Ahh, the jetBlue incident. The moment that many have fantasized about for years. A flight attendent delivering a resounding “fuck you” to obstinate and rude passengers somehow strikes a chord in many of us.
As you can imagine, I’ve had a lot of people privately make comments and ask questions about this over the past 2 days.
It’s your fault. The customer, that is. I’ve long said that there is something odd that happens to people when they get on an airliner. They just go weird and often do things they would never consider doing anywhere else in their lives. For instance, would you ordinarily choose to have sex in your dirty bathroom? Would you ordinarily get so liquored up that you would urinate on the restaurant floor? Would you argue with subway driver who asked you to sit down for your safety?
Paying a few hundred dollars to fly from point A to point B really does not grant you an exemption from behaving appropriately in public. It doesn’t grant you an exception from safety rules and it doesn’t offer you an opportunity to behave like a completely rude jerk just because you feel like it. When you’re on an aircraft, you are traveling in the public and when a flight attendant asks you to sit down and refrain from grabbing your luggage, be a good boy or girl and just do it. Contrary to what you think, standing up and grabbing your suitcase so you can rush to the front of the line to exit the aircraft is *not* going to improve your day so much that you just can’t stop yourself.
Before anyone points a finger at the real problem being leisure travelers or infrequent travelers, I strongly disagree. I’ve seen plenty of frequent fliers behave just as bad as anyone else. Remember the woman who decided that she was treated poorly on Southwest Airlines because she was denied a seat on aircraft in favor of seating an overweight child? She was on standby. She didn’t have a confirmed seat and it doesn’t matter if the kid was overweight or not. It lacked class to contact media and act as if she was horribly wronged by the airline. She wasn’t. She was being petulant and acting entitled to far greater treatment than she deserved or had paid for.
It’s your fault. You, the airline, have caused this. You have spent the last 80 years teaching the public that they’re always right on your aircraft that *your* airline owns. You’ve condemned your staff over and over again in favor of someone who spent $200 one time to travel on your airplane and your staff knows just where the line is. Sadly, that line offers only a small amount of uncomfortable manuevering space.
The truth is, the customer isn’t always right. That comes from someone who has spent most of his career in service industries. The customer is quite capable of being wrong and making that person who chooses to be obnoxiously wrong in charge of your staff’s career isn’t the way to properly run a business. You have a right to say “this customer broke our rules, behaved boorishly and conducted themselves in a manner which would get them banned from a restaurant so we ban them from our airline.”
You really do. I wouldn’t use that power lightly, mind you, but it’s time to re-set some expectations for your customers. One of those expectations is that $200 is not purchasing them the right to ignore airline regulations, FAA rules or the right to abuse your staff.
It’s not entirely surprising that the jetBlue flight attendant kind of lost it. Do I think he’s a hero? Absolutely not. Do I think he’s a horrible person? Absolutely not. Sadly, he’s most likely a person working a hard job (not unlike most of us) who simply allowed his anger to reach a point that he chose to do something terribly foolish and unprofessional. He’s neither an absolute sinner nor an absolute saint. He’s a human being who clearly made a bad mistake.
Not unlike the many people who do one really stupid thing on aircraft as customers almost every week.
Most telling of all is that I’ve yet to have seen anyone condemn an extremely rude and disruptive passenger for their part in this.
Virgin America has announced its latest destination and I must say it has me eating a delicious meal of crow.
Starting in December, Virgin America will have 2 flights a day on two routes to DFW from both Los Angeles and San Francisco. I am thoroughly pleased to hear the news. It’s competition we need to see in the DFW market and they’re both routes that make sense for the business traveler in the DFW area.
Now, Virgin America, get to work on marketing your wares in the Dallas / Fort Worth area. Yes, it’s going to be a tough sale to lure the business traveler from AA but you do have potential. You have a much newer aircraft, better interior and better service product to offer. Get those guys and gals to try it just once and I suspect you’ll have ’em sold on the idea of flying VA to those destinations every time.
You’ve got the right introductory prices but don’t forget that the local Dallas business traveler often is allowed business/first class on trip segments greater than 3 hours. Sell that service product.
