Nearly six years ago, there was a fantastic article in Inc. Magazine about how JetBlue's CEO and founder, David Neeleman, regularly worked on flights as a flight attendant to better connect with JetBlue customers and understand what they needed. It's really a tremendous article -- and it wasn't initiated by a PR push, but by a reporter who just happened to be on one of those flights and experienced the whole thing first hand. It's really an amazing story of customer service, something that JetBlue had a strong reputation for in the early days. I experienced a lot of that first hand as I flew JetBlue pretty often. However, a few years ago, things changed, culminating in the infamous JetBlue "Valentine's Day Massacre" of ridiculously bad customer service on a busy day, which is now a Harvard Business School case study. While I wasn't there, a separate incident around that time (involving getting stuck at the landing gate and unable to get out of the gate area for 45 minutes -- yes on landing, not departure -- due to overcrowding) had me switch to other airlines.

Neeleman insisted that he would fix the problems, but he didn't get the chance. Just a few months later he was pushed out, and many people warned that this was a massive mistake, because he was being replaced by operational people who didn't have the passion to fix JetBlue like Neeleman did. It seems like this has happened.

The company recently switched to a new reservation system, and it's been a huge mess according to a bunch of folks who regularly fly JetBlue. Worst of all, the switchover basically screwed over JetBlue's most loyal customers, changing the terms of their rewards offerings (expiring their points in one year, rather than letting them last forever if you had a JetBlue AmEx) and also telling those TrueBlue members they could no longer redeem frequent flyer passes using the website. Instead, they had to call. Yes, the airline that pioneered pushing flyers to use the website rather than call has gone the other direction.

And guess what a mess that caused? A good friend of mine who regularly flies JetBlue (at least once a month) wanted to redeem a "TruePass" for an upcoming trip, and after discovering that the website could no longer do it, she called and was told that hold times were 60 minutes or more. So she waited. And was then was disconnected by JetBlue customer service twice -- once on purpose after she asked for the customer service representative's name, and that representative apparently didn't want to give it out. So, in response, my friend emailed in a complaint to JetBlue, and JetBlue's response was: we're too busy to look at your email or help you. Seriously:

Dear A,

Thank you for contacting JetBlue Airways regarding your TrueBlue account. JetBlue has just completed transitioning to a new reservation system and as a result, the TrueBlue help desk is currently receiving a high volume of email and can no longer accept them at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience.

The email then pointed her to the JetBlue website, though it again noted that "Old TrueBlue points that appear in your online account summary can not be booked through jetblue.com. To book Award travel using these old points, please call us at 1-800-JETBLUE." Of course, that was exactly what she was complaining about.

Apparently JetBlue has decided that helping its most loyal customers is too much trouble. Sorry. Too busy. From the airline that pioneered friendly airline customer service to this... in just a few years time is really quite a travesty.

Prior to 9/11, there was a lot of effort being put into plans for internet access from airplanes. However, the resulting turmoil in the airline industry put all of those plans on hold. In the end, that may have been a good thing, as the early technology was both expensive and clunky, and only a few generations later are we starting to see technology that is both affordable to install and use showing up. In the last few months, we've seen more and more stories about WiFi in the sky, with the latest one being that Continental is about to start offering live TV and WiFi, similar to a few other airlines. Having just flown on Continental on an excruciatingly long trip to Europe and back, I'd say that having internet access and live TV would have made the flights much more enjoyable.

What's really interesting here, though, is that Continental is turning to competitor JetBlue to provide the service. We were among those surprised when JetBlue bought some available spectrum for air-to-ground internet access. Like many, we had suspected that it would go to a service provider that would provide a generic service to any airline that wanted it. But, with JetBlue winning the bid, it opened up questions about whether the company would hoard the opportunity as a differentiator for its own flights. Apparently not. If JetBlue can succeed in outfitting other airlines, it could represent a useful side-business for the company -- even if it diminishes some of JetBlue's own competitive advantage. Of course, given that a new study has suggested that WiFi-in-the-sky really isn't a huge selling point, perhaps this makes sense. Basically, people are saying that it's a nice-to-have rather than a need-to-have. In other words, it's unlikely to bring that much new business directly to JetBlue, but if JetBlue can make it available on lots of other airlines, people would be happy using it.

The New York Times says that several airlines are testing in-flight Internet services. JetBlue will apparently be offering free, but crippled service that includes only email and instant messaging. And Crunchgear suggests it will be even more crippled than that: only Yahoo! and BlackBerry-based mail and IM will be supported. For a lot of travelers (including me) that will be completely useless, although I guess something is better than nothing. At the opposite extreme, American (along with Alaska Air) is reportedly working on full-featured Internet access that will allow you to use the applications of your choice, but it will apparently cost around $10. The Times also notes the most intriguing possibility for this service: that Internet access may mean the ability to make VoIP-based phone calls. It's not clear that the Internet connection will be good enough to make phone calls practical initially, but as technology advances, it's only a matter of time before there's enough bandwidth to make calls practical.

The Times calls this a "pitfall" and says that American won't permit Internet-based phone calls. But I have trouble imagining that ban sticking. Once it becomes technologically feasible to make calls, it will be extremely difficult for airlines to enforce a no-calls rule. There's no automated way to block phone calls, and stewardesses will have a difficult time policing the activities of dozens of passengers. The only way it would work is if the caller's neighbor was willing to rat him out, and I suspect that fellow passengers are a lot more opposed to the idea of cell phones on airplanes in the abstract than they would be about an actual cell phone caller in the seat next to them. After all, cell phone calls are commonplace on buses and trains, and while they're occasionally annoying, they're no more annoying than a loud real-life conversation or a crying baby. There's no groundswell of support for banning cell phone calls on public transit, despite the fact that the annoyance factor is exactly the same. One possibility is that we'd see different airlines cater to different customers, with some airlines aggressively prohibiting airplane-based phone calls and others allowing them. My guess is that business travelers, who generate a disproportionate share of airline revenues, will find the ability to get work done on the airplane to be worth the minor inconvenience of occasionally having to listen to a neighbor's phone call, and so airlines that permit calls will be more profitable.