air travel

Ethics Dunce: United Airlines

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

airplane 1There’s got to be an explanation for this other than the one the creates paranoia and dread. But what is it?

Canadian conservative commentator  Mark Steyn, a funny, bright and eclectic author—I learned about him first be reading his book on the decline of Broadway musicals—was flying on United when he discovered that his website, steynonline.com is on a United Airlines blacklist that blocks passengers from accessing the site on the airline’s in-flight WiFi system.

It really was called a blacklist by the airline. Steyn tweeted United during the flight for an explanation. Someone at American had the wit to tweet to Steyn, still airborne, that they wouldn’t block his site.

What’s going on here?

I know that porn sites are blocked by airlines, but conservative blogs and websites? No, it’s not a First Amendment issue, it’s a “Who the hell do you think you are?” issue. Content censorship by an airline? Steyn wants his WiFi fee back, but imagine if hotels, airports and Starbucks adopted this form of private censorship. I’m assuming/hoping that this was a stupid mistake and just incompetence, since incompetence is what United is best at. Yet so far, if the airline has an explanation, it hasn’t been publicized.

Kicking A Lawyer When She’s Down

/ Jack Marshall / 48 Comments

Nelson

The more I read “Above the Law,” the less I like it.

The legal gossip site has now devoted two articles to an embarrassing incident involving Sarah E. Buffett,  a partner at Nelson Mullins, one of the largest firms in the country. While on a flight, Buffett downed three glasses of wine as a chaser to a prescription sleeping pill without eating dinner, and instead of falling asleep as was her evident intent, went bananas. Sitting in first class, she first began damaging her seat and then tried to smash the aircraft window with an entertainment system remote. Then she got up and began “acting in a menacing manner in front of the cockpit door.” The flight attendants weren’t able to restrain the out-of-control lawyer, so other passengers had to help get Buffett into plastic restraints. She removed those restraints twice before passengers held her down while an attendant wrapped her legs with tape.

The pilot was forced to turn around and make an emergency landing.

Buffett, who said in court that she remembers none of this, has been charged with violation of 49 U.S. Code § 46504, a crime punishable by a fine and/or possible imprisonment of up to 20 years. Her firm has suspended her from all duties, and wiped her bio from its website. She has been humiliated and her career is in jeopardy. Continue reading →

Morning Pop Quiz On Ethics And Leadership: What’s Wrong With White House Spokesman Josh Earnest’s TSA Quote?

/ Jack Marshall / 72 Comments

Here’s the quote, from Earnest’s  statement on behalf of the President:

“The President does continue to have confidence that the officers of the TSA do very important work that continues to protect the American people.”

Your pop quiz:

What’s wrong with it?

(It is very wrong.)

I’ll give you a minute (It took me 3 seconds) “Final Jeopardy” style:

Got it?

Here we go…. Continue reading →

TSA’s Incompetence: Combining David Brooks’ Scandal-Free Fantasy With United’s Anti-Soda Can Policy For Muslem Passengers

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

mashupmonday

Now we have this:

Washington (CNN)Airport screeners failed to detect explosives and weapons in nearly every test that an undercover Homeland Security team conducted at dozens of airports, according to an internal investigation.

The Transportation Security Administration found that “red teams” with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General were able to get banned items through the screening process in 67 out of 70 tests — 95% — it conducted across the nation.

In other words, since those deadly Islamic terrorists can easily smuggle explosives and weapons on board United flights (or any others), it’s really silly to rob them of the pleasure of sipping a Diet Coke from a freshly opened can as they wait to send everyone to Allah.

In more words, all of the hundreds of thousands of hours, pointless inconvenience and hassle, emptying of pockets, taking off of shoes and belts, moving laptops in and out of bags, showing IDs and boarding passes, as well as the occasional intrusive and unpleasant feel-up pat-downs by strangers wearing rubber gloves that have been inflicted on air passengers (like me) have been stupid, useless, and as effective at keeping airplanes safe as being checked by a blind marmoset with a divining rod.

Of course, David Brooks wouldn’t call the TSA’s gross failure an example of inexcusable incompetence, lack of oversight and breach of trust a scandal either, because it doesn’t involve sex (well, at least in most of the patdowns)  or criminal acts, and is the responsibility of Barack Obama, whose administration is amazingly scandal-free, so this can’t be a scandal by definition.

I beg to differ. The stunning incompetence and lack of competent management, accountability (watch: nobody will be fired for this) or oversight exemplified by this latest fiasco is an ongoing scandal of the worst kind, one of many, or, if you prefer, just the single, devastating, huge, two-term scandal that is the Barack Obama presidency, the most arrogant and incompetent administration in U.S. history.

Southwest Airlines And The Suicide Threat

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments
Not exactly "friendly skies"

Not exactly “friendly skies”

We tend to assume someone was at fault when a terrible event results from the execution of a standard policy that was not appropriate to the crisis at hand. Who’s to blame in this nightmarish scenario?

