JetBlue halts flights to avoid deja vu

Twelve days after a winter storm plunged JetBlue Airways Corp. into chaos, the upstart carrier took no chances with yesterday's snowfall, scrubbing more than 65 flights out of its New York base and other cities -- including two from Boston -- in hopes of escaping a repeat disaster.

By last evening, it appeared JetBlue's strategy was paying off in keeping the airline on track to return to normal operations today. Scores of passengers, meanwhile, were getting free flights and flight coupons under the Passenger Bill of Rights that JetBlue adopted last week to assuage outraged customers.

The first storm, on Feb. 14, which came two days before the busy school vacation week, plunged JetBlue into nearly a week of cascading schedule disruptions. The airline, which usually runs 505 to 570 flights a day, wound up canceling close to 1,100 in the six days after the storm as it desperately tried to get back on track.

"We learned the hard lessons from Feb. 14th," a JetBlue spokeswoman, Jenny Dervin, said last night. "We are 100 percent optimistic that not only will we be back to normal [today], but we will have aircraft where we need them and flight crews where we need them to start operations, unless for any reason the weather changes again."

Dervin said that over 90 percent of people JetBlue called Sunday to tell them their flights yesterday were being cancelled rebooked later flights with JetBlue, and "we take that as a vote of confidence."

JetBlue's woes earlier this month stemmed in part from its efforts to stick to its schedule flying from its base at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Planes were stuck on the tarmac at Kennedy for up to 10 hours and finally sent back to the gate when snow failed, as forecast, to switch back to rain and allow them to take off.

When JetBlue flights from New York didn't arrive at their next city on schedule -- and with a crush of vacationers needing to rebook -- what ensued was a self-perpetuating string of flight delays and cancellations that took days to unsnarl. Yesterday, about 4 inches of snow fell on New York, causing several airlines to cancel flights.

At Logan yesterday, airport spokesman Phil Orlandella said, "It wasn't really bad at all. Nothing like the lines we had last week. We had a lot of delays of 20 to 30 minutes, mostly because of conditions at other airports."

Logan never had to close down for snow removal, Orlandella added .

Delta Air Lines Inc. cancelled about 30 of its 110 Delta and Delta Connection flights out of Boston yesterday, including afternoon flights to Kennedy, Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, and Reagan National in Washington, D.C., said a spokeswoman, Gina P. Laughlin.

A US Airways spokesman, Philip Gee, said the airline had no cancellations at Logan because of weather, but three because of crew and maintenance problems. Late yesterday, Gee said, flights in and out of Boston were averaging 33 minutes late, which often happens during evening rush hours regardless of weather.

One flight on which JetBlue passengers were collecting rebates and credits because of the Bill of Rights was a late night flight Sunday from New York to Raleigh, N.C., that spent 3 1/2 hours on the tarmac before weather finally forced the flight to be cancelled at 2:45 a.m .

Passengers on that flight got a $100 voucher for a future flight, plus either a full refund or free rebooking on another Raleigh flight, Dervin said.

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.