American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants • Hacker News Board

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#151

Post by shagie » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #144

toss1 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>This kind of old, hierarchical thinking from the 1950s needs to go away. Yes, it does, but no, it won't. Just as democracies must always be better armed and prepared than expansionist autocracies, or the autocracies will take over, people need to be better armed and prepared than those who want to exploit them, or they will get exploited. Unfortunately, the exploiters often arrive better armed and prepared, and it…

Well the winning move in these cases is usually unionization - when a large number of employees are being exploited by an employer a union that allows collective bargaining can force the employer to act in a more sane manner.

Flight attendants have a union. https://www.afacwa.org

They've recently backed strikes and raised wages https://unitedafa.org/news/2022/1/21/solidarity-works-flight...

The rest is part of the contract - https://www.afacwa.org/flight_attendants_achieve_10_hours_re...

> Washington, D.C. (October 4, 2022) — The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today finalized a rule requiring 10 hours minimum, non-reducible rest for Flight Attendants between duty days – finally implementing a 2018 law that will make aviation safer for over 100,000 Flight Attendants and the passengers in our care. The rule will increase the rest period to 10 irreducible hours when scheduled for a duty period of 14 hours or less. Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, issued the following statement ...

What would one have in a contract to help this issue?

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#152

Post by sidewndr46 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

chx wrote: post #131

jaywalk wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working remotely for your employer (as in, you're not traveling for work, but working while traveling) is not in breach of any tourist visa restrictions.

THIS IS NOT TRUE! BEWARE OF THIS! In reality, you are basically relying on the fact that no one can tell when you open your laptop whether you check personal email or work email etc. But legislation wise you very well might be in breach of visitor conditions. And if you stay long enough, taxes might kick in. Canada is a notable exemption because IRCC issued a note on What kind of activities are not considered to be “…

A C-level executive at a place I worked went to another country specific to scout out talent the company could hire remotely. Given that he was obviously working there I asked how he got a permit for that. His answer was that he got a tourist visa and was on vacation, so it was obviously legal for him to work while in the country.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#153

Post by sidewndr46 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

alexanderchr wrote: post #128

ddoolin wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for driving, into Mexico, there is no real check. For anything. You merely drive through at speed while border guards glance into the cars. You don't actually speak to anyone unless they flag you. I think the U.S. is the only one of the three that would really care.

They don't even check your passport?

No one smuggles anything into Mexico other than guns. The US government takes care of that step.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#154

Post by sidewndr46 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

TrueGeek wrote: post #74

ketzo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two thoughts: 1. Wow, that looks like an extremely useful app if you're a flight attendant! 2. How is their employer not providing this functionality? I guess maybe they are, but only parts, or it's a shittier version. But still.

American Airlines was featured in a video at Microsoft Ignite last week. They showed how everyone involved in a flight talks to each other through Teams and how Microsoft / AA has worked closely together to get this working. I'm wondering if AA doesn't want this app being used instead?

That's kind of interesting. I take so many flights I never really remember one from the next. But I do remember at least one flight attendant letting us know that videoconferencing in flight is a felony. I could never find any such regulation, but I guess that wasn't an AA flight.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#155

Post by fn-mote » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

bronco21016 wrote: post #101

gpvos wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the descriptions under the sibling comment, it seems to be something that every airline absolutely should offer their employees. You don't want them to work illegally as that could mean huge fines for you.

At most airlines there are two sets of scheduling rules. The regulatory rules, and the union contract negotiated rules. You can guess which one the company doesn’t want audited.

Perhaps surprisingly, I can't.

Violating "regulatory rules" should result in fines and the government coming down on you. I would think this is the worse outcome, but less likely than...

Violating "union contract negotiated rules" should result in grievances ending in legal action if the employer doesn't agree they broke the rules. This should be a lighter penalty but the union seems more likely to pursue the remedy than the government.

So which actually is it that the company considers worse?

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#156

Post by kleiba » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

jmslbam wrote: post #24

Reminds me of those Stockholm parents that built an app by obtaining data, in a legal way, that worked better the the manufactorer build themselfs.... https://www.wired.com/story/sweden-stockholm-school-app-open... :)

Landgren would dig through endless convoluted menus to find out what his children were doing at school. If working out what his children needed in their gym kit was a hassle, then working out how to report them as sick was a nightmare.

This seems very removed from my own school days:

- find out what the children were doing at school: you couldn't, really, the curricula were not public. You could ask your kids after school, but I guess most parents were not really that interested anyway.

