Q: If God is all-powerful, can he make a flight so early that even he can’t catch it?

A: Yes, but he can’t make a flight so late that JetBlue will reschedule it.

That basically sums up our recent experiences with my former favorite airline. A couple weeks ago, I flew to NYC for a conference, and Mrs. X and the boys flew to Cali by way of NYC to tend to Sr. X and the family for a week. Both flights were delayed, mine for an hour and hers for almost three. A few days later I returned to Richmond, only to have that flight delayed by 2 1/2 hours. A few days after that, Mrs. X’s return flight was cancelled, along with almost everything else flying in or out of the Northeast that day, but you could only tell that by reading the news, putting two and two together, and getting five. Neither the web site nor the customer service line could handle the traffic they were getting, but I somehow managed to book them a return flight for the next day to DC, which was not experiencing the blizzards that froze up the Northeast. That flight was – you guessed it – delayed. Once again, 2 1/2 hours, not counting the hour it took them to get the luggage to the baggage claim, or the additional half hour it took to report a lost car seat while waiting behind another family off the same flight who had also had a car seat lost, and a stroller, to boot. And speaking of boots, that couple was doubly screwed since they were planning to catch a flight to Italy the next morning. So as annoyed as we were, we were the lucky ones. Then they called the next day to tell us they’d found the missing car seat, but weren’t going to deliver it to us because the distance we’d driven to IAD was too long for their driver’s delicate sensibilities. Apparently they only thought of this after sending the seat to IAD instead of RIC.

Between this, their well-publicized meltdown a month earlier, and an abysmal frequent flyer progam, I’m ready for a new preferred airline. As soon as any other carrier adds TV sets to their flights and goes where I want to go, I’m there. Any takers?