American Airlines fires web designer over response to rant

by Tom Johansmeyer on

In an era where communication is fast and easy, sometimes it’s easy to forget about boundaries. American Airlines fired a web design employee because of this. The employee responded to a blog post from a “disgruntled user,” but the airline felt he went too far, saying that he released sensitive information about American. This was a violation of his non-disclosure agreement with the company.

So far, the employee is being called “Mr. X” — an original moniker, right? Well, he saw a pretty brutal post from Dustin Curtis, an unhappy passenger. He basically wrote an open letter to the airline after having “had the horrific displeasure of booking a flight on your website.” It was so bad, he wrote, “that I vowed never to fly your airline again.” He then offered some suggestions, drawing on his background as a user interface designer and closed with the sentiment: “Imagine what you could do with a full, totally competent design team.”

According to Curtis, it only took American an hour to fire “Mr. X” after he addressed to the employee’s response. Yep, a decade of experience as a user interface designer and a portfolio that Curtis wrote, has “some great work,” went down the tubes. In an e-mail to Curtis, Mr. X explains the internal situation at American’s AA.com group in considerable detail. He provides insights into which groups handle specific functions and is kind enough to point out that there are some enhancements coming in the next 12 to 18 months (so, keep an eye out for them).

And, he defended himself and his company. Mr. X got pretty blunt:

“But-and I guess here’s the thing I most wanted to get across-simply doing a home page redesign is a piece of cake. You want a redesign? I’ve got six of them in my archives. It only takes a few hours to put together a really good-looking one, as you demonstrated in your post. But doing the design isn’t the hard part, and I think that’s what a lot of outsiders don’t really get, probably because many of them actually do belong to small, just-get-it-done organizations. But those of us who work in enterprise-level situations realize the momentum even a simple redesign must overcome, and not many, I’ll bet, are jumping on this same bandwagon. They know what it’s like.”

Curtis, of course, is “horrified” at what happened to Mr. X (and pointed out that he republished the letter with the author’s permission).

For American, this wasn’t an issue of public criticism. After all, Curtis, as a professional, is in the business of promoting his capabilities, and it’s possible to interpret his initial critique as a pitch — to any potential client, not just American. The airline was upset to see such detailed and sensitive information about its operation sent out into the public domain.

Curtis disagrees. His latest statement says, “When I first learned about this, I was horrified. Mr. X is actually a good UX designer, and his email had me thinking there was hope for American Airlines.” He continues that Mr. X “clearly cared about his work and about the user experience at the company as a whole. But AA fired Mr. X because he cared.”

Yet, while Curtis says American fired the designer because “he cared enough to reach out to a dissatisfied customer and help clear the company’s name in the best way he could,” he opened the door to all kinds of information that I wouldn’t want to show up on Gadling.

Photo of the day (10-29-09)

by Kent Wien on

Today’s photo of the day is of Flagship Detroit, a fully restored DC-3 that’s operated and maintained by current and former American Airlines employees. This crisp black and white shot was taken by Flickr user CaptBrando.

Two years ago I had my own DC-3 adventure as my dad and I delivered one from New York to Seattle, so how could I not choose this?

That and it just seems appropriate to take pictures of classic airplanes using black and white, doesn’t it? Well done CaptBrando!

Are you a Flickr user who’d like to share a travel related picture or two for our consideration? Submit it to Gadling’s Flickr group right now! We just might use it for our Photo of the Day!

The $10 airline peak “surcharge” is here to stay

by Scott Carmichael on

Last week, we reported on a new money making scheme concocted by the airlines. In a nutshell, they are raising fares by $10 on the busiest days of the year. The scheme started as a fee from one airline on three days around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then other airlines followed, turning it into an industry wide scam scheme.

Well, apparently the bean counters at the various airlines loved it – because they have expanded it to a whole bunch of other dates.

Farecompare.com has the dates listed as:

  • November 29 – November 30, 2009
  • December 19, 2009
  • December 26 – December 27, 2009
  • January 2 – January 3, 2010
  • March 14, 2010
  • March 20 – March 21, 2010
  • March 28, 2010
  • April 11, 2010
  • May 28, 2010

That’s right – when you need the airlines the most, they’ll make the most money off you. Some airlines were smart, and hid the $10 surcharge in their fares (American Airlines is a good example of this), others simply tack it on top of the other fees and surcharges added to your ticket.When the first wave of “peak surcharges” was added, you could opt for a different airline, but as is often the case in the airline world, most airlines have copied American Airlines, so it’s going to be one of those times when the airlines win. In other words – get used to these new fee generating methods.

