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Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

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Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#51

Post by WillPostForFood »

smcl wrote: post #41
rdtsc wrote: post #35

> , but it was a Republic Airlines flight operated by Republic Airlines pilots and flight attendants and under the operational control of Republic Airlines management. What's the point of mentioning that? They are wearing United Uniforms even. However United wants to distribute its routes, how it hires its contractors, flight attendants etc is its business. It seems like a way to divert blame. (United is great, it's…

If you keep reading it becomes apparent why this is actually quite shady and not a clean dodge for united. It's an attempt to use lower-wage non-union workers, made more interesting by the fact that Republic are going through bankruptcy (and therefore aren't themselves being sued by the passengers, since there's some sort of limit on the compensation they could get) and that United are semi-OK with taking the blame t…

Republic might be cheaper, but it's employees (Pilots, flight attendants, etc..) are union.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#52

Post by logicallee »

dsacco wrote: post #5

This was a fascinating read. The money quote, in summary form: * The flight was technically a Republic Airlines flight subcontracting for United Airlines. * Almost none of the staff involved worked directly for United Airlines; they are subcontractors required to wear United Airlines' branded uniforms. * Republic Airlines is bankrupt, and none of the parties involved in the lawsuit has attempted to shift blame to the…

>discreetly accepting blame

Have you seen the news and social media lately? United has been the butt of the blame "discreetly" the way James Bond making his way from point A to point B in a city while blowing up, crashing, and destroying everything in his path is "discreet".

Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years?

I would phrase it as "loudly and publicly accepting blame and a tremendous backlash".

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#53

Post by rdtsc »

smcl wrote: post #41
rdtsc wrote: post #35

> , but it was a Republic Airlines flight operated by Republic Airlines pilots and flight attendants and under the operational control of Republic Airlines management. What's the point of mentioning that? They are wearing United Uniforms even. However United wants to distribute its routes, how it hires its contractors, flight attendants etc is its business. It seems like a way to divert blame. (United is great, it's…

If you keep reading it becomes apparent why this is actually quite shady and not a clean dodge for united. It's an attempt to use lower-wage non-union workers, made more interesting by the fact that Republic are going through bankruptcy (and therefore aren't themselves being sued by the passengers, since there's some sort of limit on the compensation they could get) and that United are semi-OK with taking the blame t…

> quite shady and not a clean dodge for united.

The emphasis on the contracted airline seems like is helping United by diverting blame away from its brand. Legally United might be able to dodge a few issues based on it and technically they might be in the right over what they did. Morally and as far as public perception goes, they should bare full responsibility.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#54

Post by Terribledactyl »

rdtsc wrote: post #48
Terribledactyl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's highlighting the fact that this stuff is complicated, and can't just be reduced down to "united employee told united passenger to leave united flight" because each 'united' might not be the same, or even related to united

My point is that it doesn't matter how United distributes and picks its contractors. It should bare the brunt of the blame and responsibility.

I mean to say, this article wasn't just a reaction to the particular incident, but also a meta-commentary on all of the articles that read "united did x, united said y, united shouldn't have z" Not so much to shift the blame from united, I agree with you, this situation was/is bad, but it creates sympathy for passengers who are easily overwhelmed and also attacks pieces that reduce it down to something simple.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#55

Post by dagw »

logicallee wrote: post #52
dsacco wrote: post #5

This was a fascinating read. The money quote, in summary form: * The flight was technically a Republic Airlines flight subcontracting for United Airlines. * Almost none of the staff involved worked directly for United Airlines; they are subcontractors required to wear United Airlines' branded uniforms. * Republic Airlines is bankrupt, and none of the parties involved in the lawsuit has attempted to shift blame to the…

>discreetly accepting blame Have you seen the news and social media lately? United has been the butt of the blame "discreetly" the way James Bond making his way from point A to point B in a city while blowing up, crashing, and destroying everything in his path is "discreet". Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years? I would phrase it as "loudly and p…

Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years?

Volkswagen was probably just as bad at the time. Now of course most people have kind of forgotten or at least moved on and VW just posted strong Q1 results, handily beating estimates.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#56

Post by dba7dba »

flukus wrote: post #16
ryandrake wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The infuriating thing about all of this is how deliberately obfuscated and phony everything is: * Airline employees who aren't quite airline employees * Cops who aren't quite cops * Reserved seats that aren't quite reserved Doesn't anyone honestly sell a real product that you can take at face value anymore?

