Mr. Kellner Visits Injured Pilot
 

^^ to Mr. Kellner for paying a visit to the injured captain hospitalized in DEN:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081224/co_ai...dent.html?.v=1
Continental CEO meets with pilot hurt in Denver accident; pilot, 3 others still hospitalized

DENVER (AP) -- The Continental Airlines captain who was injured when his jetliner careened off a Denver runway and burst into flames got a pre-Christmas hospital visit from his company's top boss.
The captain, whose name and condition haven't been released, was among 38 people hurt in the accident at Denver International Airport on Saturday. The captain and three others remained hospitalized Wednesday.

...

Continental Chairman and Chief Executive Larry Kellner had a "meaningful" and "worthwhile" chat with the captain in his hospital room on Tuesday, airline spokeswoman Julie King said. She declined to give the specifics of what they talked about.

Thanks for posting this! It confirms what we already know to be true.

Does Mr. Kellner doing this really surprise anyone here? ^^To Larry Kellner for putting the "co-worker" term into actual practice by treating that pilot like someone he works with side by side every day. Another reason why Continental is MY airline!!

--PP

Who are you kidding? CO saw this as a PR opportunity to get some positive PR out of this incident. Kellner works for the shareholders and is trying to protect shareholder value. Visiting the pilot and issuing a press release does just that.

What a sad, and offensive, assumption.

LK is a great guy. Business aside, he personally answers and returns all calls and emails from his "co-workers". Where's the PR in that?

Just because the press got wind of it doesn't mean that it was planned as a PR stunt.

It could be both, you know. It is possible that something that was good for the company was also something that the guy in charge wanted to do and felt good about. Or are all corporate executives bad by definition?

Both a smart move and a nice gesture ^^^

IMO, this press release is tacky. I work for a 90,000+ person company with a CEO far more (in)famous than LK and he has been known to regularly visit employees in the hospital without any fanfare. Personally, I find this distasteful. (Not the actual visit, obviously)

Given that this is a special night to a large portion of the world's population in regards to the birth of someone who preached forgiveness to all, the above statement always reminds me that no good deed should go unpunished :td:

I could accept this as a valid comparison if the reason that your co-worker got into he hospital was a national news story. I don't know why your co-worker was in the hospital so I can't comment on if it's newsworthy or not. But because the CO wreck was national news, I think that LK visiting the pilot in Denver is in fact newsworthy. This is from the perspective of a member of the working broadcast media. If I were a news director or assignment editor in DEN or IAH I would have given this prominent placement in the evening strip.

A a very frequent flyer on CO, I was darn glad to read this and think that the press release was proper. Every editor will have his own decision on whether this is newsworthy or not. We all have PR Newswire either as a standalone printer or a feed into a newsgathering editorial system.

--PP

^It's very nice to see Mr. Kellner visiting his injured co-worker.

It's a news article from the AP. Not a PR release.

Give some people a break.

Valid point. My comparison probably isnt a good one but this press release still rubs me the wrong way

So LK goes to a hospital, and there's press waiting there, outside this poor pilot's room for 3 days, just in case someone visits? I don't think so.

If this were properly executed from a PR standpoint, he would be on his way to the hospital, and someone from CO PR would tip off some local reporter contacts as to where he's going. This way they get the news they want without the appearance of having planted it.

Meanwhile customers and employees alike get the warm and fuzzy, and CO comes away looking like the good guy, all in a pretty bad airline news week (the accident, snow delays with people getting stuck, etc.).

If just one of the injured from the accident decides not to sue CO because they're convinced CO is a good guy (aka this "warm-and-fuzzy feeling"), this event becomes a huge win for CO. And once again, LK does well for the shareholders.


And quite possibly the exact reason the visit was done on Christmas Eve. He could have visited yesterday, but it wouldn't have extracted the same emotional value. I know it sounds cynical, and it's not considered cool to point this out. But this was a very calcluated event, IMO.

Glad he went to visit the pilot but something strikes me as odd. It has been reported that the NTSB has said that the Captain, who some articles say is still unnamed yet a couple list his name, has been unable to give an interview yet to the NTSB because of injuries. But then Mr Kellner goes and they say that he "had a "meaningful" and "worthwhile" chat with the captain". If he can have a meaningful and worthwhile chat with Mr Kellner, why can't he at least have a preliminary interview with the NTSB? Maybe I am missing something but you would think it would be a high priority for the NTSB to talk to him.

It all depends on what Mr Kellner meant by 'meaningful' and 'worthwhile'. If I were to visit a friend in the hospital who was incapacitated, I'm sure I'd describe it as both meaningful and worthwhile. Even if the person were unable to speak, as a coworker/sr manager, I'd say it was meaningful and worthwhile just to see the person was alive and had family in the room with them.

In any event, it only reaffirms my beliefs in CO & LK if he's doing something like this on Christmas Eve, when most everyone else in a management position is off or with family.