Jet Blue love

I am all about JetBlue!

I haven't had the opportunity to fly JetBlue before, mainly because they don't fly to my main destination, Knoxville. I WISH they would (ahem, JetBlue!), but the closest they get is Nashville, so I'd have to rent a car and drive about 3 hours east. Kinda defeats the purpose of flying, right?

I arrived here at JFK at an ungodly hour in the morning (anything before 6 a.m. is far, FAR too early for my tastes), and nearly every food vendor in the JetBlue terminal is open for business. What a difference from my usual airport, Newark-Liberty (EWR, for those familiar with airport lingo), where my regular terminal, Terminal C, is busy with passengers even in the early hours but only two or three food vendors are open at that time. JetBlue also offers free Wi-Fi --at least, in this airport. 

Yes, I really was blogging at 5 in the morning! [Picture taken 5/23/07]

And with the exception of the Valentine's Day disaster, JetBlue usually has great service, too. I haven't encountered a single employee who hasn't been really helpful and even (I can't believe it!) a little cheerful at 5 in the morning! When I forgot to take my laptop out of my bag at the security checkpoint--I was still half asleep--and my bag got flagged for inspection because of it, the screener was joking that he sees this kind of stuff all the time... he didn't have any problem inspecting yet another bag. Of course, maybe his shift had just started, so it could be that he hadn't checked that many bags yet today!

My only disappointment so far is that JetBlue has changed terminals at JFK. Back when they were still small fry in the airline world, JetBlue used to be housed in Terminal 5 or, for those of you into architecture, the old TWA terminal designed by renowned Finnish architect Eero Saarinen. It's a pretty cool building, designed to evoke impressions of--what else?--flight. But it's also a small building, and like other airlines that were once housed there, JetBlue has outgrown the space and moved to a larger terminal next door. I think the officials at JFK are on the verge of expanding the terminal, if they aren't in the process already. I just hope they work with Eero Saarinen's design-- yeah, they really need a larger terminal to handle the passenger traffic they see on a daily basis, but it would be a shame if they replaced a structure shown in many architectural books with something more utilitarian. Hopefully they can find a way to incorporate the original design into their new plan! 

The old TWA terminal at JFK, designed to give the impression of a bird in flight.