Jet Blue and the Miracle Worker

From the get go, I knew this was going to be a long day.

I signed on to JetBlue.com at 7:30 this morning (3/15) to secure seats for my wife, 2 kids, and I for our flight back from Florida to Boston. It was the end of a perfect week in the Florida Keys and the thought of returning to cold, wet weather was depressing enough.

Until I saw our flight status.

Our 6:45pm flight had already been delayed until 9:37pm. And when I tried to select seats for the 4 of us, we ended up scattered across the entire length of the plane, no two seats together. Not good when travelling with a 14- and 11-year old.
When we arrived at the Fort Lauderdale airport, we checked in at the full service counter, mainly to check bags but to also inquire about flights leaving earlier than ours. But I already knew from speaking with JetBlue’s reservation staff over the phone that all flights were full. Still, we wanted to give it a shot.

Eric was the agent behind the counter who listened to our story. He was sympathetic but gave us the same bad news; all earlier flights were full. I then asked if he could at least try to find seating where the four of us were closer together. Eric checked his monitor, typed in a few things, checked the monitor again, then looked up and said “You’re going to think I’m a miracle worker”.

He then proceeded to print and hand me four boarding passes, all of them side by side in Row 1. I just looked at him and nodded “yes, you are indeed a miracle worker!”.

Talk about turning a bad day to good! Eric had found a way through one simple gesture to make a difficult situation a little more bearable for us. And you know what? It worked!

The service industry needs more Eric’s out there; people willing to work small miracles every so often to remind the rest of us that they care about our business!

Want to read more about Jet Blue's focus on the customer? Check out the latest Service Untitled blog at http://tinyurl.com/yeque3j