I’m going to suggest three other west coast destinations from DFW that have a lot of potential. San Diego, Seattle and Portland, Oregon. They are dominated by AA with exceptionally high fares and an exceptional number of frequencies. Again, the AA product is shop worn and generally on unpleasant aircraft. You can sell this and they’ll fit neatly into your west coast ops already.
This flight attendant is an extremely good sport. I suspect that if this had happened on a US legacy airline, the aircraft would have diverted and everyone arrested.
When the Federal Aviation Administration downgraded Mexico’s aviation safety from Category 1 to Category 2, people took notice and, no doubt, so did Mexico’s airlines. Does this reflect on Mexico’s airlines? Yes, I think so.
Mexico has joined the ranks of countries such as Haiti, Congo and Serbia & Montenegro. In fact, the only nation listed as Category 2 that surprises me is Israel and I suspect that has to do more with execution and very specific circumstances than it does with technical quality. Nonetheless, when you join those ranks, it speaks poorly of your country *and* your airlines.
Is a nation’s aviation infrastructure always indicative of the airlines? No, of course not. There are plenty of Category 1 nations who have had airlines that had unsafe operations over the years including the United States. However, I can’t think of a particularly outstanding airline coming from a Category 2 nation except El Al. You don’t really hear of the operational excellence of airlines from Honduras, Paraguay or the Phillipines, do you?
This is bad for both Mexico and Mexico’s airlines. And with Mexicana trying desperately to leap off a cliff and kill itself, it looks even worse.
Suddenly, Mexican airlines can no longer codeshare with US airlines because of this. That means participation in alliances is going to mean very little in terms of revenue. That is going to hurt. And, let’s face it, Mexico doesn’t have a great reputation for fixing its problems quickly. The Mexican Way is to bicker about it for as much as a decade before doing something.
It would be in the best interest of airlines in Mexico to start safety audits with IATA immediately and to put political pressure on the government to fix this asap. Sadly, I think this is going to get much worse before it gets much better.
I am a huge fan of Mexico. I genuinely enjoy its people and much of its culture and I want them to succeed every day. That said, success isn’t going to happen until its current government and, more importantly, its businesses and citizens come together to insist on excellence. They have, quite literally, a major conflict going on in their drug war and a crumbling financial infrastructure and waning exports to countries like the US and Canada. This development in aviation puts them at a further disadvantage with its partner trading countries and it needs to get fixed fast.
Mexico needs to ask for help from the US and other countries fast. Or they can contact Swaziland or the Ukraine and ask for advice on how to dig one’s grave even deeper.
I’ve been on vacation for the last week and a half but now I’m back and there are many things I want to comment on. Instead of one subject, here are a few quick observations on recent airline news.
Mexicana: Blaming labor is probably appropriate in some respects but this is an airline with other problems as well. And let’s not forget that management allowed those salaries to climb as high as they did. If the numbers being cited in media are anywhere near correct, salaries are outrageous and would have been ultimately untenable 8 years ago or more. Is there a solution? Only if labor unions are willing to negotiate new contracts that are probably 40 to 50 percent less than existing ones and only if another company is willing to come in and buy the airline. Dubious on both points.
Frontier: I see that Frontier Airlines is moving their Houston operations to Hobby Airport and this is probably smart. They’ve already seen that they can compete with Southwest and it makes them more convenient for the HOU/DEN business traveler who is primarily concerned with oil. It also makes me think of the current Love Field plan and just how restrictive it is for another airline to enter that market. Dallas has hurt itself on that one but the hurt will only be realized in another 4 years.
JAL and American Airlines: The Dallas Morning News Airline Biz Blog is reporting that JAL has sent 100 of its managers to American to learn, well, management. AA is encouraging JAL to use the financial analysis systems that it uses and which were instrumental in weathering the financial storm. While I agree that AA was more agile than many when it came to weathering that storm, they’re also somewhat boxed into a corner now too. Delta would have taught them to suck it up, take the hit and get on with life instead of prolonging the status quo.
