Update (Mar 11, 2005): This post has been made redundant by yesterday's announcement that
Jetsgo is going bankrupt, effectively immediately. What a shocker.
Warning: Self-Indulgent Complaining Ahead - read at your own peril (of wasting time)
Adversity can happen to any company, and more specifically, bad weather can happen to any airline. What sets companies/airlines apart is their ability to manage these situations. Now, if you'd asked me a couple of days ago about how I rated Air Canada or Westjet on dealing with bad weather / delays, I probably would have rated them about average, with reasonably high marks for minimizing the length of the delay and somewhat lower marks for their communication and attitude during the situation (especially Air Canada).
But after my experience
1 yesterday with Jetsgo, and keeping in mind that it's all relative, I would now have to re-classify Air Canada and Westjet as Avatars of Adaptability, the Royalty of Resourcefulness, and Caliphs of Communication.
Now, it would be unrealistic for me to claim that I'm never booking with Jestgo again, since I'm not a rich man, and if the price difference was big enough, I'd take my chances. What I will say, is that from now on, I will apply a $200 premium (return) to any Jetsgo flights ($125 one way). That is how much they'll have to beat Westjet/Air Canada's price before I'll fly with them, and I recommend to anyone reading this, that if they have a choice between similarly priced Jetsgo and competitor flights, don't pick Jetsgo.
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1 My flight was originally scheduled to leave at 2:30 but was delayed 5 hours for the weather (which is fair enough - they even gave us $7 vouchers to buy a meal with). A few hours later it was cancelled, the only flight out of Vancouver that day which was cancelled. No explanation was offerred and in fact it took over 2 hours for me to get any information at all (after being told to wait for an announcement which was never made, having to line up in the general check-in line to ask a question only to be told I needed to line up in the comfort plus line to ask a question, and waiting an hour in that line to be told that there were no seats left on any flights that day and being booked on a flight this morning, leaving at 8:55 (since delayed to 2:15)). At no time did anyone from Jetsgo give me the impression that were particularly sorry about the delay/cancellation or volunteer any information whatsoever. It even took over half an hour for them to get the luggage back out, mainly because there was a jam which nobody noticed until people asked what was up with the luggage taking so long. I guess we'll see how things go today, they've still got two flights (there and back) left to try and repair the damage they've done so far.
Update: Well, my flight on the 24th ended up leaving after 5 and arriving just after midnight on Christmas morning. Somebody must have said something because everyone at Jestgo seemed to be trying a lot harder today and we were offerred $100 discounts of our next (we'll see about that) Jetsgo flight. Still, it was strange that they seemed so apologetic about the flight being delayed from 9am to 5pm, but still didn't have anything to say about the people who were supposed to leave the day before but were strung along for hours before being sent home.
The flight back was (thankfully) pretty uneventful (only 1/2 hour late). Given that my $100 discount isn't the same as real cash, I'm only going to reduce my premium by $75. So my next flight will be Jestgo if it's $50 cheaper one way or $125 cheaper return. After that trip (if it happens), I'll reevaluate.
Labels: consumer affairs, jetsgo, on a personal note