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(Via Walletpop)

Galley Gossip: Attention All Nippon Airway passengers, please empty your bladders now!

by Heather Poole on

Ya know, I’ve seen a lot of strange things working as a flight attendant in the last fourteen years, I really have, and just when I think I’ve seen it all a passenger will surprise me. Recently an elderly woman asked if I’d be willing to help her get her bra back on right after she yelled at me for talking too much in the aisle. And then there was the time I sat down on my jumpseat in the back of the airplane and another passenger cracked the lavatory door open and asked if I had a magazine she – not he – could borrow. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

Most of the time it’s a passenger making a strange request, but this time it’s an airline and that airline is implementing one wacky new policy. It wants you to pee before you fly. As of October 1, 2009, All Nippon Airways (ANA), a Japanese Airline, is asking its passengers to empty their bladders before boarding a flight, and they’re doing so in the guise of going green. Now I’m all for being green, I even carry my own eco friendly refillable water bottle along with me on trips, but setting up signs at the airport and hiring “loo-attendants” to remind people to use the bathroom is kind of crazy, don’t ya think? ANA believes a lighter aircraft will result in lower fuel use which in return will create a reduction in carbon emissions.

Perhaps All Nippon is on to something. It’s been rumored that American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 when they removed one olive – ONE OLIVE! – from each salad in first class. Can you imagine how much money will be saved if every single passenger on board a full flight uses the loo before take-off? According to the Dailymail.co.uk, the average human bladder capacity is 15oz, which means if 150 passengers relieved themselves that would total to 63.7kg of waste. That’s 140 pounds, people! That doesn’t even count the amount of money the airline stands to save on toilet paper. Now does anyone know how much an olive weighs?

Of course it’s the All Nippon staff who is in charge of asking passengers to use the restroom one last time before they board. How embarrassing is that going to be – for everyone involved! I can’t help but wonder who, exactly, is going to do this, and how, exactly, this will be done, and what, exactly, is going to be said. I’m dying to know. Will frequent fliers receive special treatment by being allowed to go first? Will flight attendants be able to flash their badge and cut the line like we do at security? Will the airline take a delay for passengers who have difficulty going on cue. Next thing you know ANA will start limiting the amount of beverages allowed to be consumed on board after take-off! And here I thought charging for checked bags was bad!

While the airline is only in an experimental phase with it’s carbon emission reduction plan which will take place over one month and forty two flights, it may actually extend the program if it is well received by passengers and gets positive results.

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Photo courtesy of Tango-Sierra

Galley Gossip: Flight attendants under investigation for bomb threat

by Heather Poole on

Like I mentioned in my last post, Fly-Girls, a flight attendant docu-series airing soon, it’s rarely ever a good thing when flight attendants are in the news…

It happened a few seconds after the Captain on my flight from Miami to New York introduced himself and then asked if I had brewed a pot of coffee. I had, in fact. I always do whenever I’m working the galley. I poured him a cup and told him my name as we boarded a full flight on a 757.

After taking a sip, he whipped off his hat and hung it on a hook against the back of the cockpit door. Nonchalantly he said, “Did you hear about the bomb threat today?”

Immediately I stopped counting meals, chicken with rice and cheese tortellini, and spun around to face him. “What happened?”

“A flight attendant found a note in the lavatory. It said there was a bomb on board the flight.” And with that he was gone, too busy chatting away with a mechanic who had stepped into the cockpit.

Of course the first thing that came to mind when the pilot uttered those two oh-so-innocent words, “flight attendant”, was oh no, please don’t let it be a flight attendant who wrote the note. The next thing I thought was, I wonder if the crew was on reserve.

The only reason I suspected the crew was because something similar had happened a few years back. Even in that case, so many years ago, when I heard on the news that the flight attendant under investigation had been on reserve when she left a note in the lav, I had to laugh. Just because being on reserve does make one a little bit crazy. At times. But usually not that crazy, not bomb writing crazing of course!

When I mentioned to a friend, and lawyer, what had happened on the American Airlines flight from Boston to Miami, as well as whom I hoped the suspects would not turn out to be, he said, “Tell me, how does ‘we will get fired’ ‘we will go to prison’ get left out of the thought process before writing that kind of note?”

Good question.

Then I reminded him, as well as myself, that the flight attendants in question are innocent until proven guilty.

Two days later I am now unhappy to report that what I had prayed would not be the case seems to be kinda-sorta happening. The crew is now officially under investigation. The details are as follows…

  • A flight attendant found a message scrawled on the bathroom cabinet that read, “Bomb on board – Boston-Miami”
  • The aircraft was evacuated and luggage was searched by a bomb sniffing dog at an isolated area at Logan Airport. No bomb was found
  • FBI interrogated two crew members; a male and female flight attendant
  • Passengers were transferred to another flight and continued on to Miami

And here’s the kicker, the same two flight attendants under investigation for this bomb threat were on another flight from Miami to Boston just two weeks ago when a similar bomb threat was found. I kid you not.

Again, innocent until proven guilty.

But if these two are guilty, just how dumb are they to do it (period) on two different flights they’re crewing – two weeks apart! Do you think maybe, just maybe, they might be dating? I mean how else do two people get involved in something like this? Or do you think they’re roommates? Best friends? Or two disgruntled coworkers who just so happened to hold the same line last month? Seriously, what do you think?

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Photo courtesy of Purplemattfish