ATTENTION: No JetBlue coupons for delays caused by labor unrest!

Mark Ashley, friend of the blog and travel expert extraordinaire, is not impressed with JetBlue’s new “bill of rights.” Here’s why:

If problems could be blamed — even in part — on anything uncontrollable, such as the weather, they wouldn’t owe you ANYTHING. That has now been codified:

“Controllable Irregularity as used in Section 36, means a delay, cancellation or diversion that is not caused by a Force Majeure Event. For the sake of clarity, if in a chain of multiple events, the original irregularity is due to a Force Majeure Event, the cause of the subsequent event(s) reasonably related to the original irregularity shall be deemed an Uncontrollable Irregularity.”

So by my reading of this, the passengers who were stuck on the taxiways at JFK for hours last month would have been eligible to receive… NOTHING.

Them’s fightin’ words, Mark. Here’s a link to JetBlue’s new Contract of Carriage (PDF) for all of you lawyers and wannabe lawyers to gnaw on for a while. —MEGHANN MARCO

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