An Unlikely Victim of Sandy

I was all set to fly this morning from Long Beach, California to San Francisco on a direct flight so I could attend and help lead the regional CITRT meeting there.  My flight was at 7am, and I got up at 4:30 so I could get through security with plenty of time.

I arrived there as planned, parked, checked in, went through a security pat-down, and waited to board my flight.  After boarding I took my seat and waited as the plane filled, then they closed the door and pulled the ramp back.

A few minutes later the pilot greeted us over the PA system, and let us know that communications with their operations had just been lost.  I was on a JetBlue flight, and their operations are all done at JFK.  Apparently they are unable to access their system from any other location, so the entire JetBlue fleet was grounded until communications were resumed.

In today's Cloud technology era, there is no excuse for this!  They should be able to take a few notebook computers to anywhere there is a secure Internet connection (or simply do this at another airport), login, and do their work!  Instead, I missed the CITRT meeting and now have a JetBlue credit to manage.  And a parking expense because the airport isn't responsible.

So, as a west coast resident and traveler today, I was a victim of Sandy-- albeit an unlikely one.