Karen Momsen-Evers was on a Southwest Airlines plane about to take off from New Orleans to Milwaukee, where she lived. Then her husband Andy sent her a text asking her for forgiveness for his imminent suicide. “I go to sleep at night thinking what could I have done, what should I have done,” Evers said. She texted back “No,” but the text arrived as flight attendants were doing their final cabin checks. She wanted to call him. The flight attendant ordered her to turn her phone off, and when she insisted, was told that the FAA regulations prohibited any further use of her cellphone. “The steward slapped the phone down and said you need to go on airplane mode now,” Momsen-Evers told reporters.

Once the flight reached cruising altitude, the desperate woman explained the situation to another attendant. She begged her to have someone make an emergency phone call, but the attendant insisted there was nothing she could do.

So Karen Momsen-Evers sat in her seat, looking at the text and sobbing, all the way to Milwaukee. When she arrived home she was met by police officers, who told her Andy had killed himself. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Is “Hidden City” Flying Unethical?

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

Hidden City

Last month, United and Orbitz filed a lawsuit against a website called Skiplagged, which among other things helps consumers plan trips with cheaper airfare using a tactic called “Hidden City.” Hidden City travel is when a traveler wants to go to a city that costs more to fly to directly than another city that uses the real destination as a connection. Thus, if you want to go to Charlotte, you book a cheaper flight that involves a change of planes in Charlotte, and just take your carry-on luggage and skip the last leg of the trip. Anyone can search and book Hidden City flights, but it is a chore.  Skiplagged makes it relatively easy.

Airlines punish frequent flyer passengers who use the method. They argue that gaming the system this way makes it difficult to track passengers and unfairly takes advantage of the hub-and-spoke system, where airlines fly to hub cities and add connecting flights from there. The lawsuit is trying to shut down Skiplagged,  alleging “unfair competition” that promotes “strictly prohibited” travel. The suit seeks $75,000 in damages, and 22-year-old site creator Aktarer Zaman is fighting it, seeking funds, so far successfully, on GoFundMe, where he originally sought  $20,000 to afford his legal bills and is closing in on twice that amount. My guess? If this gets to a jury, Zaman will win. The Streisand Effect is also in play: the airlines risk making everyone aware of this cost-saving maneuver, while getting bad publicity as well.

Zaman argues that the Hidden City ploy is legal. You know my answer to that ( Rationalization #4. Marion Barry’s Misdirection, or “If it isn’t illegal, it’s ethical”)and it’s also the first  Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of 2015:

Is the Hidden City tactic ethical?

Bloomberg refers to Hidden City flying as a “scam” and “cheating.” Is that a fair description? The ticket purchaser has paid for the whole flight, so why is it cheating to get off half-way through it?

I think it’s a close call, but I have to side with the airlines.  The closest analogy that I can come up with is card-counting in blackjack: it’s not cheating, and it’s not illegal, but the casinos have a right to prohibit it in their own interests. The rationalization (Rationalization # 18. Hamm’s Excuse: “It wasn’t my fault.”) is that the existence of a loophole is the airline’s problem to fix, and if they can’t fix it, taking advantage of it is fair. But it isn’t fair, any more than it is fair for travelers to avoid baggage fees by taking large bags through security to the gate, and then passing them off, at no cost, on the way into the plane. It’s dishonest, and the Hidden City trick is also dishonest. You pay the airline to take you to a specific destination. How they get you there is irrelevant: a ticket to Minneapolis is a ticket to Minneapolis, and if you use it to get to Chicago instead because the airline charges more to go there, you engaged in bad faith negotiation.  The ploy is also unethical because if it becomes widespread, airlines will have to raise fares, and all air travelers will suffer.

One of Zaman’s arguments also positions him on my bad side: he points out that his site merely shows the airfares, and that the passengers book the tickets. Right. That was the same argument made by radical pro-life websites that posted the names and addresses of abortion practitioners so fanatics could track them down and kill them. Pro-anoerexia websites don’t starve young women, they just encourage them to starve themselves. If Hidden City flying is cheating, he’s facilitating it.

Reluctantly, I have to agree that it’s unethical.

______________________________

Facts: Slate, Bloomberg
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts, and seek written permission when appropriate. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work or property was used in any way without proper attribution, credit or permission, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.

Ethics Dunces Of The Air: The Crew Of Delta Flight 468

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments
"Fly Delta: we'll accommodate your biases!"

“Fly Delta: we’ll accommodate your biases!”

This one amazes me. There is no conceivable justification for it.

A group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men refused to take their seats on Delta Airlines Flight 468 from New York’s JFK Airport bound to Israel, because their faith forbade them from sitting next to female passengers. The flight was delayed by 30 minutes while the crew negotiated with the men and the offending passengers—you know…women. Eventually, desperate to get the flight off the ground, some passengers agreed to trade seats.

