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Leaked Emails: Norwegian Pressures Sales Team to Lie About Coronavirus
- Jommi 7y agoCan we change the title to reflect that this is a company called NCL, Norwegian Cruise Lines, not Norwegian, the Norwegian airline?
- whatawaste8383 7y agoGood thing we’re not inducing this emotional behavior at scale. Surely it would be insanity to drum into people’s heads “profits before species!” I’m sure this is an isolated incident.
- nachteilig 7y agoBusiness as usual.
- omgwtfbbqhihihi 7y agoUmmmmm I love the smell of sarcasm in the morning.
- socialdemocrat 7y agoAs a Norwegian I want to point out that there are no Norwegian owners of Norwegian Cruise Lines. It is to my knowledge fully American owned. It was Norwegian long time ago. Sorry just don’t want to get us associated with such extremely unethical behavior. Frankly it ought to be punishable in the justice system.
- tenant 7y agoSadly you are probably correct. The Nordics are the perfect cousins the rest of us Europeans keep being unfavourably compared to. We have to keep digging!
- nothrabannosir 7y agoIf you’re really looking: Norway makes a significant chunk of money from oil exports, contributing to (and profiting from) what is arguably the greatest threat facing our civilisation today. Finland, on the other hand.. much respect :)
- tyfon 7y agoHopefully we'll put the CO2 back into the wells [1] and stop opening new wells :) I was quite livid when they opened a new major oil field last year but it takes time to change things. https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/energy/carbon-capture-and-storage/id86982/ https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/energy/carbon-capture-a...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- joshklein 7y agoOn the other hand, 98% of their domestic electricity is renewable (95% hydroelectric). If other nations followed Norway's lead by nationalizing their respective oil sectors, it could be an important step towards curbing consumption.
- ericmay 7y agoWell, then if 98% is already renewable, why keep pumping oil out of the ground and contributing to global warming? (Hint: money) I don't really think there's a way around this for Norwegians. If you're upset about climate change (and you should be) then you should also be honest that continuing to extract and sell oil is contributing to the problem. It's nice that Norway has a small, homogenous population in a country with low population density, great education, and opportunities for easy (relatively speaking) renewable energy. Many countries don't have those luxuries. With that being said, I applaud Norway in general as a country. I think they do a lot of great stuff. But I think it's fair to point out what I perceive as a shortcoming that they currently have in the context of this discussion.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- temptemptemp111 7y agoWhy not point out that they were right about Corona being a sham basically? It's flu season and that's it... As a Norweigian you're as conformist and appealing to authority as I expect.
- eumenides1 7y agoThat will teach you to sell your business to America/International conglomerates! /s I wonder if a country can force a multinational to stop using a country name because of misrepresentation. i.e Norway (tourism?) forces Norwegian Cruises to stop using its name.
- adwww 7y agoIceland the country has sued Iceland the British supermarket several times over various trademark and naming issues.
- sharken 7y agoGood point! I can add that the name Norwegian is associated with the Airline company here in the nordics. So using just Norwegian in the headline is unfortunate.
- Symbiote 7y agoI would think that association holds all over Europe. They are the 9th largest European airline, with 130 destinations.
- HenryBemis 7y agoAnd to their (Norwegian Air) honor they provide WiFi at no extra cost (at least I had it anytime I was flying from Helsinki to London or the reverse). Fantastic airline. I wish they could expand more and take some routes from Wizz/Ryan.
- Jommi 7y agoThe headline needs to be changed.
- jonplackett 7y agoI read the headline and though 'Norway! Surly they're a decent country' and was relieved to see it's a big corp. Unsurprising to see lying in sales tactics but this is really bad. This must be criminal somehow? Fraud at least?
- rado 7y agoMiami New Times is unreadable: https://i.imgur.com/jBCtyvS.jpg https://i.imgur.com/jBCtyvS.jpg
- qayxc 7y agoJust disable javascript - solves my readability problems with 9/10 websites.
- ed312 7y agoOr just use uBlock Origin and continue to enjoy functional websites: https://imgur.com/a/SgBJGjk https://imgur.com/a/SgBJGjk
- arnaudsm 7y agouBlock Origin is awesome, but those workarounds are temporary. The web has an usability problem that is worsening every year.