American Eagle: There is now more talk of “spinning off” American Eagle from AMR and while that would put some money into AMR’s pockets (quite a bit, I suspect), it leaves both airlines with not a lot going for it. American Eagle goes independent and has to fight for its contracts in a world of regional airlines that are becoming increasingly competitive with equipment that is largely dated and inefficient and a labor force that is pretty well paid compared to most. American Airlines then has to find new partners (potentially) with lower costs but also with equipment to match existing scope clauses and the ability to work the American Way. Keep American Eagle, it fits, it works and you don’t need that trouble right now.
Delays: Here we are in August and, still, no real problems with tarmac delays. Airlines seem to be able to restrain themselves and keep their ops going just fine. Remember, the real problem occurs when customers start complaining about cancellations and that makes it news. Right now, all seems to be going OK. Let’s see how the Q3 financial numbers turn out too.
When I saw the 787 land at the Farnborough Airshow, I was very impressed at how fast and cleanly it stopped. Even if it was relatively empty. So I found a few videos of aircraft making impressive stops around the world.
The 787 at Farnborough and courtesy of FlightGlobal.
South African Airways 747SP – notice how narrow the landing runway was.
During and after the Farnborough Airshow, there has been a lot of speculation and commentary on Bombardier’s inability to announce a new order for their C-Series. Many speculate that it is because it’s a bad aircraft and it has no hope of competing.
I think it’s because what orders did show up at Farnborough were for immediate needs, not future fleet replacement and/or growth. Those who bought aircraft, bought them for near term delivery and they bought aircraft that fit into existing fleets. While the industry is recovering, it isn’t exactly flush with cash for making long term purchases yet.
Will the C-Series fly? Yes, I think so. In fact, I’m a bit unsure of why everyone is so ardently against this aircraft. Bombardier knows how to make a jet and they know how to grow a jet from a base model. Their current aircraft are well liked, frequently purchased and as efficient as any other in their class.
I am a bit dismayed that Boeing and Airbus have decided to cede the 100 to 130 seat market. I think there is more opportunity there than is being identified but I’ll also concede that it requires a sub-737 class development that neither company likely has the money for right now. On the other hand, a partnership with another manufacturer to design and build an aircraft for that market that would allow fast transition between one jet and another would be very advantageous. It’s doable.
The 3×2 economy seating layout is a bit of a risk for them but not as much as many seem to think. Frankly, it’s my preferred arrangement vs a 3×3 layout. Let’s face it: anyone who has owned DC-9/MD80/MD90/717 aircraft knows that the arrangement can play well.
Range is the real concern. I’m not sure these have to have trans-continental capability but I think they need the ability to fly at least 2/3’s the width of the country fully loaded. Nominally, they have that capability as “max range” at the minimum. Practically, I don’t know if they do and I suspect they may be a bit deficient. I also suspect their cargo capability may be a bit anemic as well.
The real risk on this platform is the engines. Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbo Fans are the choice and we have not seen engines that are meeting their fuel consumption targets yet and it remains to be seen if those engines are as reliable as they need to be. They cannot be merely “reliable” for that class. They need to be CFM-56 reliable because those aircraft are going to see a lot of cycles each day. I think that is far from proven when it comes to the P&W engine.
Yes, I think the aircraft will be built and I think it will be used here in the United States. Successful? I don’t know. It depends on what you define as successful. I don’t see this aircraft selling thousands of units but it isn’t fully defined yet either.
Look for similar speculation and derision about Embraer building a similar aircraft. I think people just don’t want to see these guys moving in on traditional Boeing/Airbus territory.
The Arizona Daily Star has THIS story about Southwest Airlines modifying their contract of carriage to state that mechanicals causing delays are now acts of God. Southwest now says that mechanicals causing delays are beyond their control.
Yeah, I don’t think so. And I don’t think a court would either.
Southwest says they made the change to limit their liability and fall more within industry standards of practice. The problem is, a review by the Daily Star of the contracts of carriage for the 4 other major airlines (American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines and United Airlines), none have such a clause.
Further, Southwest also says they don’t intend to change their current practices.
When Southwest was consulted again, it said this revised contract of carriage section was to cover “airport” mechanicals and such that were beyond their control. The problem is, that limitation isn’t in the contract and its vague wording seems to cover all mechanicals. Regardless, an airport mechanical (jetway failing, etc) isn’t an act of God either. Southwest has made a post on their own blog clarifying this issue. You can read it HERE.
