. It seems very United-like to charge someone to do something over the phone even though it’s not possible on the internet. So, I broke down and created a TrueBlue account. If they start spamming me, I’ll have to consider forwarding the emails to random JetBlue addresses.

For this, JetBlue, you suck. Please fix it. (Or maybe I should be pleading with your reservation system provider. Is it still Navitaire?)

JetBlue to Charge for More Legroom

CF — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:45:41 +0000

You could have seen this one coming from miles away. As of April 1, JetBlue will begin charging if you want to sit in those seats with extra legroom up front. My reaction? I can’t believe it’s taken them this long.

Usually, airlines try to carve out reasons to charge more for a variety of things, but rarely is there a true benefit to the traveler. In this case, you get more legroom so you should absolutely should pay more. They say that the price will start at $10 for a short haul. A quick check of Long Beach - JFK shows that they’ll charge $20 for that route, so you can expect the price to fall within that range.

There’s actually a lot more that’s going into this plan than just slapping a price tag on some seats. They’re actually going to reconfigure the aircraft. Now, only rows 2 through 5, 10, and 11 will have extra legroom. Everything else will be standardized at 34″. Oh, and this only includes the A320. The Embraers will not see any change, and only the single exit row will have more legroom for more money.

So why are they doing this change on the A320? They must not think there are enough people to pay for all those seats with 36″ in front of the wing. So, rows 1 and 6 through 9 will go down from 36″ to 34″ allowing rows 2 through 5 to move up to 38″. Rows 10 and 11 always were at 38″ since they’re exit rows. Make sense? Yeah, I thought not. Take a look at this chart I put together showing the history of JetBlue’s A320 configurations.

Better?

Now there are 36 seats on the A320 and 4 on the Embraer 190 that offer 4 extra inches of legroom for $10 to $20 per flight. Remember, even regular coach seats on JetBlue have 2 to 3″ more legroom than most other airlines do in coach. So, is it worth it? I think I’d probably pay it for the long haul trip but not on a short haul. What does everyone think?

By the way, it only takes 14 man hours to reconfigure the airplane, so these will all be completed in the next couple of days. If you fly between now and the end of the month, consider it a bonus that you get great legroom for no extra money.

Edited @ 944a on 3/20: Picture updated with correct seat count along with further description