- what his children needed in their gym kit: shorts, t-shirt, sneakers. Every time. What else could it be?

- working out how to report them as sick: I suppose parents called the school in the morning(?) but as teachers were usually unaware of the reasons for a child's absence anyway they might as well not have done that at all. After the first term, the schoolmates would just inform all other teachers that X was sick, assuming so from the absence. Then, when X came back to school, they would bring a hand-written note from the parents explaining.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#157

Post by pb7 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

quartz wrote: post #148

pb7 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has “that story” about one particular airline but AA is particularly bad because a large portion of their fleet is old and requires a lot of maintenance which unsurprisingly causes delays and cancelations. I echo the statement that I’ve never had an uneventful flight on AA. I fly a lot and can confidently say other major airlines are more reliable but usually also more expensive.

Pre-bankruptcy AA was so good. Exec plats were treated super well and their fleet was massive— even if a plane had an issue they could almost always hot-swap it out for another one. Despite the website feeling dated now it used to be one of the only airlines where the website accurately reflected the backend system (even phone agents couldn’t touch your booking if you had it open on the site) and their lounges were s…

I mostly fly United due to living in one of their hubs and have become accustomed to reliable service on well maintained planes. Every time I hear complaints about rampant delays or cancelations, I wonder what year they’re living in. But then I end up flying American and I realize it’s not the year, it’s the airline. Even in their biggest hubs, there is always delay-inducing last minute maintenance with no hot swap available. I just experienced this recently and was immediately reminded of this time last year when they made headlines about canceling a massive percentage of flights daily for months.

I actually much prefer AA’s website to United’s. AA’s may seem dated but it’s fast and the UI predictable. United’s feels like it’s fighting me.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#158

Post by kersplody » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #105

vkou wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have work visas for all three countries, or will you lie about your reasons for travel when asked?

Working remotely for your employer (as in, you're not traveling for work, but working while traveling) is not in breach of any tourist visa restrictions.

THIS IS FALSE ALMOST EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD AND IF DISCOVERED, CAN RESULT IN CRIMINAL AND/OR TAX PENALTIES.

In general, it’s not legal to be an unregistered digital nomad unless you have the right to work in the country you are in. If you enter a country on a tourist visa, the primary purpose of the trip must be tourism. If you enter on a tourist visa for the intention of being a digital nomad, you have violated the visa.

In practice, it probably doesn’t matter as long as you are discrete. it's difficult for governments to detect this practice and many countries even tolerate the practice. But since being a digital nomad is almost always technically illegal, travelers have had challenges when they are discovered by the wrong person.

The bigger concern is usually your employer. Working overseas without approval is usually a friable offense.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#159

Post by dpifke » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

lostdog wrote: post #117

OJFord wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the reality is that scraping is legal, always possible, but difficult. > This particular case is a bit harder since it's not purely using public data, but may still qualify since it's likely scraping with legally-obtained credentials. No, it's easy: they're employees, they can be told they're not allowed to do that. Doesn't matter if the app's legally allowed to exist or not.

But they also deserve to have access to their work schedules, and I bet a good lawyer could argue that "access" should be interpreted broadly here.

Presumably the non-public data is being scraped using the employees' credentials (i.e. username and password).

It is perfectly reasonable for an employer to have a policy which states, "do not give your work username and password to a third party." I can't imagine a court ordering otherwise.

Providing an API for this data is a non-trivial amount of work, involving significant technical and compliance challenges. Employee schedules would be useful as a signal for trading in AA stock. How do you enforce that the third party is properly protecting that information, e.g. during SEC-mandated blackout periods around earnings?

The union might be able to negotiate for AA to hire lawyers and IT staff to work on such an API, but I really can't see the employees being automatically entitled to it.

Re: American Airlines is trying to stop a popular app used by flight attendants

#160

Post by Retric » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:30 PM UTC

TobyTheDog123 wrote: post #75

Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need specific permission to scrape data.

Nope. You don't need permission to scrape publicly accessible data, and that's only on the legal side of things. Data behind any kind of login is not fair game. Apple also has rules against use of any scraped data you aren't explicitly authorized to access.

Apple is of course fine to prohibit whatever they desire for appearing in their store, but scrapping is a different issue.

Copyright etc could restrict copying information displayed on a website, but if someone can legally write down information via pen and paper they can see then they can scrape it. The process being automation doesn’t inherently matter.