Though not strictly business or stock related, the following insights into jetBlue's emergency landing last night were too interesting not to pass along:
Well, it finally happened. Passengers on the JetBlue A320 that landed with a cocked nosewheel in America yesterday were able to watch live TV coverage of themselves during virtually the whole incident. Fittingly enough this quintessentially 21st century event took place in the entertainment capital of the world - Los Angeles.
For sheer in-flight weirdness this probably exceeds even the September 1995 incident in which passengers on a Northwest Airlines DC-10 watched in bemusement on seatback maps as the aircraft flew to Brussels and landed instead of Frankfurt as planned, with the pilots, who had no access to the seatback system, essentially lost.
On JetBlue, passengers were watching themselves courtesy of the seatback LiveTV service - a satellited-based system which the airline itself operates through a wholly-owned subsidiary that it was forced to acquire to prevent its probable commercial failure three years ago.
Staff of NBC television who happened to be on the aircraft reported that the system was switched off only 3-4 minutes before landing, along with other electrical systems. So it seems that JetBlue doesn't share the concerns of other airlines who have long insisted that news progamming provided on board aircraft is doctored to remove anxiety-inducing coverage of aviation safety.
That is funny. I was in Houston trying to watch Rita coverage (b.c there wasn't enough of THAT) when we saw the jetBlue story. Not having jetBlue in Houston, I was interested in hearing their story: how long they'd been around, what their planes are like, etc.
When they mentioned that every seat had a TV screen on the back, I said to my coworker, "God, I hope they aren't watching THIS." Ha.
Posted by: jen | September 24, 2005 at 12:50 AM