United Air Lines

A New Way To Be Unethical On An Airplane, Courtesy of “The Hamilton Effect”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I’m in O’Hare, with about 20 minutes to post something, and amazingly, I just witnessed something of ethics significance.

As my United flight from Sacramento was at the O’Hare  gate, with passengers waiting for the jetway to be set up, a young man stood up in the middle of the plane and launched into a loud sales pitch for his depression counseling services!

Let’s call this ‘The Hamilton Effect,” in which people assume that a captive audience is there to be inflicted with their particular rants, business promotions and other intrusions.

The flight attendants had no idea what to do.  He was behind me, and I didn’t feel like fighting my way to him, intervening, and telling him, “You’re depressing ME. Shut up. We’re not your infomercial audience, and we didn’t consent to being bombarded by propaganda or marketing blather.”

Now I’m ticked off that I didn’t. Next time, I’ll be ready. This has to be nipped in the bud.

Oh, this probably wasn’t really sparked by “Hamilton’s” ambush of Mike Pence, but I’m going to blame the production and cast anyway. And all the ethics-challenged theater professionals who applauded this breach of trust.

On another topic, David Cay Johnston,the journalist who revealed the President’s 2005 tax returns, offers a rebuttal to my recent post, here. What fun!

Now THIS Is An Unprofessional Airline Pilot! (Also, I Fear, Nuts..)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

freakoutAs the Wall Street Journal James Taranto used to say on his late, lamented blog, “Everything seemingly is spinning out of control!”

United flight 455 from Austin to San Francisco was scheduled to depart Austin’s Bergstrom airport when the pilot, who was not in uniform, began ranting over the plane’s intercom first about her divorce, and then Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Police removed the pilot from the plane, a new pilot was assigned to the flight, and the plane departed approximately two hours late. United Airlines apologized to its customers “for the inconvenience.”

Gee, United, how about apologizing for frightening the passengers to death by giving them good reason to believe they were about to be trapped in an airborne jetliner with an unraveling madwoman at the controls?

Of course, had she merely complained about President Trump to her trapped and captive audience, she would have been well within “Hamilton”  ethics.

(And no, I am not letting that fiasco go until every one of my friends from the theater world admit how wrong they were to make excuses for that miserable betrayal of theater ethics, and those who called me on the phone to shout at me and hang up apologize to my face, and maybe on their knees. I haven’t decided yet. They entirely relied on emotion and about twelve rationalizations, attacked me for being objective and not allowing my standards, unlike theirs, to be swallowed whole by ravenous partisan bias, and I will not soon forget it.)

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Pointer: Fred!

 

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.

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.

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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.

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA)

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Rep. Jeff Denham: Now we know.

First the airlines are unfairly pilloried in the media thanks to an ignorant serviceman’s YouTube complaint about being charged excessive baggage fees for his gear….despite the fact that 1) the airlines already give servicemen  discounts on extra bags (though they shouldn’t) and 2) the fees charged will be reimbursed, just like my business travel costs are reimbursed by the people who hire me.

Now Congressman Jeff Denham (R-CA) has introduced a non-binding resolution in the House that threatens to use contracts between the military and commercial airlines to punish carriers that do not waive all baggage fees for deployed military personnel.

Rep. Denham’s resolution has its good side: now we know that he is unethical, a fool beyond redemption, and a bully as well. Continue reading →

Those Military Baggage Fees: Bad Journalism and Bad PR, Not Bad Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

The 24 hour news cycle and blogger feeding frenzy often produce snap ethical judgments that defy the facts, logic, and fairness. Today’s example: the supposed “outrage” of Delta Air Lines making Army reservists returning from combat in Afghanistan pay excess-bag fees. A Colorado soldier posted a YouTube video complaining that their unit had to pay $2,800 for extra checked bags, and you would have thought the airlines made the soldiers fly while strapped to the wing. “You’re not going to believe this!” said “Fox and Friends” goof Steve Doocy, introdoocying the story as if it was an act of domestic terrorism. There were similar expressions of horror on CNN’s Headline News and on the local news in Wilmington, Delaware, where I was staying yesterday while doing a musical ethics program for the Wilmington Bar. And yet…

Delta did nothing wrong or inappropriate.

The staff followed policy. What were they supposed to do, spontaneously waive thousands of dollars in luggage fees out of respect for our soldiers…and have to make it up out of their own pay? The military already gets a substantial break on checked baggage; the soldiers were complaining about having to pay for bags that exceeded Delta’s limit for waiving the fees on soldiers’ bags. But if the flights are related to the soldiers’ duties, why are the domestic airlines responsible for paying their expenses? (By the way, what the soldiers don’t pay for gets passed in costs to the non-military passengers.) Simple answer: the domestic airlines are not responsible, and should not be.

When I travel on business dictated by a client or employer, the client or employer pays my costs…just like the U.S. Government pays the travel expenses of soldiers flying to and from deployments. That’s right: soldiers get reimbursements from the military for additional costs if their orders require the expense and they submit receipts. Why, then, was it Delta’s responsibility to pick up the tab for these soldiers’ extra bags, and proof of evil corporate America’s unpatriotic greed that they asked the soldiers for the already-discounted fees for excess luggage instead?

I repeat: It wasn’t. A couple of soldiers didn’t know their own expense reimbursement procedures, used YouTube to make a misrepresentation go viral, and the media indulges its reflex reaction to fault businesses and fall worshiping at the boots of our young warriors. Nobody bothered to think, much less check facts, before condemning the Delta. Terrified, as ever, of any negative publicity, deserved or not, Delta abjectly apologized (for doing nothing wrong), and was followed by other carriers in eliminating bag fees to avoid getting the stink-eye from Bill O’Reilly. Delta said it would allow four bags for free. United said it had increased the number of free military checked bags from three to four. American said it will allow five free bags instead of three for military personnel. This is nice enough, of course, but it is pure public relations nonsense.

These airlines will charge seniors traveling by necessity to an assisted living complex for every bag they check, and the military isn’t going to pay their expenses once they gut the receipts. Do the airlines let military veterans check their bags for free?  Priests and nuns, who have taken vows of poverty? Handicapped travelers, who are unable to carry on heavy bags? The disabled only get two free bags, at best, before they are charged 50 bucks per additional piece. How about pregnant women? The unemployed, relocating to a new city to look for jobs…any breaks for ? Ethically, there are much more compelling arguments for giving breaks to any of these flyers than active duty soldiers, who are going to be reimbursed by the military anyway, and should be.

I am not sure even that would be appropriate, however. I don’t think that the airlines should be in the business of charging different fees to travelers in different circumstances; it requires value judgments that I do not trust the airlines to make fairly or rationally. Next we’ll be seeing waived bag fees for registered Republicans, attractive blondes and vegans, or whoever screams the loudest or has the most vocal lobby. The proper, ethical and fair way to do business is to have the same rules for everyone.

Except Steve Doocy and the rest of the media. Charge them double.