US Airways bumps Flight 1549 survivors up to super-elite status for a year
Some who were on the plane - brought down by a flock of geese after takeoff from La Guardia Airport on Jan. 15 - said the temporary tease of first-class perks is for the birds.SURVIVORS' GILT (via Consumerist)"I think if you survive a plane crash, being upgraded permanently is a good gesture too," said Fred Berretta, 41, of Charlotte, NC, where the Airbus A320 was headed.
Manhattanite Tess Sosa, who escaped the sinking plane with her husband and two small children, thought the airline was too focused on self-congratulations - and "they want to exonerate themselves as much as they can."
"They are happy they had such amazing results, and they applaud themselves, and then give us a small token?" she said. "That's how I take it."
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Um, shouldn't the passengers be instead thanking the airline for employing such a skilled pilot, or am I missing something..?
i think the average person goes on a plane maybe once a year so i dont think they did anything special for those people. i know i havent been on one for quite some time so it would of meant nothing to me.
Uh...
As survivors of a water landing* due to an "act of god" I would think they could come across as slightly more grateful.
Damn strait the airline is self congratulatory. There's a short list of wide body aircraft water ditchings that didn't kill a fair number of those on board.
(*a rather exclusive club according to a brief bit of googling.)
Mayor Bloomberg has also given them special permission to smoke indoors.
I thought it was a US Airways flight - United's a Star Alliance partner, but they didn't have to do anything did they?
That should be U.S. Airways (as specified in the article).
United is a completely different airline company and had nothing to do with Flight 1549.
How greedy are these people? The plane was downed by birdstrike - I don't think even the passengers can argue that that was the airline's fault. The pilot guided the craft to a perfect landing (definition of perfect - everyone walked away breathing. They just didn't get the added bonus of being able to use the plane again). They have a right to congratulate themselves and him - that was an awesome piece of flying, and the pilot and crew's professionalism during and after the landing is outlined here:
http://news.ippimail.com/2009/01/17/passengers-tell-the-inside-story-of-plane-that-crashed-into-new-yorks-hudson-river/
To echo other commenters, wow - what a sense of entitlement!
This would be different if it was the fault of the airline but so far thats not the case.
Any run-in with a company and people expect a hand-out... its all "gimme gimme gimme"
While a bad PR move, it would be well within the rights of the airline to do absolutely nothing IMHO.
The only mistake made by the airline is that they should have emphasized that the free upgrade is a complementary perk, not some sort of mandatory recompensation.
blablabla WE WANT SOME MONEY. Agree with morningstar, the sense of entitlement here is actually disgusting.
I'm sorry, but that crash and rescue was due to unforeseen circumstances, not negligence. The airline has every right to trumpet their narrow triumph, as should everyone involved who helped get those people out of the water with barely any injuries.
The fact that passengers who survived this miracle in the air are complaining about offers of gratitude, instead of living a bit more care-free and easy, seems concocted somehow.
Mike Estee @ #3: "Act of God?" This was an act of geese. Canadian geese, no less. No only is no one doing anything about this, these foreign geese are actually protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
I, for one, am outraged.
I don't get it. Why does the airline owe them anything here?
Wow, I had to keep checking the URL to make sure I wasn't reading The ONION.
Maybe they should try to track down and sue the geese?
Sue Canada!
Meh.
Had they died, their survivors would have gotten the "no-fault" payout which all airlines make when passengers die in a crash (what is it now - 50,000 a head?).
In this case, if the passengers do not like what the Airline does, I suggest that they sue.
I'd sue the Airport too....just to see if their bird-control is really up to snuff.
Totally agree with those who think the passengers should express some gratitude. Save the consumer lawsuits for situations where companies are clearly negligible, or where policies could have been in force to prevent damage and weren't -- like, for example, an anti-cellphone texting policy for commuter train engineers...
"All they did was save our lives and give us free stuff. How horrible!"
Any survivor unsatisfied with the gift of THEIR LIVES should be rounded up dropped into a flock of migrating Canada geese. Land on your own this time you ungrateful bastards.