I can see other major airlines adopting this practice very quickly. It’s attractive and certainly has possibilities when it comes to refusing responsibility to customers that they already enjoy with weather events.
But is it right? If I’m driving to the airport and suffer a flat tire that makes me late and I miss my flight, I’m pretty sure the airline isn’t going to see that as an act of God. They may or may not choose to help me out but they aren’t going to see this as a contractual obligation to accomodate me.
It is wrong for airlines to continue down this path of treating customers as an inconvenience to their business. Regardless of the fare paid, there are obligations on the part of the airline and one of them is to keep their equipment in good working order and be capable of making repairs when something does go wrong in a timely manner. Mechanicals aren’t an act of God and shame on Southwest for doing this particularly in light of their run-ins with the FAA over their maintenance practices over the past 3 years.
Is a flight that crashes because a mechanic didn’t perform the proper maintenance on a hydraulics system an act of God? No. And no court will see it that way either.
But you know what, folks? This abuse will not be reigned in until you voice your objections. I get to do so here (and based on the various domains referring traffic to this site, I can count at least 7 major airlines that have readers) but you need to do so with both your voice and wallet.
Just to make it a little bit easier for you, here is Southwest’s customer service phone number and email:
Just to put my money where my mouth is, I’ve made a complaint via the email form myself. Go ahead, it took me 2 minutes to fill out it out and express dissatisfaction and it’s worth making your opinion known.
Over the past year and particularly over the past 6 months we have heard a great deal about NextGen Air Traffic Control Systems using GPS for guidance. GPS will allow aircraft to fly more precise routes and permit distances between aircraft to be reduced which should allow more “capacity” into our system.
Increased precision should permit a “redesign” of approaches to airports that will allow aircraft to enter a “pattern” earlier and perform continuous descent approaches that will save fuel and even reduce the workload on pilots.
On flights over oceans, aircraft could use GPS to precisely locate themselves and then automatically report back their position(s) to traffic control centers which could then “tighten up” routes across those oceans and allow more aircraft to follow an optimal route.
There is no doubt that GPS is overdue in this game but it isn’t necessarily the “no downside” solution to our problems either.
GPS signals are provided by satellites and things can happen to those satellites to either block or severely degrade the signals. Sunspot activity can affect their signals, for instance. It’s also not unheard of to suddenly find satellites decommissioned because they were hit by space debris or such intense solar storms. Suddenly loss of those signals could result in a very intense situation where we find tightly space aircraft without the ability to precisely locate themselves. The chances for this are, admittedly, statistically very low. It’s worth an acceptable risk provided aircraft retain guidance redundancy with other systems not dependent on satellites.
Indeed, not all GPS signals are actually emitted from satellites. There are ground based augmentation systems that permit a finer degree of precision in certain areas. In fact, one such use is in Instrument Landing Systems being designed for the future.
But there is a security problem with GPS. First, it is possible to “spoof” GPS signals. In fact, it’s relatively easy to “spoof” these signals and a reason why the military doesn’t rely completely on GPS signals for guiding munitions and why they’re developing other systems that are not satellite based but which do provide accurate relative navigation.
Signals by which aircraft would navigate are encrypted but that encryption is somewhat out of date for this era. While a terrorist wouldn’t necessarily be able to spoof the signal, a foreign country could conceivably do so. And you can do such “spoofing” by sending a signal from the ground, air or space with equipment that isn’t very costly and not very hard to engineer.
While aircraft aren’t necessarily going to experience their guidance being impacted by pranksters or terrorists, the risk for it being a target of a foreign nation who decides its at war with the United States or some other country does exist. Any country capable of doing the math and engineering technology from the 1980’s can potentially engage in this. That might include countries such as North Korea or Iran.
In addition and quite unfortunately, China has shown its willingness to strike at satellites with missiles. Again, any country capable of building an intercontinental ballastic missile is now capable of striking at GPS satellites in space. And don’t think that those won’t be targets in a conflict, they will be.