This rubbish is everywhere. Contract cleaning (offices etc) for instance, used to be a profitable small business. Not enough to be rich, but enough for a big house with some decent amenities and to raise a family on a single income. Then in the 90's these gigs went into a pyramid of contracting and sub contracting companies where the company buying the service is paying more but the grunt doing the work is lucky to b…

I can vouch for this story. My parents went through this scenario exactly. They had gotten into office cleaning because it was relatively well paying in the 90's. But in the 90's middle men came into the mix.

Someone with better sales ability would win the contract for cleaning office, and subcontract it to someone else. And even that 2nd person might subcontract it to someone else. Eventually, the person really doing the actual cleaning barely made above minimum wage.

What does MBA school call this? Reducing cost? Increasing efficiency? Reducing risk?

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#57

Post by IIIIIIIIIIII »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #3

This is a great article, worth a read. Plus the guy has an awesome cartoon avatar. The summary is: United on their smaller flights has lots of people pretending to be united employees but they aren't, and they aren't as well trained as united employees. The police in airports often aren't regular police forces, but are special airport police who might or might not be on a regular police force. To me, that says there'…

> and they aren't as well trained as united employees

I'm really getting (maybe needlessly) a bit irate over the endless stream of "they didn't have the training" comments each and every time some employee attacks someone. For this incident too but also for many previous ones, in a lot of forums from reddit to local newspaper websites I found this line of reasoning or explanation.

I may get flak for this, but as a German who once (very happily) lived in the US for a decade, the stories as well as the comments seem to come mostly from this country, and I did not notice them (in this number) until this millennium. What's happened in the US, I wonder?

Let me make my position clear: It should be obvious that not attacking people does not require "more training"! That's just being a decent average human being. I don't know what I'm more worried about, the number of incidents (might just be because of ubiquitous smartphones and the Internet) - or that sooooo many people (US-Americans mostly?) seem to think that this is a "training" issue.

To me this seems like a large culture of "it's their fault", meaning "management". Part of it really is, since so much of the work culture (service jobs especially?) is designed to be extremely hierarchical. "Sorry, I can't use common sense, I have to call in a manager, he is allowed to use 1% of his brain but I'm not." (The higher level management is allowed to use ever more brain/judgement.) So it seems the success of this "education" of creating an obedient workforce unquestionably following procedures and rules is too great, it changed the way people think and look at everything, not just those jobs?

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#58

Post by dba7dba »

tuna-piano wrote: post #24

I see this whole event kind of like the Rosa Parks situation. I'm not comparing the magnitude of injustice, just that (a)There was an unjust system and (b)It took an individual to stick up for the just result, even though it was breaking the rules. Also, the author is wrong in this passage: From the article: "The gate agents offered offered $800 in airline scrip to anyone willing to deplane, which from past observati…

> Carriers can negotiate with their passengers for mutually acceptable compensation."

How do you negotiate with an entity that has the ability to call in the goons on you but you cannot?

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#59

Post by tajen »

smcl wrote: post #42
sjburt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is that there is a huge workforce of regional pilots hoping to gain hours and switch to the majors, but the majors are converting routes to regionals faster than they are hiring new pilots.

I've read about this before - US pilots getting shockingly low wages. The Explanation given previously was that the senior pilots get insanely well remunerated and you're expected to work for peanuts until you hit this point (or switch to a European or Emirati airline)

I remember an Air Crash Investigation where the investigators were surprised to hear that the two pilots sounded completely drunk on the black box. It wasn't alcohol, it was the lack of sleep – the guys had just flown halfway across the USA on a jump seat to start their shift in NYC and slept in an 8-bunk-bed subrental in a suburb.

So, yes, pilot's low wages in USA's regional airlines is an endemic problem that has killed hundreds of passengers.

Re: Analysis of the United Airlines passenger removal incident

#60

Post by flukus »

logicallee wrote: post #52
dsacco wrote: post #5

This was a fascinating read. The money quote, in summary form: * The flight was technically a Republic Airlines flight subcontracting for United Airlines. * Almost none of the staff involved worked directly for United Airlines; they are subcontractors required to wear United Airlines' branded uniforms. * Republic Airlines is bankrupt, and none of the parties involved in the lawsuit has attempted to shift blame to the…

>discreetly accepting blame Have you seen the news and social media lately? United has been the butt of the blame "discreetly" the way James Bond making his way from point A to point B in a city while blowing up, crashing, and destroying everything in his path is "discreet". Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years? I would phrase it as "loudly and p…

> Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years?

There was one, funnily enough much of the bad PR was doled out by the airlines: samsung. Everyone that went though an airport got to hear "samsung galaxy devices are not allowed on this plane".

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