They should just give them tshirts that say "My jet went down in the Hudson and all I got was this lousy tshirt"
"I'd sue the Airport too....just to see if their bird-control is really up to snuff."
rubbish... the aircraft was well outside the confines of the airport when the strike occured... now if had still been inside the bounds, you'd have a point, but the airport is not responsible for birdstrikes outside them...
anyway, it appears some people are not satisfied with merely surviving a possible disaster, but want money as well???
That's ridiculous. Gee, I WONDER why there are so many lawyers in this country. If anyone deserves perks for life it's the friggin' crew of that jet.
By not being incinerated in a whirling fireball of jet fuel and aluminum these passengers should count themselves lucky. They shouldn't be expecting some kind of "poor me" welfare handout.
Well, it looks like I'm jumping on the bandwagon, but I don't see why USAir should give the passengers more than a year of super-elite status; the bird-strike was hardly their fault!
Would people be complaining if they hadn't given the passengers anything?
Oceanic 6, meet the US Airways 150.
Why be amazingly thankful to the legion of engineers who designed the plane, the pilot/co-pilot and the airline who married that combination when you can always sue.
Obviously, reality should not be allowed to interfere with the daily ritual of precariously hurtling ourselves through a soup of phenomena we barely understand, let alone control.
These people have their lives, thanks to the skills of the pilots. Why should they deserve lifetime perks? They should be thankful they aren't dead, and thanking the airline instead. I really don't understand the logic here.
I'm with cowicide...
I think the flock of geese should be located and prosecuted under both criminal and civil suits. It was clearly a negligent act upon their part to be flying in such a well-known and established airport flight path.
There should also probably be a class action suit against the species in general, in that their established flocking behavior is anachronistic and dangerous to the public because it encourages too high of a body-per-cubic-meter density for most aircraft turbines. There's no question in my mind that, in an effort to cut flying costs, geese have intentionally overlooked and ignored opportunities to implement alternative flying patterns that would mitigate this body-density problem.
This might be the first time in modern aviation history that it WASN'T the airline's fault.
Fecking geese, getting in the way - get them in court, get them cooked and get them extinct!
Srsly though, maybe dear Tess "My Sense of Entitlement is Larger that Texas" Sosa is in post-traumatic shock or something?
My father was once aboard a plane that made an emergency landing, essentially in the middle of nowhere, because of a crazy passenger yelling that he'd brought a bomb aboard the plane (WAY pre-9/11).
As it turned out, that passenger had murdered his wife the night before. No news was released if a bomb was ever found. However my father was upgraded for life.
Now, different companies have different policies and I think either isn't a bad "hey, keep using us despite your bad experience" gesture, but many people only fly once or twice a year (if at all) so it really isn't a very hefty token of good will.
Still, that they all came down alive is the greatest thing.
"This our way of saying 'Thank You for not dying!'"
Beyond the gimmegimme, the reality that these people are already among the very wealthiest in the world, that being able to fly at all is a privilege unenjoyed by 98% of humanity, seems to be lost on both the 'survivors' and the commentators.
Thanks to the boomers and their rocket dreams, air travel is at once the most conspicuous, wasteful form of indulgence and a perceived right by those unsatisfied with sickening overconsumption in one place, who demand to be able to do it in many. It is subsidized as one of many opiates by a system built on the wretched poverty of billions.
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Don't think of it as a payout for something that wasn't the airline's fault. Think of it as a way of getting future business from customers who, frankly, might feel less inclined to travel by air than they were a few weeks ago.
by that token then; if you survive a car crash, free gas for a year, survive a train crash, survive a shooting, survive a bombing, survive from a major disease.... etc
we are such a coddled society
Actually, I regret calling for their death, however transparently a conceit.
It is strange to hear the howling over delays and missed flights every single travel season though, one would hope that more of the western world can come to see flying as a complicated, difficult, expensive and ecologically unsound practice. Just put yourself in the shoes of the private jet execs from the bailout brouhaha, and think, 'do I need this?'