While we have some safeguards and the United States Air Force works very hard at securing and protecting the existing satellite system, we really need a global commercial navigation system that is secured by a larger, more redundant grid of satellites. A system that is owned and maintained by responsible nations of the world and one that is designed for air and sea navigation. A system that is encrypted with modern encryption and upgradeable for the future. And a system that can be “turned off” selectively for certain regions or countries in times of conflict.
I’m thrilled we seem to be moving forward with a new generation of navigation systems. It’s long overdue but I do wish that we would consider the security risks inherent with these systems just a bit more.
We often read stories about companies and businesses going green and being happier for it. We see governmental regulations aimed at being cleaner “emitters” and taxes and credits being structured to force people to be pollute less. A few years ago, the airline industry was being targeted by various “green” groups for being big polluters and being particularly damaging to the atmosphere.
So, is going green really good?
As matter of fact, it is. At least for the airline industry. One reason you see a variety of airlines embracing the idea of being “green” and becoming involved in a variety of experiments is that, for the airline industry, almost every “green” effort translates into cost savings for the airline.
American Airlines discovered several years ago that by being just a little bit more proactive in their engine maintenance, they could extract a 1 to 2% gain in fuel efficiency. Less fuel burned translates into less emissions in the atmosphere.
Several airlines have participated in experimental flights using various “bio” fuels to see what does work and how well it works. Interestingly enough, several of those experiments have revealed that the “bio” fuels often are *more* efficient than the petroleum based fuels. They have more “energy” and therefore an aircraft burns less fuel per mile using the bio fuel. We only lack the technology to mass produce some of these fuels at a cost effective price.
Other airlines have been experimenting with continuous descent approaches to airports. In the simplest sense, this is an airliner “gliding” from the top of its cruise altitude all the way to the runway. Currently, airlines have to make “step” approaches to airports where they lose a few thousand feet of altitude and wait. Then they are cleared to another lower level and when they reach that, they wait. This results in a lot of throttle “jockeying” that wastes fuel. Continuous descent approaches have been shown to reduce emissions by *tons* on a long haul flight. And they are one reason why airlines are embracing the idea and pushing on the FAA hard to find ways to employ these at airports.
Every time an engine manufacturer manages to eek out another 1 to 3% fuel efficiency these days, the gains aren’t just in reduced fuel burn but also in reduced toxic emissions. Essentially, these gains come from burning fuel more completely and the more completely the fuel is burned, the fewer toxic emissions that result.
Some airlines have discovered that just by washing their aircraft a little bit more results in a little less drag and that results in a little less fuel burn which then results in fewer emissions. Others have figured out that aircraft sitting at gates running their APU (Auxiliary Power Unit aka a small jet fuel engine producing electrical and hydraulic power) units is wasteful. Now they hook up ground power and ground airconditioning to the aircraft and that means fewer emissions. Running a jet fuel engine to produce power on the ground results in lots of dirty emissions and its wasteful of fuel.
Every “green” movement in the airline industry yields costs savings. In this industry, even tiny savings on a per mile basis can result in millions of dollars saved every year. That’s why you don’t hear about airlines protesting about being pushed towards being more efficient and less polluting. The same is true for aircraft manufacturers and engine makers: every effort made in this area means their customers save money. A customer that can save just a few dollars per flight using your equipment potentially saves millions of dollars each year and that’s a huge sale advantage.
At the end of the day, being “green” has literally no downside for the airline and it’s a model industry for looking at ways to embrace it further.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek had a story a week ago about the brewing brawl in Australia over passengers which can be read HERE. In Australia, a country of about 24 million people (about what Texas has) and the size of the United States, three carriers are starting fight for passengers.
You know two of them: QANTAS and Virgin Blue. The third is a new entry named Tiger Airways. QANTAS is fighting with Jetstar, it’s low cost carrier.
What is brewing is a battle of LCC carriers over a market that, by population, should barely be able to support 2 carriers. In fact, a third carrier almost never survives these battles.
QANTAS is, by far, the biggest player. Virgin Blue holds some status for having fought for ground and held it in Australia but Tiger Airways is coming in with lower costs than the othe two and hubs established in both Melbourne and Adelaide.
