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United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

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Re: United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

#181

Post by GFischer »

slowpoke wrote: post #113
colmvp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't the parents give the kid a cellphone? There's no way I'd just leave my kid to travel alone on a flight, let alone without a cell phone.

How on earth did people travel some ten or twenty years ago I wonder? You know, before cellphones were widespread or even affordable? For fuck's sake, children aren't dumb. Always treating them as if they are results in them not growing into independent adults. Besides, unaccompanied flights are awesome as a child. I did that once, don't remember how old I was. Flew with the German Lufthansa from my parents to my gra…

Me too, I traveled to Europe unattended (from South America) when I was 11, all flight crews were great, passengers were very friendly and it was an awesome experience.

Re: United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

#182

Post by lusr »

greedo wrote: post #179
lusr wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post is endemic of something I see a lot of on the Internet. You hide behind an account you just made, aggressively, lengthily and rudely responding to somebody who actually desired to contribute to the discussion without contributing much of anything yourself, without seeing the irony in any of this.

Ironic that you're not posting under a real name. And your account is only a hair over a year old. Is it really relevant that his account is new? Or should HN put up a delay that you can only post a reply after your account has aged appropriately? And this isn't a new thing for the internets. No one knows you're a dog...

My profile links to my Flickr account, which has my real name. I don't currently maintain a blog or anything more meaningful to link to. I use this nickname throughout the net. You can email me at @lusr.org. I'm not hiding anything.

The person I responded to frequents HN (according to their own words); it seems highly likely they know quite well how non-constructive their response was and specifically chose to use a throwaway account rather than stand behind their comment under their normal account.

Re: United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

#183

Post by incision »

jhcoaps wrote: post #169
incision wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The criticisms could be absolutely correct, but the response doesn't "reason" anything. The response doesn't actually demonstrate that the parent is incorrect or propose a complete alternative. It simply states that it is wrong without a shred of evidence or exposition, only vague phrases suggesting omissions. That's not an indictment, just a wordy insult. --- I get the frustration with what appears to be…

> The response doesn't actually demonstrate that the parent is incorrect or propose a complete alternative. There is inadequate evidence here to come to any conclusion. It would be irresponsible of me to claim that I knew all the farmer's capabilities, costs, risks, weather forecasts, crop options, crop rotation requirements, etc. If I did that, I'd be guilty of exactly the same mistake as OP. Noise is not signal. No…

Right.

You did a great job of noisily pointing out that the parent is noisy, without generating much if any signal yourself.

You don't have to provide a conclusion, just presenting a theory about how to apply those data points that you keep rattling off would be something constructive, a starting point.

Thing is, that would be hard and expose something you created to criticism. It's much easier to simply sit back and poke holes in someone else's flawed theory while alluding to an ability to construct a better one yet demonstrating absolutely nothing.

Re: United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

#184

Post by jhcoaps »

incision wrote: post #183
jhcoaps wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The response doesn't actually demonstrate that the parent is incorrect or propose a complete alternative. There is inadequate evidence here to come to any conclusion. It would be irresponsible of me to claim that I knew all the farmer's capabilities, costs, risks, weather forecasts, crop options, crop rotation requirements, etc. If I did that, I'd be guilty of exactly the same mistake as OP. Noise is not signal. No…

Right. You did a great job of noisily pointing out that the parent is noisy, without generating much if any signal yourself. You don't have to provide a conclusion, just presenting a theory about how to apply those data points that you keep rattling off would be something constructive, a starting point. Thing is, that would be hard and expose something you created to criticism. It's much easier to simply sit back and…

Get a fucking mirror.

Re: United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

#185

Post by wtvanhest »

greedo wrote: post #177
wtvanhest wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1st, $8b in theoretical subsidies after September 11th isn’t material when an industry has $100s of billions of debt and equity. Delta and United have about $65b alone. AIG’s bailout was $182B. 2nd, It is inexcusable for a human being to not help a young child regardless of the company they work for. However, the other stories about airlines being terrible with customer service are dumb. In general people are stresse…

To address your second point, how is it that Southwest can consistently provide friendly service? They have to deal with the same stressors that their competitors face. Don't underestimate the importance of leadership and management prowess in how employees perform.

South West management hedged fuel in a risky financial bet which paid off when fuel prices unexpected skyrocketed in the mid 2000s. This risky bet led to industry leading profitability. Once South West's hedges came off their profitability has declined. They are not burdened with the same debt because they had profitability for so long. They also do not maintain a hub and spoke system which keeps their costs down.

Because management got lucky with a fuel hedge, their employees did not have to take pay cuts like the rest of the industry and have not lost their pensions.

For additional information read this (ignoring the stock price stuff, just for a little history)

”Mr. Alukos says the AirTran acquisition makes sense in the context of rising fuel prices. For many years, Southwest hedged rising fuel costs better than any other large U.S. airline, saving $2-billion from 2004 to 2008 by his estimate, something that “overshadow[ed]any of its other cost-containment measures.” Those contracts have gradually expired, and the current hedges are no longer a significant cost advantage, he believes.” Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ide...