@SHRDLU #11: You are correct, this is very much an "Act of Geese", or perhaps an "Act of Goose."
I for one look forward to it being written into the legal contract of future airlines. "Ah yes, here it is: distasters due to acts of geese. Liability therein."
I think the people are being incredibly greedy, and that USAirways response has been appropriate in this case. These folks "got a life" (literally) and instead of being grateful and thanking USAirways and the crew, they're bitching for more money? What's wrong with this picture?
Just one year, hunh?
I'm fascinated to see how many commenters feel that near brushes with death should be considered business as usual when flying. Maybe some day, when you stop lecturing other people about gratitude, you'll have the time to develop some empathy. Then again, maybe not.
In find those ungrateful passengers' responses sickening. U.S. Airways saved their lives by employing a seasoned pilot who masterfully handled a fluke incident entirely unrelated to the airline. Instead of pledging their lifelong support to the organization, they expect the organization to toss them undeserved charity?
Methinks those passengers mistook Oceanic Airlines' policy as standard practice, as displayed in Season 4 of LOST.
This particular brush with death is neither business as usual nor the airlines fault. The airline owes those passengers nothing. If some ingrates don't like what the airline is offering, they can sue the surviving geese.
I'm fascinated to see how many commenters feel that near brushes with death should be considered business as usual when flying. Maybe some day, when you stop lecturing other people about gratitude, you'll have the time to develop some empathy. Then again, maybe not.
How do you suggest we respond? Should we treat these adult passengers like children? Or like lunatics?
If they promptly went out and robbed a liquor store, claiming the world owed the a debt, should we drop the charges? Or if one went home and beat his wife, saying he needed to unload from a tough day, should we just let it go?
I don't see how a brush with death gives people the right to behave in a reprehensible way. To be sure, I pity them for being put into a terrifying position. But I do not excuse inexcusable actions that follow.
Here's the difference between dying in a plane crash and living through a crash landing in an icy river: in the first case you're dead and you don't know or care; in the second case you have a good chance of spending years recovering from the trauma of the event. The article quotes some passengers voicing mild annoyance with what they perceive as a frigid response to an event in which they very nearly lost their lives and you find that 'sickening'?
The absence of compassion in this thread is horrifying.
I've got an idea. Give every passenger a free trip to the Bahamas! They will all fly together on the same flight. The entire thing will be financed by diverting funds from safety checks, repairs, etc. and having no human pilot for most of the trip. The pilot should take off, parachute out the back and let the auto-pilot take them across the cold Atlantic...
Since it's so easy, surely one of the passengers can manage to land the thing.
should be interesting to see what the lawyers and courts do with all these potential traumatic stress cases.
"Reprehensible?" "Inexcusable?" Come on, at worst these people are bordering on "greedy." In any case they just survived an experience more terrifying than most people will endure in a lifetime, so try cutting them a little slack before hurling around those superlatives.
Ethics aside, I think bitching about this is highly unwise, since if they succeed, it might give airlines a financial incentive for passengers NOT to survive the next crash.
@ #42 POSTED BY ANTINOUS / MODERATOR
To be honest, I really have to wonder if the New York Post took a lot of the passengers out of context in order to sensationalize this story and sell ads.
I mean, seriously... this article reads very much like an Onion article. I wasn't kidding when I said earlier that I had to double-check the URL to make sure I wasn't reading an Onion parody. Seriously, go back and read the article... it comes across pretty silly.
Also, I have to admit that offering a bunch of people who nearly died in a plane crash a year's supply of free flights is a little twisted. Maybe some Amtrak passes...
@46, good point. Cheaper for airlines to have insurance companies pay out (slowly and miserly if at all - as usual) for simple deaths rather than protracted treatments. Wonder if design engineers are subtly steered about that. It'd be pretty easy to fool the pilots, after all, they rely on assurances too.
