Fly the friendly skies of United Airlines thugs

Guitar101 said:

The CEO for UNITED AIRLINES has issued a statement saying that the UNITED AIRLINES thugs were justified in doing what they did. I wish I flew more so I could stop flying with them.

Click to expand...

Yeah. I am NOT excusing him. Repeat, I am NOT excusing him. But the poor bugger recently took over an airline that was near terminal illness with problems including especially a workforce (actually TWO workforces since they'd long been unable to effectively merge with Continental) that was thoroughly pissed with management and their jobs.

The CEO has spent his brief term focused largely on mollifying those employees and bringing them together, and done not-badly at it. Given a choice in this crisis between saying "our employees should not have allowed this to happen" and saying that the passenger was belligerent and uncooperative I can understand - as another flawed human - how he made the choice he did.

But it was the wrong choice. United has a very long history of abusing its customers, and as one of the largest airlines in the business has for too long gotten away with it. They should be under-booked for a long time until desperation thoroughly changes their culture and their attitude.

United Airlines is like a careless bullying government enterprise in everything but its ownership. Take it from someone with millions of miles, never fly with them.

Some years back I was teaching a huge class of 1100 undergrads, some 750 of which were enrolled in the cable TV section, but generally taking the exams on campus. They knew me, but I had no frigging idea about anyone beyond the first 6 rows in the lecture hall. The creepy thing is that I'd run into them everywhere; street-corners, out-of-town gas stations. I had no idea when the person slicing my bagel was going to suddenly look up and say "Are you professor Hammer?". So I simply could not have ANY bad habits. No late-night coke-fueled disco parties for me. No hookers. No streaking. No nothing, Hell, I couldn't even sneak in a glazed donut, because they all knew I was diabetic. I had to thank everyone for whatever service they were providing to me in a retail context because....well, you never knew.

So it has become for pretty much any organization that has any degree of public exposure. Police, banks, airlines, retailers, dictators, anyone. Those phones will be out there, and if anyone remotely connected with your organization crosses the public, you will be on the hook for their behaviour. It will no longer be a little one-off private event that nobody except you and that person you met in Vegas know about.

You would think that organizations would have adapted by now. You would think they would hire or contract with people who wouldn't subject the organization to such negative publicity. And if they had to switch their hiring strategy, you'd think that they would provide the sort of training, protocols, regulations, and incentive systems to shape and support the behaviour of existing staff so that they wouldn't be exposed to this sort of risk/liability.

To quote John Belushi: BUUUUUUUTTTT NOOOOOOOOO! And these guys not only want to be my latex salesman, but expect 7 and 8-figure salaries.

All of that said, the objectionable act was carried out by enforcement people, and enforcement people are not hired for or paid for having the wisdom of Solomon. Which is why the protocol always has to be wiser than the people you task with carrying it out to the letter.