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Southwest Adds 'Mechanical Difficulties' To Act Of God List
War, earthquakes, and broken washers are all unavoidable events for which a carrier should not be liable if travel is delayed according to Southwest Airlines. Southwest quietly updated their act of God list a few weeks ago to include mechanical problems with the other horrors of an angry travel god. From the article: "Robert Mann, an airline industry analyst based in Port Washington, NY, called it 'surprising' that Southwest, which has a reputation for stellar customer service, would make a change that puts passengers at a legal disadvantage if an aircraft breakdown delays their travel. Keeping a fleet mechanically sound 'is certainly within the control of any airline,' Mann said. 'Putting mechanical issues in the same category as an act of God — I don't think that's what God intended.'"
Is God part of their fleet maintenance engineering crew?
Statistics should be considered an "Act of God".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Oh, wait, I bet he doesn't fly Southwest anymore after his "weight" incident.
... probably figured that this might overcome their bags fly free policy while still remaining competitive. Marketing won't like it if this story gets any bigger, kudos to the Arizona Daily Star for breaking it.
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
So if my car breaks and crashes into a state trooper, killing him, I can claim that my shoddy repairs were an act of god? AWESOME! *goes for a drive*
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I guess the fleet is getting too old to maintain properly. Perhaps the FAA needs to investigate the veracity of Southwest's maintenance records.
...to the acts of God list, you better add 'my angry fist to your prone crotch', you cheap assholes. Typical Southwest bullshit.
Just add "Management Incompetence" to the list or add it at least as natural constant.
... once you start babbling about the effect of capricious supernatural sky fairies on mass transportation. What's the difference between a transistor burning out in a VOR receiver, versus a sudden hailstorm that shuts down the whole airport? Only a matter of scale.
How many passengers sit down in those oh-so-comfy airplane seats, buckle in and quietly say, "Oh god, PLEASE don't let this airplane fall apart!"
If god chooses not to listen, should SWA be held liable?
I need trepanation like I need a hole in the head.
if God acted to properly maintain the plane, the mechanical failures would not have happened. unless purchasing engine parts that don't follow quality control guidelines is also an act of God... or if the head of southwest maintenance is God.
Clearly the mechanic that was supposed to do the checks was told (psychically ofcourse) by God NOT to them. Resulting in the mechanical failure not being discovered.
This is classic God influence. And is exactly what God intended, Mr. so called Mann.
By this logic my insurance company should be liable for when my car breaks down. Woohoo!
But He has been known to loosen a nut from time to time.
But "Act of *A* God." In this case, Loki.
I thought mechanical problems were due to gremlins, not God. I guess He does it all.
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But war is on the acts of god list? only in america
The story has already been debunked as the result of the deadly combination of a poorly worded contract, lazy reporting, and/or a confused Southwest spokesperson who commented on the initial report.
"Mechanical difficulties" refers those occurring at an airport or in the air traffic control system: For example, if a control tower has an outage which forces the closure of an airport; or if the fuel delivery system at an airport breaks down.
See: Truthsquadding the Southwest Airlines “Act of God” controversy: “Ultimately this is a reporting error run amok”
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
Go ahead, Southwest, PROVE the existence of DOG, errrr, GoD.
Customers' whose flight is delayed because of mechanical failure would probably be able to get reimbursed or sue the company or something, as it is the customer's right to obtain a decent service. The company is entitled to provide some level of quality in their product or service. Only the procedure could be lenghty and/or costly so Southwest probably counts on the fact that most angry people just won't sue them, therefore they will not lose cash because of bad service.
With enough material sciences knowledge about how an object breaks down, and under what circumstances, I am surprised that any company can reasonably say that "We don't know why / when a part can break down suddenly" and let me sit you on the tarmac for who knows how many hours, while we replace what we should have in the first place.
...you should see their pilot training. Instead of learning correct operating procedure for an airplane and controlled airspace, their pilots are taught to shut their eyes and repeat "oh god! oh god! oh god!". Apparently this has allowed them to save a lot of money by combining training for their pilots and hosties.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Despite the FA headline, 'mechanical difficulties' is in fact NOT in an acts of God list. Rather, they added it to their list of 'Force Majeure' events, along with 'acts of God.' From their Contract of Carriage:
Force Majeure Event means any event outside of Carrier’s control, including, without limitation, acts of God, meteorological events, such as storms, rain, wind, fire, fog, flooding, earthquakes, haze, volcanic eruption or any other event, including, without limitation, government action, disturbances or potentially volatile international conditions, civil commotions, riots, embargoes, wars, or hostilities, whether actual, threatened, or reported, strikes, work stoppage, slowdown, lockout or any other labor related dispute involving or affecting Carrier’s service, mechanical difficulties, Air Traffic Control, the inability to obtain fuel, labor or landing facilities for the flight in question or any fact not reasonably foreseen, anticipated or predicted by Carrier.
Likewise, the body of the FA correctly states that both mechanical difficulties and acts of God are in the same list. Of course, that doesn't make for such an eye-grabbing headline...
This seems like a ploy to be able to skimp on maintenance people and stores of replacement parts. After all, if mechanical difficulties is on their "Act of God" list, they don't need to rush to repair the plane, so they can just keep a few of the most common parts and some mechanics at a few central locations, and then fly them out to where they're needed. Ran out of parts and available mechanics? Too bad. God shouldn't have broken the plane.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
if they accept a bounced check from me as an act of God.
intelligent maintenance.
