JetBlue's World View

I actually like JetBlue, in spite of some of the annoying experiences I've had with them. But when they capitulate to O'Reilly in one of his campaigns to rile up the rubes, that makes me wonder. Here's the communication I've had with them on this matter.

I first emailed the following:

I was extremely disappointed to hear of your company's behavior in the Bill O'Reilly/Daily Kos affair. Although I'm not a regular reader of Daily Kos, the fact that you would validate O'Reilly's inflamatory statements takes you beyond the pale for me.

I have been a regular flier of JetBlue for the past year (TrueBlue number XXXXXX), but, now I will be use different carriers whenever possible. I find it fortunate that Virgin is just beginning its service from SFO.

They didn't respond.

I then emailed:

As someone who has flown your airline cross-country over six times in the past year (and who didn't complain once after being stuck on the runway for four hours at JFK), I thought I'd get some kind of reply ...

To that, I got the following response, with the subject "Accurate Information from JetBlue Airways":

Dear Peter,

This situation has been misrepresented from every angle. Our formal
statement is below and the
information is the same whether people support DailyKos or not. We are
an airline and are not
involved in ANY political activities as a company.

"We have been surprised and disappointed that the donation of JetBlue
travel (10 tickets total) to a
bloggers convention has been misinterpreted as support and/or agreement
with a politically centered
website we have absolutely no connection with. As a company we take no
stand on any political issues
save those directly related to air transportation issues.

From my personal perspective the issue is quite straightforward. Our
marketing team made a decision
to donate 10 airline tickets to an annual convention of bloggers.
JetBlue was one of 23 groups to
donate items and thus 'sponsor' the YearlyKos convention. JetBlue will
have no presence at the
conference or any other involvement with the YearlyKos event. We have
NO INVOLVEMENT with DailyKos
or anything said or represented on that or any other non-company
website.

Our workforce of roughly 11,000 consists of a huge variety of
backgrounds and belief systems. I was
personally completely unaware of the existence of DailyKos prior to
news connecting the YearlyKos
convention and thus our airline ticket donation to DailyKos. I
personally have never condoned and
abhor anything hateful towards anyone and am fully confident that
JetBlue's crewmembers share this
view.

We certainly hope that the sweeping generalizations connecting JetBlue
to a political stand will be
recognized as exaggeration and with no basis in fact.

Dave Barger
JetBlue President and CEO "

Regards,

Sharon Evans
Specialist, Corporate Customer Support
Customer Commitment Crew
JetBlue Airways

This struck me as a fairly angry reply, which makes me think JetBlue may want to hire a new PR firm. I responded:

Sharon,

Your official statement, which you pasted below, strongly implies that
DailyKos is a hate site, when it is actually a very mainstream,
progressive blog. Don't you see the problem with validating that type
of statement from one side of the political spectrum? Whether you say
you are or not, you are, in effect, adopting the radical right position
in this matter. It certainly makes me uncomfortable flying with
JetBlue.

Thanks for your response.

No response so far to this latest sally.