Blame it on Weather - The Blame Game. United Mess and Who Do You Trust?

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/12/this-retailer-tried-to-blame-weather-for-its-poor-results.html

Seems everyone wants to blame weather for everything these days. Originally, before they admitted they overbooked, airlines blamed the weather for travel delays this past week. The problem is that in today's world anyone can go online and see there is no bad weather delaying flights rather poor practices used to move their crew around. Really everyone blames the weather often but often it's just poor planning, preparation and even worse real time decisions that had nothing to do with weather.

As there's no  bad weather today to talk about....

..Only a Storm of bad press over United Airlines.

And in general problems flying these days.

Delays, lies and over booking problems.

So going to discuss the Blame Game.

When there is weather...

..we will talk about the weather.

I'm sure you have your own stories here to add..

Once my son was on a direct flight from FLL to RDU on Southwest. They announced upon landing that there had been a problem with some of the luggage and it may have missed the flight and to please check in at the luggage department to see where your luggage is......  Seems only a few bags made the flight. Many people, not my son, were coming from Cruise Ships and were told to pack all their electronics and it would go from the ship to the plane as per their own arrangements. So you basically had 300 passengers upset they were stuck in Raleigh without their luggage and without their computers to go online and make other arrangements. Understand this was before smart phones were so smart and you needed your computer to contact people for business and personal arrangements beyond texting, sexting or sending photos ...oh and talking, of course.

Something smelled funny to me and no it was not melting frozen meat in someone's suitcase it was the words Southwest used to explain their problem. They insisted it wasn't  "THEIR FAULT" but "Homeland Security" as their equipment was malfunctioning. There was nothing SW could do but to hand load the luggage and go through it themselves and there wasn't enough time. We gave them our address and they promised to send it by messenger to our house when they ... "could locate it" which also seems odd in today's world or even yesterday's world. If my young, teenage daughter left Barnes and Noble with her best friend, my son who paid for her phone, could see where she was going and that she had left the store and was not on her way home. But...that said Southwest could not locate my son's luggage.

Long story short I decided to use contacts I have as I have worked as a reporter and found out that SOUTHWEST had problems with their machinery and AFTER the luggage was checked properly by Homeland Security the belt broke transporting the luggage to the plane to be loaded on and they decided to put it on the next flight of the night. And, they blamed it on Homeland Security which at that time it sounded logical enough.......

The Blame Game. Note SW is usually way nicer dealing with customers than the once friendly skies of United and all in all they are usually better to deal with but again they all play the blame game. Days after bad weather rather than say they they over booked or under booked a flight and they want to use your airplane for another flight when another airplane was unable to fly but was a fully loaded flight they pull you off and lie to you that "your plane" is going to be delayed when in fact "YOUR PLANE" is on the way to Nashville from Baltimore to fly a route with more passengers who need to get where they are going. And they lie to you endlessly in Baltimore about "your plane" being "repaired" when it is in fact "THE PLANE IS IN THE AIR SOMEWHERE ELSE" and I know this because it happened to me.

There I was trying to get from Seattle to Raleigh and as I was sick and had a badly bruised shoulder I booked a flight through Baltimore with ONE STOP only for passengers to disembark before the plane would go on to Raleigh. No trying to walk about with carry on luggage with a bad shoulder and an easy flight home. After 3 hours stuck in Baltimore (second time this happened to me) some nice, handsome older gentleman sat down next to me to eat his dinner and we talked. He was a pilot, he told me to run over to where a plane was leaving for Raleigh and ask to be put onto that flight. He said there was no problem with my plane, it only had a few passengers and they needed it to replace another plane and I'd get home sooner doing that than waiting for them to find me a seat. I ran from Terminal A to B or whatever and even though they had already boarded they agreed to put me on as there was a seat available (really no one wants to go to Raleigh) and in less than an hour I was home. Exhausted and hoping my luggage would show up. It did. Oh and my son's luggage went to Chicago, spent the night and then was sent back the next day on a flight from Chicago to Raleigh.

