STS-134

But the probability of any sort of crash occurring at all is tiny. So take the probability of a crash, multiply that by the probability that the crash is survivable, and then multiply that by the probability that nobody around this woman is willing to help, and you get the probability of this being an issue. Compare with the probability that the woman gets health related issues from sitting in Y for 16 hours (judging from the complaint, it's clear which probability was higher). Choose a course of action, conditioned on the fact that you only have enough money for one J ticket.

Of course, if the daughter does, in fact, have enough money for two J tickets, then I'd have to question her decision to allow her mother to sit only next to strangers. If my parents were 94, I certainly wouldn't put them in the J cabin and sit back in Y, but then again, I have money to purchase multiple J tickets. But in this situation, given that the grandchildren pooled their money to purchase the single J ticket, this family does not appear to have the funds for it.

Nah, just require everyone who flies anywhere get "evacuation certification" within 5 years of flying. Use an old airplane fuselage, and buckle the person into a seat farthest from the exit door. Debris and mannequins should be tossed all over the floor to make escape as difficult as possible. Smoke should then start to pour into the cabin and when the bell rings, the person must get up and make his/her way to the exit door, then open the door and descend via the chute, within 30 seconds. If successful, the person gets the certificate and is allowed to fly. If not, try again or go home.

pinniped

Link? I tried to Google it and I can't find any news stories about those airlines doing something similar to an elderly or disabled traveler. I don't have a dog in the fight to defend any of them, so if these carriers are notoriously bad for the elderly to travel on, so be it.

Are you saying that SQ, LH, etc. have already treated the elderly in this way, or are you just supposing that they would because it just sounds like something they'd do?

I've seen the same logic applied to the UA3411 case: "Well, if you question a AA or DL gate agent, they'll have you roughed up too." The problem is...they don't. And maybe AA and DL are secretly breathing a sigh of relief that it didn't happen to them, but the fact remains...it didn't. (And presumably won't now.)

knit-in

As always, the devil remains in the details.

LordHamster

I can personally attest to seeing this kind of a situation play out on an Etihad flight. Elderly man in Business a few rows ahead of be being periodically helped by his son seated in Y.

Anecdotal, yet nevertheless it clearly DOES happen. Hell, even United allowed it on the outbound.

JoeBas

You're right, they wouldn't. And wouldn't need to. Because their F/A do their Job...

JoeBas

*Waves his BOSIET/HUET certification* Will this do?

GrayAnderson

I know that VA wouldn't...for them, the barrier between Business and Economy is about as close to a hard one as can be imagined. But again, VA's service is impeccable.

emcampbe

By that argument, why do we have seatbelts on a plane? Or have to keep tray tables up during takeoff/landing, etc?

Yes, obviously emergencies are rare and low probability. But they do happen, and that doesn't mean we don't have measures in place in case they do happen.

MSPeconomist

Well, we want to be sure to do anything that's cheap and not particularly inconvenient to maximize the chances of survival without severe injuries in the event that a crash does occur. But there are limits about what would be sensible. We don't want to add a lot of weight (or fuel inefficiency) to the the aircraft, cost to its manufacture, or discomfort to customers.

Seat belts prevent many injuries (and even deaths) during turbulence, aborted takeoffs, tarmac collisions, etc. They're not just for crashes.

WorldLux

I raise you: Bus gate at DXB in the summer. Passenger have to run up with their carry-ons to the upper deck in less than thirty seconds. Anyone managing it in less than 10 seconds will receive an upgrade.

Depends on how you define 'crash'. A seat belt will increase your chances of survival in a crash landing (you won't fly around the cabin hitting things with your precious head). A seat belt won't do much if the plane breaks up mid-air, has some sort of freak accident or crash into the ground at high speeds (in which case the airplane usually disintegrates completely to the point of being unrecognisable).

Apart from maybe individual ejector pods, I don't see much alternatives that would offer high chances of survival in the aforementioned scenarios where a seat belt is not going to help much.

pinniped

Don't give United any ideas for their new IDB procedures.

WR Cage

(1) I wonder if Grandma and Daughter had a note placed in their PNR from the flight crew on MEL-LAX to warn the LAX-MEL crew of the pax antics.

Further the MEL-LAX flight is a daytime flight while the LAX-MEL flight is night time. This could have played a role in the different crew reactions.

I could also see a situation where the outbound flight the daughter envisioned only needing to provide assistance 3-4 times throughout the flight and communicated the same to the incharge. However once in the air the daughter realized that a lot more assistance was required. The crew was caught in a bad situation because they had previously agreed to the cabin intrusion.

