JetBlue Blames Airport Construction for Late Flights. Um, No

(MoneyWatch)  For the last few months, JetBlue (JBLU) has joined Southwest at the bottom of the on-time rankings. The excuse that we often hear is that JetBlue has a higher percentage of flights at congested airports in the northeast, but the numbers don't show that to be the problem. Now, JetBlue is blaming construction projects for the delay, but I'm not so sure.

In November 2010, the latest month available, JetBlue averaged to get a mere 79.1 percent of its flights to the gate within 15 minutes of arrival. This is below the 83.2 percent industry average by a fair chunk. To put that into perspective, if JetBlue had operated at the industry standard, it would have had nearly 23 additional flights go on time each day.

I asked JetBlue why it was sitting at the bottom of the heap, and I received this bland statement:

At JetBlue, executing a reliable and on-time schedule for our Customers is very important. Our business model differs from other airlines in many ways, most notably in our geographic concentration in the congested markets of New York and Boston and in our point to point network strategy where the majority of our Customers travel nonstop. These factors, along with our focus on completing as many flights as possible, ensuring luggage travels with our Customers, and placing Customer service first, may occasionally result in JetBlue's on-time ranking fluctuating on a month to month basis.

It's one thing to expect "fluctuating" on time performance, but this is hardly a fluctuation. JetBlue has been at the bottom for several months straight. Besides, when you look at New York and Boston, the numbers don't agree.

In November, JFK ran an 84.5 percent on time operation. JetBlue was at 82.6 percent, the lowest of all reporting airlines except for Comair, which operates for Delta. In Boston, the contrast was even starker. The airport saw 80.3 percent of flights on time, but JetBlue was dead last with only 75.7 percent arriving on time. I went back to JetBlue and asked for more info.

For JFK, JetBlue pointed me to the reconstruction of one of the airport's runways. Though the runways are reopened, there were still delays due to related work until Thanksgiving weekend. But that still doesn't say anything. A runway issue impacts all airlines, so that shouldn't have pushed JetBlue to the bottom of the pack. It looks, however, like we've found a more legitimate answer in Boston.

In [Boston], the TSA check-points realignment construction project resulted in gate closures in our terminal area, which also impacted our operating performance.

That would certainly have an impact on JetBlue in its terminal at Boston and not on other big operators there. So is it possible that problems in Boston flowed throughout the system to cause JetBlue to fall to the bottom of the pack? It's certainly possible since JetBlue now has a very substantial operation in Boston. But I won't be convinced until we see JetBlue start climbing the rankings now that the construction is done.

It's easy to blame things on external factors, but until those are gone, we won't know for sure if that's the real reason or if there's something else going on at JetBlue that keeps causing this poor performance.

Related:

• JetBlue and Others See Higher Complaints in March
• Complaints Go Down as On Time Percentage Rises
• United Most On-Time for 2009? Count Us Skeptical

Photo via Wikimedia Commons user Michael Gray/CC-BY-SA-2.0