5 ms·

I love this. It feels like only in America (perhaps Canada, Aus/NZ, and parts of Northern/Western Europe?) would a company cop in direct terms to screwing up an

I love this. It feels like only in America (perhaps Canada, Aus/NZ, and parts of Northern/Western Europe?) would a company cop in direct terms to screwing up and needing to do better. There's little (but not zero) PR-speak here and little (but not zero) passive voice or blame on uncontrollable circumstances: it's a decent enough post-mortem. In most countries, especially in East Asia or central/Eastern Europe, I never see companies say in public "we messed up and here's how". It's always caused by acts of god, unforeseeable industry conditions, etc. It's never mea culpa. But speaking of Canada, it'll be a cold day in hell before Air Canada ever admits to being the worst major airline in the developed world.

talal7860 5y ago
> But speaking of Canada, it'll be a cold day in hell before Air Canada ever admits to being the worst major airline in the developed world. I wouldn't agree more.
- ChrisArchitect 5y ago
  I wouldn't? You mean, couldn't?
ibejoeb 5y ago
The "How we got here" section blames pilots leaving (or being forced out,) covid illness, and storms. Then it goes on to cite a "picketing" event--that, hand to god, didn't cause any cancellations--while everyone knows it was a walkout. Now, mind you, Alaska supports BIPOC pilots. Can't leave an opportunity to signal that hard on the table. And, finally, Alaska has the best pilot remuneration. So good that the union and the company have been deadlocked for 3 years. They simply can't resist the urge to write up this bunk. Nobody appreciates it. But everyone does it anyway. This could have been one paragraph that says there was poor management that led to a compounding effect. We don't have enough pilots. We should have adjusted the routes, but we just let it.
- rootsudo 5y ago
  Correct, especially if you're in any Aviation related group or friends - you know exactly what is going on. Alaskaair generally does not want to pay competitive rates. This is corporate whitewashing at the worst, and I am glad that the pilots have enough collective bargaining power to demand AlaskaAir to meet their demands. I hate to suggest go on facebook, but facebook groups of pilots and general PNW aviation have tons of discussion about this, with many pilots themselves voicing comments about their opinion and experience w/ Alaskair.
- bArray 5y ago
  > The "How we got here" section blames pilots leaving (or being forced out,) covid illness, and storms. > Now, mind you, Alaska supports BIPOC pilots. Can't leave an opportunity to signal that hard on the table. Exactly, I don't want to know how they are training new BIPOC pilots, I want to know how they are getting the old ones back. The fact that they will have mostly inexperienced pilots is far from ideal. Besides, I don't care if my pilot meets a BIPOC quota, I want the _best_ pilot they can find. Their situation is quite dire and they should get their priorities in check.
  - fennecfoxen 5y ago
    These pilots expand the candidate pool.
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
      Do they? They were previously refusing to hire BIPOC candidates?
      - fennecfoxen 5y ago
        When was the last time you flew a plane and noticed the pilot? Was he a somewhat older white guy? That's fine. Do we have an unlimited supply of older white guy pilots? Unlikely. If you wish to improve way you hire in an industry like the airlines, where candidates make multi-year and even multi-decade commitments to one of a very few companies, this requires you to invest in a recruitment pipeline, and do outreach. This is part of it. Career search is terrifyingly inefficient. People don't just land in jobs randomly, but they often don't realize the best career path and pick that one. Rather, labor market has a variety of structural inefficiencies and a strong component of path dependency. If your friends are all going into programming, you might think about it more seriously and decide to go into programming. If you were a white kid and none of your friends are into programming and every time you saw a programmer it was some, say, some very talented young woman of Indian descent in a sari, making references to Diwali that you didn't understand, well, you might not think programming is the career path for you. But if someone puts a bunch of ads in your neighborhood and bus stop and the newspaper and the local community college for a career in programming, emphasizing that you're welcome there too, that might change, and you might find some people you can relate to there, easing your onboarding into the community in general until you understand and can make all the jokes about Kennedy Steve squawking 7500 at the ramp.
reaperducer 5y ago
In most countries, especially in East Asia or central/Eastern Europe, I never see companies say in public "we messed up and here's how". Aren't Japanese companies, especially transportation companies, well-known for owning up to their mistakes?
- unsupp0rted 5y ago
