I won't be flying Lufthansa anytime soon. I don't want to entrust my life and my baggage to a company so incompetent.
Lol imagine distrusting an airline, pilots, ICAO, ATC, ground crew, Airbus/Boeing because they placed a ban on airtags.
Lufthansa abandons AirTag ban
101–110 of 115 posts
Re: Lufthansa abandons AirTag ban
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
> , they tend to operate with considerably more autonomy. That's one way to put it. Another way to put it is: > They tend to operate without much oversight or ethical boundaries.
Anothernother way to put it is: > They seem more approachable with possibly more positive interactions.
I'm not sure how to communicate this without making it sound biased.
Lufthansa's employees regularly act poorly and maliciously, when pointed out that they are in the wrong (weither local, foreign, or own company regulations or even being there when they're scheduled to) they don't care and they know they'll get away with it. They can and will leave you at the airport without a refund. It's been this way for at least a decade.
This has happened to me many times, and it has many documented cases on HN, Reddit, Twitter, settled EU261 suits, and FlyerTalk.
Re: Lufthansa abandons AirTag ban
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes you think a customer service rep is operating the official Twitter account for a $40+BN company?
The fact that Twitter is a customer service channel, the tweet was sent with "Qualtrics Social Connect" which describes itself as a customer service tool, the fact that there was a personal sign-off on the tweet which big companies don't tend to do when they're making policy announcements, but that they do tend to do when a customer service rep is replying to a customer question. Plenty of large companies do this sor…
> the fact that Twitter is a customer service channel
This is circular reasoning. Nowhere is it established that Twitter is a customer service channel.
Other parts of your in your first paragraph makes sense, but are also non-obvious and reflect expertise and evidence collecting on your part.
Plenty of large companies do also use Twitter for PR rather than customer service.
Unless clearly stated otherwise, there is no reason for anyone to treat an official Twitter account as anything other than an official statement by a corporation, no different from their official blog, or website.
Re: Lufthansa abandons AirTag ban
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lufthansa deserves it. Worst airline I've ever flown (and that's saying something being from Canada).
Yes, I'm sure one anecdotal experience turns it into the absolutely worse airline of planet Earth. Worse than Air Koryo even. Most customer rankings disagree with you. Which doesn't mean the airline should be free from criticism, of course.
If they get you to point A->B without misconnecting, getting your bags there, and don't act angry with you. Still better than LH.
Re: Lufthansa abandons AirTag ban
#105Re: Lufthansa abandons AirTag ban
#106Classic. Someone gets a lower-level customer service rep on twitter to make a statement based on incorrect and incomplete information about Airtags in compliance with regulation. Media blows it up into this insane thing, that Lufthansa is evil, and doesn't want you to track your bags, so they can lose it with no repercussions. Lufthansa clarifies things (once again, in line with law) - and then the media uses works l…
You get me read the article. Here is the timeline according to the article:
1) Lufthansa said Airtag was banned:
"Hi David, Lufthansa is banning activated AirTags from luggage as they are classified as dangerous and need to be turned off./Mony"
2) Lufthansa clarified why it banned AirTag:
"According to ICAO guidelines, baggage trackers are subject to the dangerous goods regulations. Furthermore, due to their transmission function, the trackers must be deactivated during the flight if they are in checked baggage and cannot be used as a result. /Ana"
3) Lufthansa backtracked, implying that it was the government who was wrong and they only followed the rules:
"The German Aviation Authorities (Luftfahrtbundesamt) confirmed today, that they share our risk assessment, that tracking devices with very low battery and transmission power in checked luggage do not pose a safety risk. With that these devices are allowed on Lufthansa flights."
4) Lufthansa confirmed with NYT that AirTag was allowed after all.
All I can see is Lufthansa was wrong, double down, had to reverse the course with some vague excuses, and still haven't admitted they were wrong. What exactly is out of proportion? When they said they banned it without clear explanation, it inevitably opened the door to speculation, and lost luggage is an obvious explanation.
I have to question your bias against the media here. As for using "face plant", "awkwardly", don't you see the walking back earlier tweets, but not admitting error, as anything but awkward?
Re: Lufthansa abandons AirTag ban
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
The guidelines are targeted at phones and other long range transmission equipment. AirTags use Bluetooth and have a relatively limited range, a very low transmission power, and don't really do much at all until they get pinged by another device. It's also been fairly well understood for a while now that Bluetooth is not a concern on flights, and it uses an ISM radio frequency which is specifically set aside so as to…
Even cellular dont, its more to protect towers in path being DDOsd by 100s of people at a time.
I've never seen a real citation for this, do you have one?
Re: Lufthansa abandons AirTag ban
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even cellular dont, its more to protect towers in path being DDOsd by 100s of people at a time.
I've never seen a real citation for this, do you have one?
Its an FCC regulation, why would I need to cite it :p
But anyway
https://www.businessinsider.com/phone-airplane-mode-flight-e...
Re: Lufthansa abandons AirTag ban
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
You Won't Believe These 10 Tricks Headline Writers Use to Get Clicks.
But this is Ars. Typically considered above these sorts of things.
Ars is kind of a dumpster fire, try browsing their articles without an ad blocker. They're kings of shifting content.
Re: Lufthansa abandons AirTag ban
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never seen a real citation for this, do you have one?
Its an FCC regulation, why would I need to cite it :p But anyway https://www.businessinsider.com/phone-airplane-mode-flight-e...
"protect against radio interference" is extremely vague, I want something better and also evidence someone has made an assessment/update to cell service at least as modern as 3G.
"picking up service from multiple cell towers" seems like a guess if it's solely based on the above words, and also that's pretty different from planefuls of people arriving and overwhelming a tower.