And develops a little further…
The wording of the JetBlue statement covered in this Rueters article suggests that, despite the tone of the form letters I’ve copied below, JetBlue was intending to participate in CAPPS II. Those letters don’t actually say they weren’t planning to be involved, but they sure don’t say they were.
Despite the prevaricatin’ and dissasemblin’ and lien’ nature of all this frooferah, the positive upshot is that since both Delta and JetBlue have gotten burned because of ther involvement with the program (and JetBlue is starting to get burned pretty bad), it seems a lot less likely that other airlines will want to pick up the CAPPS II torch. When the program was first announced, it seemed like a slam dunk was in the works: the government would mandate it, the airlines would all quietly integrate it claiming they had to, and the public would submit because there would be no CAPPS II-free airline to fly on so they would have no option. Since two companies jumped the gun, stuck their necks out and made themselves targets for the rotten tomatoes of democracy, their may now be some industry-wide resistance to being seen to be in Bed Wit De Feds. Woo hoo.