- Mathnerd314 7y agouBO is temporary in the way Debian is temporary - i.e., in the short term, not at all. 80% of the top websites are going to be ad-free and working 80% of the time, for some value of 80%. It's true that some fraction will not work, but is any consumer software 100% reliable?
- arnaudsm 7y agoI'm calling uBO temporary because adTech is evolving to evade adBlockers (in-domain tracking and ad obfuscation). Surfing the web is a nightmare for the average user, and the tech industry barely notices. The web has an unsustainable business model, and we need to address the issue.
- Mathnerd314 7y ago
- eCa 7y agoThis is about Norwegian Cruise Line, and not the airline Norwegian.
- duxup 7y agoAlternative confusion: I assumed it was a weirdly worded title about the country... but then I wondered why they had a 'Sales Team'.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoDepending on the target market and customer's place in the sales funnel, a country's sales team is called "ministry of culture", "ministry of foreign affairs" or "army".
- flurdy 7y agoFirst I thought it was the country then the airline. Never the cruise line. But this is a Miami based news source, so I can forgive the lack of clarity as my impression is that cruise ships are very significant there, so for their audience the cruise line might be what they associate first. It is not their fault it gets linked to a worldwide audience on HN...
- duxup 7y agoGood point in Miami the Norwegian shorthand probabbly is as obvious as it gets. Outside of port towns where they visit, we've got no clue.
- sonicxxg 7y agoThis recent coronavirus outbreak has been very enlightening, cause it gaves us more information on why cruises are a bad idea, and perfect for an epidemic. The same air is recirculating among all cabins. However, it does not explain why we haven't heard of flu outbreaks in cruises before this coronavirus. It seems cruises are perfect for the proliferation of any airborne virus.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mtmail 7y ago"Ocean-going ships are actually legally required to have both body bags and a morgue (they mostly have space for three or four bodies, but it depends on the size of the ship)." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/galleries/secrets-of-your-cruise-holiday/ships-have-their-own-morgue/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/galleries/secrets...
- TheCapn 7y ago>However, it does not explain why we haven't heard of flu outbreaks in cruises before this coronavirus. Anecdotally I hear about it almost every time the topic of cruises come up on Reddit or other social media. I just don't think its particularly newsworthy so it isn't making headlines. Cruise ships and Conventions are pretty similar in the sense that people just get notoriously sick after attending is my understanding.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> This recent coronavirus outbreak has been very enlightening, cause it gaves us more information on why cruises are a bad idea, and perfect for an epidemic. The same air is recirculating among all cabins. We already knew that about cruises. > However, it does not explain why we haven't heard of flu outbreaks in cruises before this coronavirus We have, actually, but we don't hear about it much, because, except with the scrutiny occurring during this COVID-19 outbreak, which led to media exposure for a cruise ship flu outbreak [0], cruise ships are only required track and report when gastrointestinal disease hits a certain threshold, not respiratory ailments. [1] [0] https://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-hs-royal-carribean-flu-20200228-ljm5pew5yfbepowttxgmlnej7i-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-hs-royal-carribean-fl... [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/surv/gilist.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/surv/gilist.htm
- dboreham 7y agos/Norwegian/Cruise line "Norwegian"/ ?
- tyfon 7y agoYes, this is not about the airline but the American cruise line called Norwegian Cruise Lines for some reason. I guess it was owned by Norwegians at one point.
- wbl 7y agoTime for the health department to put some big red notices up on the office and the ships.
- seilrse 7y agoHonestly, the time for that was long ago. Cruises have always been wasteful, floating Petri dishes.
- creaghpatr 7y agoThe CDC already called out cruises specifically https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/covid-19-cruise-ship https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/covid-19-cruise-ship
- wbl 7y agoCalled out is not the same as walking over and saying "you're shut down".
- jacquesm 7y agoThat's borderline criminal. To blatantly lie about the risks - especially elderly passengers - people are taking should be actionable in some way. These emails will come back to haunt them if family of future casualties sues them. I sincerely hope they go out of business.
- turbonoobie 7y agoBorderline? How isn’t it criminal?
- sneak 7y agoDisclaimer: I am not a lawyer and I am not your lawyer. Salespeople lying, within certain limits, does not seem to be treated as fraud by most governments, caveat emptor and all. If they tell you the alcohol on the cruise will be free and you sign a contract saying so, and then it actually isn’t and you have to pay more, that’s one thing. If they tell you it’s going to be sunny and warm when you’re taking a cruise to Alaska in winter, that’s a different thing. Lying or deceiving during sales about things other than the product is a large part of a salesperson’s job, I believe (including but not limited to making the customer think the salesperson likes and respects them).