The point is they blamed it on everything but the just saying "this is how we do things" and most often they blame it on the weather. The last trip I took back from NY I had some problem and they insisted to ME it was because of bad weather in the Mid West... NOT SW maybe JetBlue I don't remember but to tell me... BobbiStorm there was wicked weather somewhere earlier in the day (rather than the truth) when I can go online and see there was no wicked weather anywhere that day.

We live in a world of instant news, reported on Twitter seconds after it happens with video being posted only as fast as it can upload itself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/business/united-airline-passenger-overbooked-flights.html




I know you may have seen it EVERY WHERE but the reality is.........everyone on the plane rushed to take video. Were they so clueless or just doing their job? Guess it's a good thing they didn't decide to make everyone get off the plane and stop videotaping or doing Facebook Live or whatever.

In today's world people do not like excuses when they can find out the truth themselves.

And this does relate to weather. People want honest, good information they don't want double speak to explain why a strong tropical storm is going hurricane strength but wasn't upgraded or explanations of how if formed "over land" when they did not want to upgrade it prior to landfall.

People have had it. They want the truth. They want information now... and they share information. We have been doing that in the weather community for years, yet only now has this begun to happen in the mainstream world.

Now the regular, average Jo can go online in seconds and Facebook Live as three huge security men drag a 69 year old man through an itsy bitsy, narrow aisle you can barely walk down yet alone be dragged down and then we can watch how everyone spins it online.

Almost every person in this video is videoing the incident.

Yeah fly the friendly skies indeed.

One reason many people hate flying these days.

It used to be about fear of flying
(really flying not sex)

Fear of crashing.

Now it's about security concerns.

Having to go through security.

Getting stuck in Baltimore.

Having your luggage get lost.

People these days hate to fly.

How long will it be before some new start up..

... makes an Air B&B in the air.

Millenial Air perhaps........

Why?

Because the young generation reads reviews.

They write reviews.

They share videos.

They share information.

That's why You go online to track a hurricane even though the NHC puts out an advisory. After being burned several times you have decided to take control, download an App, follow Mike or Jim or whoever for information to best prepare them to deal with a possible hurricane. People in North Carolina were told that Matthew was going to loop away from the coast and head back to Florida and North Carolina was trashed. Many people in those towns will be online this coming year looking for their own information because they don't trust anyone anymore. They got slammed with hurricane force winds, conditions, flooding and there were no Hurricane Warnings posted and they were not in the "cone" two days out.

Why is there such a lack of trust? Because everyone tries to be politically correct and/or they play the blame game. They tell passengers they are delayed due to ongoing weather problems and US radar shows not a storm in the sky anywhere that day. What should be a great day to fly becomes a nightmare because the luggage equipment broke down or a plane somewhere needed to be replaced or a flight crew needs your paid for seat because they need to get to Detroit more than you do.

It's a new world we live in..........

And in a few months it will be the Hurricane Season of 2017. Someone I know and respect says the current set up is much like 1963. It was a semi busy season with few landfalls, but many close scares. It will be a while before we know just what 2017 will be.

But one thing I know for sure is people want truth in advisories, in warnings and information. They want the truth from the Airlines and hotels, motels or they will go to Air B&B because that's the world we live in these days. The world is changing. How have you changed how you do things? Rent a room in a Days Inn or a Quality INN or spend the same money for a cute townhouse with all the amenities.... which would you do?

As for the Friendly Skies of United....that PR campaign crashed and burned when they dragged a 69 year old man off the plane because they needed the space....for their own crews to get somewhere. Who ya going to trust these days? 

Not much weather going on today so decided to go with the flow and what's in the air these days and that's one joke after another about United Airlines whose stock is dropping like a rock. But to be fair it could just as easily have been Delta or JetBlue. So many people I know don't want to fly anymore and I understand why when watching those videos. But when you need to get from point A to B it's sometimes the only option.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps Today's song is in my head from when I got a random letter from a random lady with the same name as a random friend has and my mind went... Isn't that someone I used to know? Enjoy..

Seems a lot of people feel that way about United today.... some airline they used to fly...