  I'd be curious what Japan-knowledgeable hackers say about this. The instances I remember were ones where they chose a figurehead on the exec team, usually one close to retirement, who accepts full responsibility and resigns to publicly take one for the team. It's sort of a fake mea culpa, in which the culpa isn't in reality mea, but is rather more structural and nobody wants to admit it.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    Resigning CEO or related CxO is pretty common way to express apologize for public in Japan large company. The problem is that it won't change anything unless the problem was caused by the CxO.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  Well known for formal apologies. They will put forward employees to bow and take the blame for the company. They are less good at transparency, at fully explaining what went wrong and how it will be prevented in the future. Just admitting "a mistake was made" is often sufficient.
- jdkee 5y ago
  Not TEPCO. See https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20220317_28/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20220317_28/
skeletonjelly 5y ago
Thought the same thing. In Australia the national airline (Qantas) is currently blaming passengers for the huge delays processing check ins/security
- mynegation 5y ago
  Having flown recently and seeing first-hand how people methodically repack their luggage in front of the rep or automated baggage check-in, trying to bypass weight limits and holding up everyone else, I’d say that airlines (pretty much like Starbucks) should have separate lines for people who have their s—t together.
  - devilbunny 5y ago
    They do. You just have to buy a business/first-class ticket, and pony up for Precheck or (better) Global Entry. It's not even remotely the same experience as cattle-class coach. It's expensive, but if you have the money, it's worth every cent. Global Entry has let me bypass MULTI-HOUR-LONG lines for immigration. I hand over our passports and our Global Entry receipts, the agent scans them, and says "Welcome back." That's it. Security? Priority line, I don't take off my coat, belt, or shoes, I don't go through the naked scanner, and I only pull out my electronics because my charger bag has so many wires that it looks like someone's trying to hide a bomb somewhere (so I scan it separately, if they want to look inside, they can and it's a lot quicker). It's not really fair. It really is me leveraging the fact that I have enough money to pay problems to go away. But it does work. And one of the reasons it does is that Precheck/GE people know the routine.
    - guitarbill 5y ago
      That's great. Except: > The TSA PreCheck® Application Program is only open to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals and lawful permanent residents. [...] Global Entry, NEXUS, and SENTRI allow some foreign citizens to apply. So I guess screw those other people, right?
      - 5y ago
qbasic_forever 5y ago
There is definitely some PR speak, it's the paragraph that highlights "No this is _not_ as a result of a strike or labor situation!" They're mortified of people making the connection that labor has real power right now. They need to set the narrative that something else--COVID, weather, etc.--is causing less pilots to be available.
iamtheworstdev 5y ago
The whole thing is PR speak. What they're leaving out is that they don't want to pay senior level pilot salaries anymore so instead of hiring back experienced pilots they are trying to run low hour pilots through the farm to get them into their airline.
pessimizer 5y ago
Don't Chinese, Japanese and Korean companies do this all the time? If this happened there, I'd be worried that whoever was responsible might hang themselves.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
vkou 5y ago
This is absolutely PR speak that fails to address the real issue. Which is that the airline pays peanuts and nobody wants to fly for it. It's the same shit as the grocery up the street having a sign in their window asking everyone to bear with them because of staffing shortages. The sign's been up there for almost two years. They aren't fooling anybody.
- mikelward 5y ago
  Every customer service call I make, the first thing I hear is "We're experiencing unusually high call volumes".
  - dzhiurgis 5y ago
    It’s insane - there’s millions who can do these call centre jobs remotely, people dreaming about the convenience of it yet companies won’t hire more…?
    - ugl 5y ago
      I spoke with a "thirdworld" CS rep earlier today, i could hear birds and children in the distance. She said she works from her garden.
renewiltord 5y ago
I always liked the Panasonic Solar Ark. They built it with solar panels recalled for being shitty (which you could argue is cost saving) but then described it as: > We have done this to show our sincere regret that this problem has occurred and to express our willingness and determination to both remember what happened and how important it is to maintain quality Imposing building. I thought it looked cool and found it fascinating that this flagship is a monument to an error.
junon 5y ago
This is standard culture in Japan, fwiw. It would be considered extremely damaging if a company didn't issue an apology like this after they messed up.
pdx_flyer 5y ago
It's because they literally gave no reply at first when asked if the pilot picketing had anything to do with the operational issues. A week later they finally put out this press release and had to come clean.

talal7860 5y ago

> But speaking of Canada, it'll be a cold day in hell before Air Canada ever admits to being the worst major airline in the developed world. I wouldn't agree more.

