Checkpoint: Meltdown at Jet Blue

March 8, 2012

Amir Herschberg

This checkpoint will describe the meltdown at Jet Blue, my thoughts on the issues and what I would have done differently.

Until Valentine’s Day of 2007 Jet Blue was a success story, but with the occurrence of that storm it showed Jet Blues true colors and unveiled their horrible and outdated IT systems. What happened was simply this Jet Blue managers kept their planes full of customers on the tarmac in hopes to wait out the storm. The storm had other plans, after 11 hours of waiting on the planes customers were bused to their terminals which were filled with other irate customers. Jet Blues melt down and IT happened right after that. Here is what happened, the customers wanted to obviously want to change their flight but could not because Jet Blue didn’t offer that feature unless the customer called customer service. So that is exactly what they did but Jet Blue didn’t have an adequate enough system or staff to handle the call load. Furthermore Jet Blue didn’t have a luggage tracking system this caused even more problems for the customers the staff and Jet Blue. This is a great example of not upgrading an IT system to accommodate stakeholders and being more focused on the present not the future and how IT can help. This meltdown cost Jet Blue over thirty million dollars and a CEO, but it also forced them to make the changes that they so desperately needed.

What I would have done differently is put the stakeholder’s interest first, and develop a system around them and the enterprise. Using critical thinking and thinking outside of the box would have shown what needed to be upgraded. Staying current with IT and investing in the future will be very cost effective and will prevent the scenario that happened to Jet Blue to another company.