Melbourne I get. Adelaide makes me scratch my head. Adelaide isn’t a city of great commerce or international business. Adelaide has a population of 1.2 million people but it falls in an awkward place for hub. Situated in southern Australia between Melbourne and Perth, it remains distant from the traditional battlegrounds of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It’s not even a logical stop on the way to Perth.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that Tiger Airways’ costs are just about half of Jetstar’s on a per seat kilometer basis (2.75 cents Australian) and it would probably surprise you to learn that Virgin Blue has the highest seat-kilometer costs of 6.75 cents.
Who survives? It’s anybody’s guess. Tiger is definitely the underdog still until they gain more market share and more credibility.
In the meantime, Virgin Blue’s new CEO (formerly of QANTAS) has decided not only to stay in the fight but also go head to head with QANTAS in business class. With the highest LCC costs, I have to wonder if Virgin Blue isn’t the one that may get squeezed out of the market this time.
Virgin Blue has good coverage of Australia but poor feed internationally despite operating subsidiary brands V Australia, Pacific Blue and Polynesian Blue since those serve routes that are predominantly leisure oriented.
Each airline is going to suffer from excess capacity and fare wars to fill those aircraft. Tiger Airways has just 9 Airbus A320 aircraft now but plans a fleet of 30 for Australia in the near future. What’s worse, QANTAS will be adding capacity with the arrival of new aircraft from both Airbus and Boeing in the form of A320’s (31 orders), A330 (7 orders) and the 787 (15 orders). Virgin Blue has 85 737-800’s on order and 3 Embraer E195 jets too.
That is a *lot* of capacity. Imagine all those aircraft serving Texas.
Time will tell but unless Virgin Blue can operate with lower costs and keep their market share, Blue may go red.
Continental Airlines is testing a new self-boarding process in Houston that is based on the passenger “swiping” or “displaying” their boarding pass at a kiosk and which then allows access to the jetway via turnstile that “unlocks” if the boarding pass is OK.
This test is described as controversial in a time when airlines are decreasing more and more human contact with the passenger. I actually don’t see it that way. First, this isn’t something that passengers are going to have trouble with as we already are subject this kind of process elsewhere in our lives. Second, I’m all for it if the turnstile won’t unlock if YOUR BOARDING GROUP HASN’T BEEN CALLED. We don’t need a free-for-all at the gates with people attempting to board out of their sequence.
Finally, I”d rather access a live human at the reservations number to give me info I need. I don’t need someone to smile at me as I enter the jetway. That is superfluous and unnecessary to a good service experience.
You’ve never heard of David Warren, have you? Well, Mr. Warren was the inventor of the flight recorder. The so called “black box” that is actually painted flourescent orange on most aircraft today. Mr. Warren passed away last week in his native Australia. You can see a photo of him HERE.
Mr. Warren, a radio and electronics nut, was invited to participate in a probe about one of the first jetliner crashes in the world and during that probe, he suggested that with a recording of what was going on in the cockpit, finding out what happened would be a lot easier and much more accurate.
His first prototype was capable of recording about 4 hours of voice and cockpit instrumentation. After a few years, his invention was being installed on virtually every modern aircraft. I would argue that this invention has contributed more to safety than any other single invention in the industry. Flight voice and data recorders have made it possible to find out exactly what happened prior to a crash and attribute an accurate cause of a wreck instead of leaving it up to speculation.
And how many times have we found out something else entirely was happening during an event versus what popular speculation focused on? All the time. There is no doubt that the things we have learned from his invention have improved air safety by an order of magnitude.
Rest in Peace, Mr. Warren, and thank you very much.
I’m still a bit in awe deep down inside that an aircraft of this size can take flight. Not only take flight but fly as many as 500 people for as much as 8000 miles. It really is a wonder. Here are some videos about the A380:
A380 Crosswind Landing in Iceland
The A380 Brake Test (laboratory)
The A380 lands hard in Oshkosh, Wisconsin
The A380 lands at JFK airport the first time.
First A380 landing at LAX airport.
And the first landing of the A380 at London Heathrow airport.
