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>discreetly accepting blame Have you seen the news and social media lately? United has been the butt of the blame "discreetly" the way James Bond making his w

>discreetly accepting blame Have you seen the news and social media lately? United has been the butt of the blame "discreetly" the way James Bond making his way from point A to point B in a city while blowing up, crashing, and destroying everything in his path is "discreet". Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years? I would phrase it as "loudly and publicly accepting blame and a tremendous backlash".

dagw 10y ago
Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years? Volkswagen was probably just as bad at the time. Now of course most people have kind of forgotten or at least moved on and VW just posted strong Q1 results, handily beating estimates.
- rurban 10y ago
  Glad you brought that up. VW has even less to do with the dieselgate scandal than UA has with this O'Hare incident. VW uses engines and engine software parametrization from Audi. Audi uses engine software and esp. the cheating device from Bosch. Everyone else also uses it. But VW being the biggest of them all is getting the blame and has to pay the fine.
  - vmarsy 10y ago
    The VW group owns Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, SEAT, ... If I remember correctly the Bosch cheating software was there for testing purposes but VW asked Bosch to leave it. > Everyone else also uses it No. Some companies optimize their engine to have optimal emissions in the exact conditions of the emissions test, but no other company has been found to have an actual digital switch modifying the engine's behavior only during the emissions test.
    - rurban 10y ago
      Get yourself educated and watch the relevant CCC talk please.
    - rurban 10y ago
      Oh my. Audi is the engineering part of VW, VW the low quality, mass market part of the brand. Engines are developed at Audi, they are the engineers after all, VW is a logistics and support company. Porsche is the owner of the VW group. They bought most of the controlling stock. Since everybody uses Bosch ECU's and most of the companies knew about this cheating low temp. switch in the ECU parametrization, it is no surprise that most of them have been caught using it. It is not illegal in Europe though, because laws are different here. The only surprise is that media is ignoring it, and blaming VW who would be the last to blame.
    - rurban 10y ago
      Oh my. Audi is the engineering part of VW, VW the low quality, mass market part of the brand. Engines are developed at Audi, they are the engineers after all, VW is a logistics and support company. Porsche is the owner of the VW group. They bought most of the controlling stock. Since everybody uses Bosch ECU's and most of the companies knew about this cheating low temp. switch in the ECU parametrization, it is no surprise that most of them have been caught using it. It is not illegal in Europe though, because laws are different here. The only surprise is that media is ignoring it, and blaming VW who would be the last to blame.
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flukus 10y ago
> Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years? There was one, funnily enough much of the bad PR was doled out by the airlines: samsung. Everyone that went though an airport got to hear "samsung galaxy devices are not allowed on this plane".
sangnoir 10y ago
> discreetly accepting blame GP isn't suggesting there isn't any blame, but that United is low-key accepting the blame/'taking one for the team'. United has decided not to throw any of the involved parties under the bus, even though it is likely that most of them - possibly all of them - do not work directly for United.
- logicallee 10y ago
  This makes no sense to me. The subcontracted brands are worthless, like actually bankrupt, and nobody knows them. Why take the brand hit on "United"? I wouldn't call it "throwing them under the bus" to at least mention this. The amount of backlash against United and its brand is hideous.
  - wyldfire 10y ago
    It makes the brand look even worse if they refuse to accept responsibility for something that was ultimately their decision. It's their supplier [contractor].
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    > Why take the brand hit on "United"? Maybe because United badly wants Republic to not go into liquidation? As to how badly - the dollar value is the difference between how much United is paying to contract versus how much they would have to pay their own Union staff.

dagw 10y ago

Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years? Volkswagen was probably just as bad at the time. Now of course most people have kind of forgotten or at least moved on and VW just posted strong Q1 results, handily beating estimates.

rurban 10y ago
Glad you brought that up. VW has even less to do with the dieselgate scandal than UA has with this O'Hare incident. VW uses engines and engine software parametrization from Audi. Audi uses engine software and esp. the cheating device from Bosch. Everyone else also uses it. But VW being the biggest of them all is getting the blame and has to pay the fine.
- vmarsy 10y ago
  The VW group owns Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, SEAT, ... If I remember correctly the Bosch cheating software was there for testing purposes but VW asked Bosch to leave it. > Everyone else also uses it No. Some companies optimize their engine to have optimal emissions in the exact conditions of the emissions test, but no other company has been found to have an actual digital switch modifying the engine's behavior only during the emissions test.
  - rurban 10y ago
    Get yourself educated and watch the relevant CCC talk please.
  - rurban 10y ago
    Oh my. Audi is the engineering part of VW, VW the low quality, mass market part of the brand. Engines are developed at Audi, they are the engineers after all, VW is a logistics and support company. Porsche is the owner of the VW group. They bought most of the controlling stock. Since everybody uses Bosch ECU's and most of the companies knew about this cheating low temp. switch in the ECU parametrization, it is no surprise that most of them have been caught using it. It is not illegal in Europe though, because laws are different here. The only surprise is that media is ignoring it, and blaming VW who would be the last to blame.
  - rurban 10y ago
    Oh my. Audi is the engineering part of VW, VW the low quality, mass market part of the brand. Engines are developed at Audi, they are the engineers after all, VW is a logistics and support company. Porsche is the owner of the VW group. They bought most of the controlling stock. Since everybody uses Bosch ECU's and most of the companies knew about this cheating low temp. switch in the ECU parametrization, it is no surprise that most of them have been caught using it. It is not illegal in Europe though, because laws are different here. The only surprise is that media is ignoring it, and blaming VW who would be the last to blame.
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flukus 10y ago

> Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years? There was one, funnily enough much of the bad PR was doled out by the airlines: samsung. Everyone that went though an airport got to hear "samsung galaxy devices are not allowed on this plane".

sangnoir 10y ago

> discreetly accepting blame GP isn't suggesting there isn't any blame, but that United is low-key accepting the blame/'taking one for the team'. United has decided not to throw any of the involved parties under the bus, even though it is likely that most of them - possibly all of them - do not work directly for United.

logicallee 10y ago
This makes no sense to me. The subcontracted brands are worthless, like actually bankrupt, and nobody knows them. Why take the brand hit on "United"? I wouldn't call it "throwing them under the bus" to at least mention this. The amount of backlash against United and its brand is hideous.
- wyldfire 10y ago
  It makes the brand look even worse if they refuse to accept responsibility for something that was ultimately their decision. It's their supplier [contractor].
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > Why take the brand hit on "United"? Maybe because United badly wants Republic to not go into liquidation? As to how badly - the dollar value is the difference between how much United is paying to contract versus how much they would have to pay their own Union staff.