Yesterday’s USA Today reminded us of the United snafoo during the Christmas holidays when they diverted two planes originally bound for Denver to Cheyenne, Wyoming, because of weather. Diversion for safety reasons of course is not a snafoo. However in United’s case, they stranded the passengers in Cheyenne the next morning and flew the empty planes with crew intact to two other destinations. Eventually they bused the stranded passengers to Denver. But the passengers were not informed what was happening when the two planes flew off without them that morning.

At the time, United spokespeople explained that the planes were needed elsewhere. As late as yesterday United was still explaining simply that the passengers were left in Cheyenne because the planes were needed elsewhere.

Jet Blue on the other hand left passengers for more than 10 hours on frozen runways in last week’s storm and would not let them off. Massive negative publicity hailed down on Jet Blue. In response, they have already published and installed the industry’s first Passenger Bill of Rights, and today I received an email from Jet Blue apologizing and I have never even flown Jet Blue.

Our favorite customer service guru, Lisa Ford, teaches that the first rule of customer service is to seize a problem and make it right. Bill Grant when he was president of Chemlawn would automatically re-sod your lawn if anything was not perfect. No questions asked. He looked at customer problems as “a golden opportunity to prove what kind of company you are.”

Which company seems the higher quality to you, United or Jet Blue?  Vote with your comments.