- adrr 7y agoSaying “demand is high in Caribbean” is fine since the definition of demand is subjective. Saying coronavirus doesn’t affect warm weather places is criminal.
- ebrenes 7y agoThe issue is that any competent law firm will pull up articles and comments by officials stating that warm weather will dampen or hinder COVID-19 spread. They would only need to pull up a video of Trump stating as much and make a case that it's "reasonable" to believe the president. And even more serious sources basically say: "we don't know at this time", which is not enough to make these actions criminal (as per current laws, per my limited unprofessional understanding).
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- throwaway55554 7y ago> "Scientists and medical professionals have confirmed that the warm weather of the spring will be the end of the Coronavirus," a second says That wasn't a "scientist", that was the President of the US of A. His lies are going to get people killed.
- hannob 7y agoThis is of course all horrible, but I seriously wonder who at this point thinks: "Let's book a trip on a cruise ship right now!"
- inanutshellus 7y agoCompanies like this are worried about more than the lack of new sign-ups. They're also trying to keep existing business, such as folk that booked their dream vacation a year ago and are now calling up to cancel or re-schedule it.
- turc1656 7y agoI can see it. If you are healthy and you know that for most people the virus is mild and the mortality rate is roughly on par with the flu (they previously had it higher but the latest numbers look to be more like the flu at 0.1%, mostly all elderly or already ill), and you know the ships are likely to have less people on them, and you can likely get a deal, and they'll probably treat you like gold if you go...yeah I can see it. Hell, just writing that out actually makes me think twice about calling and booking something. But I have young children and my wife would be unnecessarily worried the whole time and she doesn't even like cruises.
- smacktoward 7y ago“Meet the Insane People Still Planning Cruise Ship Vacations”: https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-insane-people-still-planning-cruise-ship-vacations-despite-coronavirus https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-insane-people-still-p...
- godshatter 7y agoLots of the people booked on cruise ships right now probably made their reservations months ago. That's how we did it on the cruise we went on last year. Put down a deposit to reserve a room in September, paid in April, sailed in August.
- cardiffspaceman 7y agoCruises mostly get more expensive towards the date of departure, so booking in advance is the thing to do if your ability to take the time for a cruise is predictable. I have a cruise scheduled for March 2022. If a cruise price does go down it is because they overestimated demand, and cruisers will be watching for when the price of new bookings drops below the price they paid. The deposit, so far in advance, can be both tiny and fully refundable.
- ryanmarsh 7y agoThese emails leaking might have something to do with the layoffs yesterday.
- CiPHPerCoder 7y ago.
- jnty 7y agoWikipedia seems to suggest this passage is entirely correct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019 "Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)," and it is backed up by a WHO factsheet https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
- program_whiz 7y agoMeta point: do we have to accept deception as a necessary part of sales? It seems strange that we accept deception and manipulation as necessary ingredients in the market, and that its on the buyer when they "get duped". But couldn't we have a standard where literally anything anyone says to a customer must be true, or was not false to the knowledge of the person saying it? Scammy warranties, timeshares, and other "gotcha" products would be a thing of the past. To make money, providing honest value with a product that matches the expectation of the customer would be required. In these situations, cruise lines will of course lose money in the short term. But the alternative is that we accept the risk to human life to people taking these cruises, all in the name of short-term capital gain. What if instead we had to either "eat the loss", or invest in true safety (we can take 50% of normal passenger load, add these safety measures, these cleaning routines, etc).
- spuz 7y agoThat standard exists already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescission_(contract_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescission_(contract_law)
- mech1234 7y agoAdvertising fraud is already illegal. The situations where case law dictates what is illegal are varied and nuanced. As a side note, there are many categories of claims that fall in neither "provably true" nor "provably untrue", and enforcing upon these claims is tricky. You can google for "advertising fraud precedent" "advertising fraud case law" and "advertising fraud case studies" for more information.
- lt 7y agoI have a Caribbean cruise scheduled for mid April. Royal Caribbean is offering free rescheduling up to 48hrs before boarding. Haven’t taken up on it yet but likely will. Cancelling the test of the trip is going to be tough, financially, so I’m looking on how this progresses.