Fast forward to the return flight, daughter boards and explains the expanded list of assistance requirements to the incharge. Upon hearing about all the potential intrusions, the incharge declines the request and presents the ultimatum of either second ticket in J or both pax in Y.

(2) The daughter flew in Y class because she actually took 2 roundtrips LAX-MEL. AFAIK, the daughter is based in LAX and only the grandmother is based in MEL. Furthermore the daughter would not have the expert knowledge to nest the MEL-LAX-MEL flight segment inside the LAX-MEL-LAX segment.

The daughter (complainant) had about 1 month to research and craft her story into the most believable version. I willing to assume the 90 year old had other assistance requirements than just the four listed in the original complaint. For good reason (dignity of the 94 year old) the other assistance requirements were not disclosed in the public forum.

WRT seat adjustment, constant seat adjustment throughout the flight could have been an aggravating factor. Under normal circumstances (i too have flow LAX-SYD/MEL) the seat would be adjusted 4-5 times per flight. But at 94 yrs young I could imagine a seat adjustment every 10-15 minutes.

The MEL-LAX flight was a daytime flight so the level of inconvenience does not ever rise to "disturbance" (Level). However the LAX-MEL flight is a night time flight where its expected that minor nuisances cause a disturbance to the cabin.

Good thing I have never flown MUC-YYZ on AC, but the situation described above has happened to me playing the role of Dad and my wife playing the role of helicopter mom.

I my instance, only me (UA Gold) and my daughter (5yrs old) could be upgraded, but my wife had an E+ aisle seat. The deal prior to boarding was that the parent taking care of the kid got the upgraded while the other parent got Y class but no other parental duties for the 2.5 hour SFO-YYC flight. Wife chose to remain in E+ and read her Cosmo magazine for the flight.

With Daddy daughter time going great in F class, wife/mom got bored and decided to cross the curtain to see what all the excitement was about. Then wife/mom could see that daughter needed to use the lav and decided to join in the festivities at the front of the cabin. In the first instance the FA was okay with the situation, but by disturbance #3 the FA told wife/mom to remain in her ticketed cabin.

In both our situations mom/wife got bored once relieved of all the motherly duties and decided to create her own excitement.

I my case a long conversation was had on the ground where in wife was told to abide by her end of the bargain and remain in Y cabin. Otherwise I would only upgrade me and stiff the kid with the wife in E-.

This exact situation has been reviewed by the Canada Transport Agency's accessible transportation board. In the CTA decision, Canadian airlines were forced to adopt one person one fare provision for domestic flights only. Further it was determined that free transportation for personal attendants were only to be provided where a doctor had certified the fitness to fly form and that the passenger/patient was semi ambulatory. The CTA estimated that 80,000 / 41,000,000 passenger trips would require the use of a personal assistant.

For international trips, it was determined the airlines had to provide deeply discounted tickets instead of true one person one fare policy.

For both international and domestic trips, the assistant had to be in the same ticketed cabin as the semi ambulatory pax. Further one person one fare provisions excluded the F/J cabin and only applied to the Y cabin.

The CTA watched the initial implementation closely and customers attempting to "game the system" was of paramount concern. Consequently the prohibition on free J/F class ticket for the attendant was implemented after the initial policy roll out. Also, the eligibility rules were tightened in response to initial abuse of the system.

Applying the CTA rules to this instance, the best the 94 year old and her family could hope for was a deep discounted (read Z or P fare) business class fare for both grandma and the daughter. the 94yr olds 3500 ticket would mean that the family would be out probably 8-9,000 based upon 2 business class round trip tickets (deeply discounted) plus 1 repositioning flight in Y class for the daughter.

Kevin AA

Because those are reasonable and inexpensive requirements. UA flight attendants took it upon themselves to invent a new requirement that is completely unreasonable (opening a packet of butter = seat belt? LOL), and more importantly, VERY expensive. Thousands more dollars!

The FAA has to balance potential improvements for safety over cost, even though it means a few people die in the process. Sometimes things change, such as ValuJet where a suggested safety improvement costs 10 cents per person and it was initially rejected as uneconomical. THOUSANDS of dollars for "safety" when it's more likely to find a bunch of oxygen canisters in the hold? Nope, no way. May as well just shut down every airline because no one has a zero probability of crashing. It is impossible.

wolf72

How did discussing FA's not wanting to help an elderly lady have a meal, or recline her seat or go to the toilet involve costs and emergency equipment?

spin88

This. {R}ules rigidly enforced are the death of a customer service business. Oscar is correct to ID the lack of allowing "common sense" as a cause of United's problems. Now can he free up GA/FA/managers to apply rules with common sense and context so as to improve the customer service culture? That is another matter entirely.

I expect we will hear more about "common sense" when United does its much discussed April 30 policy changes.