When It Comes To Giving Back, JetBlue Is Encouraging

A few months ago, I posed the question:

Amidst record profits, when will the domestic airlines begin to give back to their passenger base?

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I wrote that in the first quarter of this year just ended on March 31 – a time period generally recognized in the industry as the worst quarter of the year for airlines given the propensity for bad weather, delays and flight cancellations – Delta had a record profit of $746 million. United had a record profit of $508 million. Southwest? $453 million.

Moreover, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker announced that he opted for an all-stock compensation package, a sign to investors and Wall Street analysts that he believes the company will continue is profit-generating ways.

Someone in the comments section of that original column accused me of being anti-capitalist. I certainly wasn’t asking the airlines to funnel the profit to customers, but a show of faith of some sort would be good. Instead, what have we gotten since that April publication date? A Department of Justice investigation into possible collusion among the major airlines for holding back seats and keeping airfares high. Airlines that are literally trying to eliminate third-party ticket-sellers. Even JetBlue instituted a baggage fee.

Nice give-backs, right?

However, fair is fair.

I am encouraged by what JetBlue has been doing in communities around the country, and while it isn’t exactly directly giving back to its customers, it is a bold goal for others to reach when it comes to social responsibility.

And I’m not even talking about the skate park that JetBlue helped rebuild or the Pay It Forward program it implemented for free tickets.

I’m talking about life, and the future.

Two weeks ago, JetBlue installed a free vending machine in the Washington D.C. neighborhood of Anacostia, one of the poorest in the country and an area with one of the lowest literacy rates. According to the Washington Post, less than 25 percent of students enrolled in Ward 8 middle schools are reading at grade level, and less than 18 percent at the ward’s two high schools.

That’s astonishing.

But how does a free vending machine solve the problem?

It dispenses books.

Free books.

The pilot program will provide about 100,000 books this summer to children up to 14 years old, according to the Post. A selection of 12 books will rotate every two weeks, offering up to 42 different titles through the summer.

“We wanted to do something that made kids want to read and want books,” Icema Gibbs, director of corporate social responsibility for JetBlue, told the paper. “This way, they come to the machine, they choose what they like, instead of us deciding what they get and when they can get it.”

Brilliant.

I don’t know how JetBlue’s customers feel about it, but I will say this. If I was a frequent passenger on JetBlue, and the "give-back" I was seeking was a few extra miles or a few more inches of seat space – or providing free books for a group of kids in an impoverished area – I’d hand that give-back over to the kids every time.

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