ChrisArchitect 5y ago
I wouldn't? You mean, couldn't?

ibejoeb 5y ago

The "How we got here" section blames pilots leaving (or being forced out,) covid illness, and storms. Then it goes on to cite a "picketing" event--that, hand to god, didn't cause any cancellations--while everyone knows it was a walkout. Now, mind you, Alaska supports BIPOC pilots. Can't leave an opportunity to signal that hard on the table. And, finally, Alaska has the best pilot remuneration. So good that the union and the company have been deadlocked for 3 years. They simply can't resist the urge to write up this bunk. Nobody appreciates it. But everyone does it anyway. This could have been one paragraph that says there was poor management that led to a compounding effect. We don't have enough pilots. We should have adjusted the routes, but we just let it.

rootsudo 5y ago
Correct, especially if you're in any Aviation related group or friends - you know exactly what is going on. Alaskaair generally does not want to pay competitive rates. This is corporate whitewashing at the worst, and I am glad that the pilots have enough collective bargaining power to demand AlaskaAir to meet their demands. I hate to suggest go on facebook, but facebook groups of pilots and general PNW aviation have tons of discussion about this, with many pilots themselves voicing comments about their opinion and experience w/ Alaskair.
bArray 5y ago
> The "How we got here" section blames pilots leaving (or being forced out,) covid illness, and storms. > Now, mind you, Alaska supports BIPOC pilots. Can't leave an opportunity to signal that hard on the table. Exactly, I don't want to know how they are training new BIPOC pilots, I want to know how they are getting the old ones back. The fact that they will have mostly inexperienced pilots is far from ideal. Besides, I don't care if my pilot meets a BIPOC quota, I want the _best_ pilot they can find. Their situation is quite dire and they should get their priorities in check.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  These pilots expand the candidate pool.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    Do they? They were previously refusing to hire BIPOC candidates?
    - fennecfoxen 5y ago
      When was the last time you flew a plane and noticed the pilot? Was he a somewhat older white guy? That's fine. Do we have an unlimited supply of older white guy pilots? Unlikely. If you wish to improve way you hire in an industry like the airlines, where candidates make multi-year and even multi-decade commitments to one of a very few companies, this requires you to invest in a recruitment pipeline, and do outreach. This is part of it. Career search is terrifyingly inefficient. People don't just land in jobs randomly, but they often don't realize the best career path and pick that one. Rather, labor market has a variety of structural inefficiencies and a strong component of path dependency. If your friends are all going into programming, you might think about it more seriously and decide to go into programming. If you were a white kid and none of your friends are into programming and every time you saw a programmer it was some, say, some very talented young woman of Indian descent in a sari, making references to Diwali that you didn't understand, well, you might not think programming is the career path for you. But if someone puts a bunch of ads in your neighborhood and bus stop and the newspaper and the local community college for a career in programming, emphasizing that you're welcome there too, that might change, and you might find some people you can relate to there, easing your onboarding into the community in general until you understand and can make all the jokes about Kennedy Steve squawking 7500 at the ramp.

reaperducer 5y ago

In most countries, especially in East Asia or central/Eastern Europe, I never see companies say in public "we messed up and here's how". Aren't Japanese companies, especially transportation companies, well-known for owning up to their mistakes?

