JetBlue Makes Light of Sticky Situation

You might have heard by now: a JetBlue employee made a spectacular escape from his job last week when he became fed up with a rude customer. While the news swirled around just about every site on the Internet and “Steve Slater is a hero” tweets and Facebook fan pages exploded with members, JetBlue remained mum until posting a statement on their company blog.

With such a bizarre, high-profile situation – one in which the exiting employee was considered a bit of a folk hero by the general public – the company had little choice but to make light of it. They titled the blog, “Sometimes the Weird News is About Us,” and it read in part, “It wouldn't be fair for us to point out absurdities in other corners of the industry without acknowledging when it's about us. Well this week's news certainly falls into that category. Perhaps you heard a little story about one of our flight attendants?"

The company went on to praise the other 2,000-plus flight attendants, calling them “awesome, fantastic and professional infilght Crew Members,” and noted that passengers on the famous flight were given flight vouchers for the ... inconvenience.

So, after being thrown such a random, weird curve ball, I have to say kudos to JetBlue for rising above the Internet craze to 1) acknowledge the situation, and 2) point out the thousands of other hard-working employees at the company.

What are your thoughts on how the airline handled this?

–Lauren Vasquez, Associate Editor