02-16-2010
12:43 AM
I think one of the biggest problems is that your enforcement of this policy behind which you hide pretty egregious and humiliating actions is arbitrary at best. Mr. Smith could demonstrate that he met your policy requirements (his armrests went down, he could buckle his seatbelt without an extender) and he even went beyond the letter of the law to its spirit -- he asked his seat partners if it was OK and they said yes. And yet he was removed. If someone can meet the requirements that you set forth, you should let them fly. Your employee made the wrong decision, and instead of admitting she was wrong and letting Mr. Smith fly, she bowed her head and kept down the wrong path.
I think the arbitrary nature of your enforcement has led to the "humiliation" claims in your more famous removal incidents and are the source of the lawsuits and PR crises. These people all insisted that they had flown in one seat before without a problem only to have this policy thrust upon them - with no opportunity to prove themselves capable of meeting the airline's own requirement. These decisions seem to be left up to an individual employee's whim - which Mr. Smith's case proves is a dangerous thing.
What has been frustrating so far in the company's response to this issue is that most of the public (your supporters, judging from the comments on this blog, are limited to hateful and ridiculously intolerant people) wants to hear you say that what the employee did was wrong and what we get is a lot of your support for a policy (that wasn't even fairly implemented) and complaints about employee communication. Even Mr. Smith has admitted that your policy may not be unfair in and of itself but that its enforcement (when and how and in the face of his clear demonstration of compliance) was wrong.
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