[added] I didn't really answer your question, but I believe that number 2 combined with number 3 to create the problems we are seeing at most airlines. People can handle a lot until they realize when they get home they have no savings, no retirement and no future.

Re: United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

#186

Post by rprasad »

greedo wrote: post #177
wtvanhest wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1st, $8b in theoretical subsidies after September 11th isn’t material when an industry has $100s of billions of debt and equity. Delta and United have about $65b alone. AIG’s bailout was $182B. 2nd, It is inexcusable for a human being to not help a young child regardless of the company they work for. However, the other stories about airlines being terrible with customer service are dumb. In general people are stresse…

To address your second point, how is it that Southwest can consistently provide friendly service? They have to deal with the same stressors that their competitors face. Don't underestimate the importance of leadership and management prowess in how employees perform.

Southwest employees participate in a profit-share program which allocates a substantial amount of profits to an employee pool. Thus, the better the airline does, the better they do (financially).

Re: United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

#187

Post by tuxychandru »

mindcrime wrote: post #142
waveman2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it happens to you it is a 100% result. Just today a man was ordered to move his airline seat away from two young children. Until he proved they were his children. In another story out today a woman aggressively approached a man and threatened him with arrest for taking his own children to a store. Another man found a lost child and returned the child to its mother, only to be abused and threatened by the mother. Y…

If it happens to you it is a 100% result. Just like it's a 100% result if your plane crashes. But we know that, statistically speaking, airline travel is safe and crashes are pretty rare. So, of the million of interactions between men and unaccompanied children, how many result in some crazy, unjustified child-molester accusation? I'm guessing it's about the same as the percentage of flights that crash. I don't belie…

The benefits of air travel outweigh the risk of dying in air crash and other modes of travel are riskier.

However the benefits to the person helping the child is minuscule compared to the risk of ending up in prison and being added to sex offenders list. It is minuscule even compared to the risk of undergoing a criminal trial.

Re: United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

#188

Post by greedo »

wtvanhest wrote: post #185
greedo wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To address your second point, how is it that Southwest can consistently provide friendly service? They have to deal with the same stressors that their competitors face. Don't underestimate the importance of leadership and management prowess in how employees perform.

South West management hedged fuel in a risky financial bet which paid off when fuel prices unexpected skyrocketed in the mid 2000s. This risky bet led to industry leading profitability. Once South West's hedges came off their profitability has declined. They are not burdened with the same debt because they had profitability for so long. They also do not maintain a hub and spoke system which keeps their costs down. Be…

Southwest has been around for 45 years. I haven't looked at their P&L for those years, but I doubt that their key to longterm success is due primarily to hedging at the turn of the century. Hedging fuel costs is simply a part of doing business in the transportation field, whether it's shipping, airlines, trains, or trucking.

Also, many posters have said that Southwest is non-union. This is incorrect. Their pilots are part of a union, just not the ALPA.

The airline industry has dramatically changed since the days of PanAm and Braniff. Ticket prices have been brutally cut, yet the "premier" airlines have been poor stewards of their image and reputation, and relied a lot upon heavy regulations in the industry that protected their turf. Unions have done some damage, but poor management has been the biggest culprit.

Re: United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

#189

Post by greedo »

briandear wrote: post #102
cjrp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately I think it comes down to cost. As airlines predominantly compete on ticket price, they'll do whatever it takes to reduce that (outsource their logistics, operations, flight planning, etc.) Hell, Ryanair in Europe make their pilots pay for their uniform. All about getting the fare as low as possible, consequences be damned.

Except they can't easily reduce labor costs because of the unions. Southwest is not unionized yet almost every employee there seems happy and friendly. Flying on Southwest is almost fun and they have low ticket costs. Southwest knows how to properly hedge against fuel increases and as such they're one of the few profitable airlines around.

Southwest is unionized...

http://www.southwest.com/html/about-southwest/history/fact-s...

Re: United Airlines Lost My Friend's 10 Year Old Daughter And Didn't Care

#190

Post by rmc »

mgkimsal wrote: post #93
rmc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. People only feel "screwed" by Ryanair because the are used to flexibility, and Ryanair are not flexible. "Oh I'm 2kg over, but that's not a lot, so they'll let me away with it.... What do you mean I have to pay €40?" "Oh they'd have to let me take my handbag, so I'll bring a massive one... what do you mean only one cabin bag?"

double agreed. however, it does bug me charging on weight for baggage when fat people pay the same price as extremely lightweight people. Someone who's 105 pounds with a 52 pound bag gets charged extra, while someone who's 290 pounds but has a 49 pound bag pays no extra charge. Dunno quite how they'd ever get around it, but it does bug me. And I say this as someone who's got a few extra pounds of his own :)

The only reason I presume Ryanair haven't done it yet is because I presume there would be some law against it.
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