"It has taken care of us very well."

Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. Nature also took quite good care of the dodo, the Tasmanian tiger, etc.

We are part of an ecosystem. I guess we're going to find out how much of that system we can destroy until we ourselves go extinct, or figure out a way to exist outside of the food web. Remember, just because you don't care about some little tree frog somewhere doesn't mean that the symbiotic and inter-connected nature of the system doesn't care.

It's not just U.S. airlines... I flew Varig to Brazil, a great airline by most standards. While in Sao Paulo awaiting our flight to Miami, we were informed the plane had mechanical difficulties, and we wouldn't be able to fly until the morning. They ushered us out to the public transportation lanes and issued taxi after taxi a voucher to drive us to a 4 star hotel that they contacted and requested they hold the evening buffet open for the passengers, as it was quite late by that time (after 11:00pm). In the morning, two beautiful tour busses (nice and clean and new), complete with air conditioning and full bathrooms, picked up the passengers at the hotel and brought us back for our flight.

Needless to say, every single person on the flight missed their connection in Miami. Keep in mind this is the SAME airline, just in Miami instead of Sao Paulo, Brazil: The plane got in fairly late (I don't recall exactly what time... but late evening at the earliest). No one was there to meet the plane and make arrangements for connecting flights. No one was at the desk. We had to call the airline in order for them to get someone to come and deal with us. They arranged our flight for like 6:00am the following morning, and told us we could go to a particular hotel (decent, not great hotel), and we needed to catch the hotel's shuttle in the public transportation area. So there we were, like 150 people waiting the the curb... with all of our luggage, and the bus pulls up, the driver opens the door and says "I'm sorry, I can't take all y'all," and drives off without taking anybody. So we go back to the Varig desk to complain (yes, the shuttle bus should have taken people, but it would have taken 10 trips to get everyone on their luggage anyway). They called the hotel, but would not pay for taxis or arrange any other transportation. I ended up just taking a taxi at my own expense anyway. We get to the hotel and it's jam packed... the check in line was out the door. Many people didn't even get a room until 4am, enough time to take a shower and go back to the airport. In Brazil we walked into the hotel and were just handed the keys to a room, the airline had taken care of everything; everybody had a room in, I'd guess, no more than 20 minutes.

The conclusion is the airlines don't have the onus in the U.S. that they have elsewhere to treat passengers better. Why the amazing treatment in Brazil? Are there laws about it? I don't know. We made Varig aware of our dissatisfaction and haven't used them since, but what else are you going to do? You're usually limited to flights available, there isn't always a lot of choice.

Yes... general boarding. But before that, they let on first/business class, airline club members, frequent flyers, etc.; this guy wanted to board 2 other people ahead of others because he was a frequent flyer. Southwest over reacted, but the guy was not entitled to do that, either.

Yes, because that would only happen in the U.S.. In my international travels, travelers from other countries (South America in this case) act like a herd of starving people getting bread off the back of a truck when the first row is called to seat.

What they should do is print a boarding code on the boarding pass, and call by code... and guess what? Some of them do that!

It's actually not uncommon for this in the U.S. as well, however, some people pay for the privilege of boarding first: first/business class customers, "gold club" members (or whatever the airline wants to call it, frequent flyers... then when it comes to general boarding, after those people, it's usually handicapped and people traveling with young kids. In this case, the guy wanted frequent flyer privileges for three people because one of them was a frequent flyer, and then got mad he didn't get it, expecting someone to break the rules always because people had broken the rules in the past.

I'd again re-state my position that the Southwest agents acted inappropriately, no doubt, but the guy was a jerk, too.

Why is the rule stupid? I think it's pretty fair... the kids aren't frequent flyers, they aren't allowed early boarding. Case closed. How is it fair to everyone else waiting to board? Or, how about someone goes to a theme park and buys a single "fast pass" and tries to use it for the whole family. I guess the ride attendant would have to be brain dead to say "no."

There's no excusing Southwest's reaction, but the guy was a jerk, too.

I agree, the reaction was ridiculous - but so was the tweet. The agent was rude because she was following rules? So just because some agents broke the rules related to boarding in the past means they are forever obligated to break the rules in the future?

As so often happens in these cases, I see the clash of two idiots, not a one sided sob story.

Nothing is obvious to the uninformed.

Nope. Go ahead and build anything and eat everything. Nature will take care of the human population eventually.

Pax vobiscum.

You can, but you're often not likely to even consider some things until you have to do them.

That'd be a fair warning if phishers weren't pussy ass scaredy cat losers who wouldn't actually be able to inflict harm in any way except with a keyboard.

That makes no sense to me, though... how does a phisher succeed when they don't send you a link? Since they can't blindly lead you somewhere else, you wouldn't receive a phishing scam email without links.

Yes... I taught myself how to program before ever taking a class, but learning all the different data structures and techniques for design and development at school helped a lot; getting out in the real world helped cut the cruft and continue to learn what works, but education actually did help... and with this field, it's all ongoing education and development and new techniques and tools, but there's always the basics they were built on.

Click link below for weekly training memo about latest phishing threats. Remember failure to reading could result in the termination.

- IT Team

... and don't forget to sign in with your username and password so that you get credit for having read the memo!