In Ultra-orthodox Judaism, physical contact between men and unrelated women is forbidden.

So what? Continue reading →

“Knee Defender” Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

There are no Knee Defender ethics.

Invented for entitled jerks, by one. Is this a great country or what?

Invented for entitled jerks, by one. Is this a great country or what?

The Knee Defender is unethical,  those who advocate them are unethical, its inventor, a slickly rationalizing  ethics corrupter named Ira Goldman is unethical, anyone who uses it is unethical, and anyone who defends it is unethical.

There. Next question?

What gives anyone in the seat behind me the right to appropriate space in the plane I have paid for? I have paid for it, you know: the space that my seat can recline into is within my control, my dominion. If I choose not to avail myself of it, then the person behind me is certainly free to make use of it—until I change my mind. There is no other legitimate, logical or fair interpretation of the rights and privileges involved. Using the Knee Defender, a sinister device designed to unilaterally claim my space, is taking what is mine by force. There’s no other side to the issue.

Oh, the obnoxious, smug marketing for the thing claims otherwise:

“It helps you defend the space you need when confronted by a faceless, determined seat recliner who doesn’t care how long your legs are or about anything else that might be “back there”…

First of all, you can’t defend space you have no right to, and never owned in the first place. And don’t insult me: I have a face, and no, I really don’t care how long your legs are. Mine are pretty long too, You have to be awfully tall not to be able to extend your legs under my seat. Oh—you have baggage under there, because you stowed some obscenely large roller-board in the over-head bins? Tough. I check my large luggage so I can keep the area clear under the seat in front of me, so I can stretch out my legs, so I don’t feel I have to whine about the seat in front of me reclining, and use vigilante devices invented by a trouble-maker to stop me from doing what the airlines say I purchased the privilege of doing, do he can pick up a lousy $29.95. You can check your luggage too, you know. You can also  seat yourself behind the seats that don’t recline. But no, rather than make the effort to deal with your physical limitations by planning ahead, you think it’s acceptable to solve your problem by waging war against the unlucky traveler who happens to get the seat in front of you. Continue reading →

I Foment Defiance On My Airplane Trip In The Name Of Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

airplane-baggage-overhead-I know I’ve written about this at least once, but it continues to gripe my cookies.

I had settled into my seat on the US Air flight from Boston to Washington when I watched the young woman who was soon sitting in the center seat next to me be curtly informed by a flight attendant that her medium-size bag needed to go under her seat, so passengers with rollerboards and other large pieces of luggage could store them  in the bins. She sat down, stuffing the bag under the seat in front of her, and looked uncomfortable.

“I refuse to do that, you know,” I said. “I pay to check my large bag so that I can have leg room and not have to stow my briefcase in front of me. Why can’t I use the overhead bins for the one small bag I have, because other passengers won’t pay the fee–like I have— to  check their large bags?”

“Well, the attendant told me I couldn’t put my bag up there,” she said.

“Yeah, and as long as you do what they say, they’ll never change a stupid and unfair policy. Get up, put your bag overhead, and if you are challenged, say, “Look, I paid 50 bucks to check my rollerboard, and for that sum I get to take up my foot space so someone who wouldn’t pay can put a rollerboard in the overhead bins? That’s absurd and wrong, and I’m not doing it.”

That’s exactly what she did. And she even made the speech I scripted, and a few people applauded! Then a late-comer with a huge rollerboard was told that she had to check her bag, because there was no room.

Heh, heh, heh…

The Lone Ethicist strikes again.

Ethics Quiz: Is It Ethical For The President To Cut In Line?

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments
"I'm more important than you are, so I'm cutting in line."

“I’m more important than you are, so I’m cutting in line.”

[Fred, who sent me this one, prefaced it by writing, “You’ll love this.” He was right. I do. I also hate it.]

News Item ( Austin 360):

“Following his speech at the Paramount, President Obama’s motorcade traveled to Franklin Barbecue on East 11th Street. The restaurant is well known for its great brisket and extremely long waits, but the president circumvented that using the powers of his office. “I know this is a long line. I feel real bad, but – I’m gonna cut,” Obama said, according to a pool report from the Statesman’s Chuck Lindell. [Owner] Aaron Franklin told the Statesman’s Ciara O’Rourke that nobody cuts the line at Franklin … except Obama.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is it ethical for the President of the United States to cut into a line for goods or services?

Can you guess my answer?

It’s not just “no,” but “Hell, no!”

Talk about the Imperial Presidency! There is no basis, justification or excuse whatsoever for the President to cut into line under these circumstances, especially by saying, “I’m gonna cut.” The proper answer to that, my friends, is “No, you’re not, Mister President. Why don’t you ask politely, and maybe everyone ahead of you will be magnanimous and agree?” Continue reading →