Bert Caldwell: JetBlue asks dreaded question: What just happened?

Retired Col. Joseph Moore Jr. will not fly JetBlue Airways.

Now a partner in Signet Research & Consulting out of Steilacoom, Wash., Moore says one bad experience was enough to put him back on more established carriers who could get him where he needed to go on time.

Kind of a radical notion as airline on-time performance is getting worse, not better. Maybe Moore expects too much.

Low-cost carriers like JetBlue are cheap for a reason, says Washington State University Professor Dogan Gursoy, who researches satisfaction with travel experiences. In the case of flying, satisfaction may mean fresh peanuts.

JetBlue’s service meltdown on Valentine’s Day was the result of misplaced priorities, says Moore, who spoke Tuesday to Leadership Connection. His topic, “What Just Happened?” must have been on the lips of JetBlue Chief Executive Officer David Neeleman two weeks ago.

In a business as complicated as moving passengers from one side of the country to the other, Moore says, attention must be paid to more than low fares.

“How do you keep people on a plane on the tarmac for 10 hours?” he asked, referring to the most awe-inspiring example of brain freeze at JetBlue, which cancelled more than 1,000 flights over a six-day period.

Moore and associate retired Lt. Col. Mark Pires promote a U.S. Army process of analyzing events called “After Action Review.” They determine what went right, what went wrong, what changes should be made, and who should be responsible for making sure they happen.

The reviews have become second nature to the Army since the process was adopted 24 years ago, Moore said. Although implementation was ugly early on, the reviews now help leaders from the squad level and up identify and correct mistakes before they get out of hand.

Moore’s former regiment, for example, mimicked Russian tank tactics to act as a foil for other units in training. When the Iraq war started, his 3,000 men and women made a transition to an insurgent-style force in half the six months expected, overcoming some of his own mistakes in the process, he says. The reviews were critical to that success.

That kind of review was overdue at JetBlue when snow and ice hit John F. Kennedy International Airport on Feb. 14, Moore says.

JetBlue was not the only airline disrupted by the weather that hit the East Coast two weeks ago. But the systemic chaos that had passengers clawing at employees was especially notable because JetBlue had built a reputation in its brief history on creditable customer service from employees who appreciated their patronage.

JetBlue’s name was gold among airline passengers.

Since its first flight Feb. 11, 2001 – almost exactly six years prior to meltdown – the low-fare carrier had collected some of the most prestigious awards for airline service. BusinessWeek magazine was poised to rank JetBlue fourth for customer service in its March 5 issue. Let’s just say the article turned out differently.

Gursoy says JetBlue may have been the victim of low expectations.

Flier opinion of the airline was high, he said, because people demand so little of low-cost carriers. Many were willing to overlook even unreasonable delays and peanut snacks as part of the bargain for a cheap ticket. Ten hours was way past reasonable.

But as JetBlue tries to restore its reputation with a new customer-rights plan, rebates and almost over-the-top conciliatory comments from Neeleman, Gursoy warns that the carrier must avoid setting the bar for performance too high.

If customers start to expect the same level of service from JetBlue they receive from other carriers – how high a threshold could that be? – the airline will find itself hiring more employees, to the point it either loses money or finds itself trying to match the Deltas and Uniteds of the world.

“They can’t raise expectations,” says Gursoy, whose own expectation is a gradual JetBlue pullback from the “rights” it unilaterally granted passengers. People forget, he says.

Moore agrees. He advocates review throughout any given mission so improvements can be ongoing. But for changes to stick, he says, there must be a buy-in at the top.

The reviews of Neeleman’s performance the last two weeks have been good. Many weeks of work lie ahead.

“What just happened?” is not a good corporate slogan.