JetBlue will block passengers from using personal privacy doors on its new planes because it doesn’t want to pay for additional flight attendants

JetBlue will block its Mint passengers from using the private doors installed on its new Business Class suites because it does not want to pay for an additional flight attendant needed to lock them during taxi, takeoff and landing.

The move results from a bizarre Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule, which requires airlines with business class suites equipped with private doors to have an additional flight attendant on duty beyond the normal minimum mandated by the federal government.

Usually, airlines must have one flight attendant on board for every 50 passengers or part thereof. For example, JetBlue’s A321neo fleet has 200 passenger seats, so the minimum number of flight attendants required on this aircraft is four.

And JetBlue’s A321neos that are equipped with the airline’s popular Mint Business Class suite typically require four flight attendants for the 160 seats installed on a variant and three flight attendants for the Long Range variant which has 138 seats installed.

But as Seth Miller reported, both variants of the A321neo with Mint suites have had an additional flight attendant working on them since March due to an FAA rule that concluded that the additional workload required to lock and unlocking the personal privacy doors was too cumbersome for just the minimum required number of crew.

As a result, JetBlue had to hire an additional flight attendant on these planes simply to comply with the requirement to lock and unlock personal privacy doors at Mint.

To get around this requirement and reduce the number of flight attendants working on these planes, JetBlue has decided to disable the doors, meaning they will be permanently locked open.

Business class privacy doors were first introduced by Delta Air Lines, but became big news when Qatar Airways launched its highly touted QSuite Business Class product.

Since then, we’ve seen all kinds of airlines launch new business class seats that feature private doors. At times they have been seen as a gimmick by some industry observers, but they have proven to be an important differentiator and are appreciated by passengers.

To circumvent obvious security considerations, the privacy doors are latched open for taxiing, takeoff and landing – a manual task that requires flight attendants to manipulate a special tool or switch and then check that the door is securely locked. in place.

The process should be relatively quick and simple, although these doors can be quite finicky and sometimes require more time and effort to latch than manufacturers initially intended.

According to research by Seth Miller, the FAA initially planned to certify an exemption for private doors that would not require additional personnel before backtracking after concluding that the workload required to lock the doors was “considered to be important”.

JetBlue has been complying with this rule since March but now plans to deactivate the privacy doors on affected planes by the end of August. Currently, JetBlue has eight A321neos in its fleet, which will require the privacy doors to be disabled.

Once the gates are disabled, Jetblue will immediately return to FAA minimum crew levels on these aircraft.

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