JetBlue could and should be doing more to mitigate the operational fallout from events such as bad weather and air traffic control staffing shortages, the union representing its pilots said.
In a Labor Day message to members, Wayne Scales, head of the JetBlue pilots segment at ALPA, said he and other members of the Master Executive Council are urging the airline to take steps to prevent flight delays from spiraling into large-scale service interruptions.
“Claiming summer operations have been challenging is a massive understatement,” Scales said. “This summer took a toll with long days, repeated disruptions, and too much seemingly preventable chaos.”
ALPA provided a copy of the message to AirlineGeeks on Tuesday.
According to Scales, delays and cancellations have been made worse by the very systems meant to control and resolve such issues. Pilots have had to contend with delayed scheduled modifications, some of which make little operational sense and fail to comply with the terms of their collective bargaining agreements, he said. Other persistent problems include lack of accommodations during difficult stretches and long wait times on calls to crew services.
“Management is responsible for recovering the airline from disruptions,” Scales said. “They must also take responsibility for deteriorating employee morale and the waning confidence our pilots have in the way the company is run. The MEC has sounded this alarm with senior management in response to this summer’s abysmal performance, we’ve had straightforward and open dialogue about the concerns of our pilots, and we’ve called on them to provide you a clear and comprehensive action plan.”
Scales acknowledged that weather conditions and ATC staffing levels are outside the control of any carrier but argued that JetBlue still has a responsibility to deal with those events in a way that lessens the impact on crews and passengers.
“Storms and air traffic constraints will happen; no airline can fully eliminate operational disruptions,” he said. “What management can control is how prepared JetBlue is to respond – and how effectively it recovers.”
JetBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Scales’ remarks but told Reuters earlier this week that it undertook extensive preparations for the summer travel season.
“The unpredictability of weather and air traffic control constraints makes it significantly harder to plan ahead and can cause disruptions to compound quickly,” the carrier said. “This is exacerbated for JetBlue given our outsized footprint in the Northeast.”
Airlines across the country have faced challenges from inclement weather and air traffic control staffing shortages this summer, but both issues have been particularly acute in the Northeast. JetBlue has hubs at New York-JFK and Boston and serves other large, medium, and small airports across the region.
ALPA has publicly criticized JetBlue when weather and controller problems caused complications for member pilots and customers. In a statement released July 20, Scales said the airline’s scheduling system experienced an outage during a spate of severe storms.
“JetBlue management claims that they are working to stabilize the airline and build consumer trust only to have these systems collapse week after week, weather incident after weather incident,” he said at the time.
JetBlue and ALPA are currently negotiating a new contract. The pilots’ current agreement became amendable in February 2025.
