As most of my readers know, I fly frequently. Actually, I fly a lot! I find that my best ideas for blog post come from my time spent in the sky, and this is no exception.

I’ve been flying JetBlue a lot recently, and Tuesday night I was on a flight from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to Newburgh, NY. When I book my flights on JetBlue, I spend the extra $25 to get one of their “Even More Legroom (EML)” seats. These seats are found in the first few rows of the plane as well as the exit rows. If you ante up for one of these seats you get a few extra inches of legroom.

On this particular flight, after the cabin door was closed, a gentlemen (with an obnoxiously heavy New York accent) who was sitting in a non-EML seat, walked up and took a seat in the empty exit row across from me. The flight attendant saw his seat shuffle and proceeded to tell him that the seat he sat in is an EML seat and should he choose to sit there he would need to pay $25.

Well, this “gentlemen” turned nasty. He started carrying on about how many times he flies JetBlue, how he’s a good customer and how he should be allowed to sit there at no charge. Seeing this going on, I just had to chime in:

“Hey buddy, I had to pay twenty-five bucks to sit in this row, if you’re going to sit there, give me the $25 bucks I paid and I’ll keep my mouth shut, otherwise, move.”

He proceeded to tell me that he is a frequently flyer and he earned the “right” to sit there. Well, that set me off even further.

“How frequent do you fly? I take this route two times a week on JetBlue, I’m Chairman’s Preferred on US Airways, Platinum on Continental, Elite on AirTran… and I paid the $25 for my EML seat… shall I continue?”

He still didn’t give in and continued to harass the flight attendant who finally called for the gate agent to come on board. Needless to say, our “frequent flyer” was relegated back to his middle seat in a non-EML row because he wouldn’t pay the $25.

I thanked the flight attendant and ordered a beer.

Today, I was on the flight from Newburgh, NY to Ft. Lauderdale, FL and once again I purchased an EML seat. I found it odd that there was someone in the middle seat in my row since I checked the seat map when I checked in an hour before the flight and it was available.

Thinking that the seat was sold at the last minute I kept my mouth shut and talked to the guy in that seat for the duration of the flight. It just so happened that Mr. 11B blew his cover at the end of the flight. He was stupid enough to say, “You paid extra for this seat didn’t you? I was back in row 20, saw this available and took it, I sat here for free, how does that make you feel?”

Since we were only minutes away from landing, I let it go. Otherwise I would have called a flight attendant over to report him. Instead I headed to the ticket counter immediately after deplaning.

I explained the situation to the agent who in turn got the supervisor on duty. He agreed with my frustration and said, “we’re working on doing a better job at making sure this doesn’t happen.” He told me that “there’s nothing I can do as far as a full or partial credit for the EML charge, but you can call 1-800-JETBLUE and see if they will do anything for you.” He ended the conversation by saying, “Let me know how you make out as I’m curious as to how they will handle it.”

Why does one flight crew enforce the rules and one doesn’t? Before takeoff, the crew counts the number of filled EML seats to ensure there’s no squatters. The sure counted the guy next to me today but didn’t do anything about it.

As passengers, we’re supposed to obey the rules.

As employees, they’re supposed to enforce the rules.

JetBlue, I want my $25 back for the EML seat today. I followed the rules, you broke them, now make good.

Yesterday, I wrote about the death of my 9 year old Chihuahua, Freckles. She passed away Monday from liver failure. Just a few hours after learning of her passing, I was scheduled to be on a 6:57pm flight from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to Newburgh, NY.

I left Boca Raton around 5pm and just got into I-95 south when traffic came to a stop. While sitting in my lane waiting for traffic to move, a pickup truck slammed into the back of my car and pushed me into a SUV that was stopped in front of me.

The SUV suffered minor damage, the pickup truck “attached” itself to the rear of my car and upon impact, the truck’s airbags went off. The driver of the truck, said he wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice traffic was stopped. Fortunately for all of us, nobody required medical attention.

The brand new 2010 Ford Mustang GT convertible with only 4,000 miles on it that I was driving, did not fare as well.

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After about 45 minutes of waiting for the Florida State Trooper to prepare his paperwork, I was finally on my way with 60 minutes to get to the airport. Wanting to put this day behind me and get on the plane, I opted to drive the car in its current condition and park it at the airport until my return. Unfortunately, traffic was still slow moving on I-95 and the normal 20 to 30 minute trip ended up taking over an hour.

I missed my original flight to Newburgh, but JetBlue was able to accommodate me on a flight into White Plains, NY. The only drawback was, my car was in Newburgh! Still going on the “I want this day to be over” theme, I called Kevin Gilbride at Gilbride Limo, who on just three hours notice, had a car waiting at White Plains for me.

By 2:15am I was home in Scranton, PA relieved that the day was over and happy to be greeted by my two Chihuahua’s Baby and Peanut. The three of us went right to bed.

So I’m going to be driving one of my cars down to Florida this Thursday and Friday and upon arrival will have to take the Mustang to be repaired. Then Monday night, I’ll get my other car that’s spent too many hours in long term parking at Newburgh.

All that is of course dependent on luck. Something which I’ve had none of this week.

I was on a JetBlue Airbus A320 last night from Ft. Lauderdale to Newburgh, NY. While making our way to the runway, the air conditioning kicked in and put on a little bit of a show – all that was missing was a little colored lighting and some mood music.

I remember seeing this for the first time a few years ago, and I have to admit, it does freak you out. Well, check out the video….