@Antionous
Really? You think there is a "horrifying" lack of compassion displayed here? I have a great deal of compassion and sympathy for the people on that flight. But why should that compassion translate into free goodies from the airline?
I do think many people are going overboard on the gratitude angle - it was the airline's job to keep these passengers safe, and they did their job. The airline took responsibility for lost luggage and undoubtedly credited the passengers for the unsuccessful flight. Anything above that is either a nice gesture or a marketing ploy, and it's silly for anyone to act entitled to more.
There is, I think, a simple explanation for the expectation though. Usually when there is an airplane accident, there is often a plausible prima facie case that the incident was partially the fault of the airline or its employees (e.g. insufficient safety measures). So we get used to the airlines paying out in such cases, and we mistakenly generalize to 'if there's a crash the airline owes you.' But that just doesn't apply in this case.
sirdook,
If you read the article, the passengers are pretty mild-mannered and slightly disgruntled. Half the quotes are from random 'other people', not passengers. There's no vast passenger conspiracy to sue the airline. It sounds like the disgruntled passengers are more upset about the airline's tone than begging for a settlement. The moral outrage in this thread seems unrelated to the actual story.
ANTINOUS / MODERATOR / CEO U.S. AIRWAYS
at least bb is disemvoweling less. sorry if this is horrifying, but from a canadian's perspective, the american mentality of 'what's in it for me?' seems starkly out of place here. they knew the risks.
you mean the airline owners knew the risks?
I love this litigious society where an act of god warrants egregious consumer reward.
That airline *should* be self-congratulatory, if ever there should be a time where we congratulate an airline, this should be it.
That crew saved the life of every passenger on that plane. Its a miracle and the best possible reward anyone could ask for.
These were New Yorkers, the sense of entitlement surprises you?
Bonus points to the pilot for landing next to a ferry terminal
Bonus points to the Port Authority for not converting the ferries to a bridge or tunnel
As far as entitlement, maybe they're getting shafted by the airline in other areas (like compensation for damaged luggage)? That kind of resentment could carry over.
#32
I'll bet you get invited to more parties than Paris Hilton.
#56 POSTED BY MDH:
> These were New Yorkers, the
> sense of entitlement surprises you?
Wrong, Ann Coulter. The overwhelming majority of the passengers were from North Carolina. You know... THE SOUTH?
By the way, remember those New Yorkers that worked on the ferry and bravely helped rescue these Southerners? Are those New Yorkers beneath you as well, MDH? I wonder... would you have performed better or would you have simply curled up into a pitiful, shivering ball of fear?
[cough]
“ ... A salesman from Charlotte, North Carolina, the original destination for Flight 1549 on Jan. 15, told USA Today that it's difficult to put a price on his bruises and bloody nose, not to mention the emotional anguish the ordeal has caused. Joe Hart said he'd "like to be made whole for the incident."
source:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28877350/
But, wait... here’s what a New Yorker who was onboard the flight with a “sense of entitlement” had to say:
Bill Zuhoski of Long Island said, “Everyone owes their lives to the pilot. He did an amazing job."
source:
http://wcbstv.com/local/us.airways.crash.2.909938.html
MDH, pull yer foot out of yer mouth. Ya’ look ridiculous, ya’ chump.
Antinous,
Not reading the article is a far cry from a "horrifying" lack of compassion.
Seriously, US Airways doesn't owe them a thing. Their plane and their pilot got them through a really bad, but completely faultless, accident.
I'll take the one year super elite status if any of the really don't want it.
At comment 60-plus, this is old news, but I was really surprised to read this post, and the (thankfully) rare comment that agrees.
How is US Airways, or any airline, responsible in any way for birds striking the engines? Why should US Airways be responsible for compensating its passengers at all, much less providing multiple perks for one year, life, or (ludicrously) to offspring?
This is an example of goodwill and, where applicable, shocking greed.
Cowicide, wow. Just wow.
Your sense of entitlement amazes me. You are SO mischaracterising my statements, and in such a douchey way... good day sir.
#63 POSTED BY MDH:
So do you feel cleansed?