unsupp0rted 5y ago
I'd be curious what Japan-knowledgeable hackers say about this. The instances I remember were ones where they chose a figurehead on the exec team, usually one close to retirement, who accepts full responsibility and resigns to publicly take one for the team. It's sort of a fake mea culpa, in which the culpa isn't in reality mea, but is rather more structural and nobody wants to admit it.
- fomine3 5y ago
  Resigning CEO or related CxO is pretty common way to express apologize for public in Japan large company. The problem is that it won't change anything unless the problem was caused by the CxO.
sandworm101 5y ago
Well known for formal apologies. They will put forward employees to bow and take the blame for the company. They are less good at transparency, at fully explaining what went wrong and how it will be prevented in the future. Just admitting "a mistake was made" is often sufficient.
jdkee 5y ago
Not TEPCO. See https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20220317_28/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20220317_28/

skeletonjelly 5y ago

Thought the same thing. In Australia the national airline (Qantas) is currently blaming passengers for the huge delays processing check ins/security

mynegation 5y ago
Having flown recently and seeing first-hand how people methodically repack their luggage in front of the rep or automated baggage check-in, trying to bypass weight limits and holding up everyone else, I’d say that airlines (pretty much like Starbucks) should have separate lines for people who have their s—t together.
- devilbunny 5y ago
  They do. You just have to buy a business/first-class ticket, and pony up for Precheck or (better) Global Entry. It's not even remotely the same experience as cattle-class coach. It's expensive, but if you have the money, it's worth every cent. Global Entry has let me bypass MULTI-HOUR-LONG lines for immigration. I hand over our passports and our Global Entry receipts, the agent scans them, and says "Welcome back." That's it. Security? Priority line, I don't take off my coat, belt, or shoes, I don't go through the naked scanner, and I only pull out my electronics because my charger bag has so many wires that it looks like someone's trying to hide a bomb somewhere (so I scan it separately, if they want to look inside, they can and it's a lot quicker). It's not really fair. It really is me leveraging the fact that I have enough money to pay problems to go away. But it does work. And one of the reasons it does is that Precheck/GE people know the routine.
  - guitarbill 5y ago
    That's great. Except: > The TSA PreCheck® Application Program is only open to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals and lawful permanent residents. [...] Global Entry, NEXUS, and SENTRI allow some foreign citizens to apply. So I guess screw those other people, right?
    - 5y ago

qbasic_forever 5y ago

There is definitely some PR speak, it's the paragraph that highlights "No this is _not_ as a result of a strike or labor situation!" They're mortified of people making the connection that labor has real power right now. They need to set the narrative that something else--COVID, weather, etc.--is causing less pilots to be available.

iamtheworstdev 5y ago

The whole thing is PR speak. What they're leaving out is that they don't want to pay senior level pilot salaries anymore so instead of hiring back experienced pilots they are trying to run low hour pilots through the farm to get them into their airline.

pessimizer 5y ago

Don't Chinese, Japanese and Korean companies do this all the time? If this happened there, I'd be worried that whoever was responsible might hang themselves.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

vkou 5y ago

This is absolutely PR speak that fails to address the real issue. Which is that the airline pays peanuts and nobody wants to fly for it. It's the same shit as the grocery up the street having a sign in their window asking everyone to bear with them because of staffing shortages. The sign's been up there for almost two years. They aren't fooling anybody.

mikelward 5y ago
Every customer service call I make, the first thing I hear is "We're experiencing unusually high call volumes".
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  It’s insane - there’s millions who can do these call centre jobs remotely, people dreaming about the convenience of it yet companies won’t hire more…?
  - ugl 5y ago
    I spoke with a "thirdworld" CS rep earlier today, i could hear birds and children in the distance. She said she works from her garden.

renewiltord 5y ago

I always liked the Panasonic Solar Ark. They built it with solar panels recalled for being shitty (which you could argue is cost saving) but then described it as: > We have done this to show our sincere regret that this problem has occurred and to express our willingness and determination to both remember what happened and how important it is to maintain quality Imposing building. I thought it looked cool and found it fascinating that this flagship is a monument to an error.

junon 5y ago

This is standard culture in Japan, fwiw. It would be considered extremely damaging if a company didn't issue an apology like this after they messed up.

pdx_flyer 5y ago

It's because they literally gave no reply at first when asked if the pilot picketing had anything to do with the operational issues. A week later they finally put out this press release and had to come clean.