Nullius in verba
I've never been a fan of deus ex machina.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
This wasn't "lazy reporting" or a "reporting error", the plain wording of the contract was quite clear. If they meant "mechanical difficulties with things we don't own or operate", then they should have said so.
SirWired
Well I suppose it would be an Act of God that the plane actually flown with mechanical problems and safely arrives for the repair before it takes on another load of passengers.
"Hitherto and for the purposes of this contract Southwest Airlines will be refereed to only as God."
(Sorry, just watched that episode of Newsradio last night.)
Last I checked I live in a secular state, where I am free to chose which god to worship - or none at all. Why then should I be held to someone else's beliefs of a god when traveling by air?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
In our latest update, we offered our definition, which states that “Force Majeure Event means any event outside of Carrier’s control” and so the “mechanical difficulties” we are referring to as Force Majeure events would be those outside of our control, such as airport mechanical difficulties (e.g., the airport de-icing system breaks) or Air Traffic Control issues (e.g., airport or regional tower goes down).
We are not referring to our own aircraft mechanical difficulties, which would clearly be under our control. Our policies and practices confirm this interpretation.
None of our procedures have changed — we still accommodate customers exactly the same as we did previously in the event of our own aircraft mechanical issues occur.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
He is their co-Pilot
Southwest, which has a reputation for stellar customer service
Do they? Last I checked, they hate people and they do not enjoy making money. First, there was the Kevin Smith incident, and more recently, there was an incident where a skinny woman was kicked off a plane so a fat person could have two seats. In what world is this "stellar" customer service?
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
What does God need with a jetliner?
That is all.
They may not be Southwest's fault, but they're certainly the responsibility of someone who should pay for the delays.
Yes, and the contract is about saying you can't sue Southwest for what YOU YOURSELF just said is the responsibility of someone else. So what's the issue again?
In that case you go after the airport or whoever else actually caused the delay Southwest cannot control.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
God is my co-pilot.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
A washer mysteriously disappearing because God wills a plane full of evil people to crash is an Act of God.
A washer breaking and plane crashing because Southwest elected to buy cheaper and, hence, poorer quality washers is not an Act of God.
You said it, man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus.
And mechanic apparently.
Putting "god" in a law ... makes you trust the justice system so much ...
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Do they? Last time I flew Southwest (July 2009) they:
- Got me where I was going on time,
- Offered me two (2) packages of peanuts as a snack, and two packages of cookies as well.
- Had room for my bags in both directions.
The last time I flew Delta (July 2010) they:
- Would not let me change seats online.
- Would not tell me my seat assignment on the commuter segments until after boarding, so that 'passengers with special needs could be accomodated'. They seated three standby passengers before me on one flight, despite my having a confirmed ticket. I enjoyed oen of only four seats that did not recline. The passenger in front of me enjoyed reclining HIS seat, very much thank you. I can still smell it.
- Delayed me at EVERY stop to and from my destination.
- Gave me precisely one (1) package of peanuts, OR one (1) package of cookies, on each segment.
- Had no room in the bins for my bag on the first segment of my flight, and had to check them at the gate.
- On my return flight, delayed me at the destination gate for 20 minutes while they found a crew to offload our gate-checked baggage.
- On the connecting flight, delayed it 20 minutes due to a problem getting the incoming plane to the gate.
- On this connecting flight, delayed us 40 minutes to load on catering (food).
- On this connecting flight, waited 2 hours into a 5 hour flight to begin serving drinks and snacks to Coach (us).
MY wife flew back a few days later, and
- Was delayed an hour on the initial segment.
- Was that hour late for her connecting flight.
- Cancelled the connecting flight after a 90 minute delay, due to 'mechanical problems'.
- Flew in a replacement plane FROM THE INTENDED DESTINATION to replace the failed plane.
- Gave her a $6 food voucher for a meal. The least expensive sandwich she saw was $8.
- Eventually got her onboard and on her way to the destination, 6 hours late.
- Gave her a $25 travel voucher for her inconvenience. This is equal to the baggage allowance for one bag.
So Delta may have valued my wife's troubles at $4.16/hr, but she did not. We will not be using the travel voucher. 6 years ago, flying out of Portland, Maine, we took an early flight to Baltimore and then on to Orlando in January. We were delayed 4 hours as one of the engines would not start on an below-freezing day. It had been a long time since I sat on a cold Maine apron and got told the engine would not start. Southwest is beating Delta maintenance hands down in my experience.
ps- It is the height of inefficiency to permit maintenance to cause groundings and lost flights. Planes don't make any money on the ground; they make money in the air. And accidents are entirely inefficient. Now, claiming maintenance troubles for a lightly-loaded flight used to happen to me a fair amount in the 80s, and it was blatant. Sitting at a gate lounge with 6 other people for a flight from Boston to Bangor at 1900 on a Friday night, I got cancelled 50% of the time. Go up the next morning, we had maybe 10 people on board usually. And in Bangor, they had maybe 12 people waiting to go to Boston, 6 of them from last night. I'm not fooled by that.
Very little advantage to Southwest to add mechanical trouble to the 'act of God' list, but it belongs on 'force Majeure'. Even CF-18s fail and they get even better maintenance than 737s. No machine is perfect.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
God gets a promotion and works at the airport or traffic control instead of as an engineer for the aircraft maintenance team.
I recently had a Delta flight from Atlanta to Newark, NJ. Bad storms in NJ caused us to be delayed by a couple hours.
Delta gave me 1000 bonus SkyMiles as an apology. For the *weather*.
I don't have status, and they've always treated me well.
Do you really want to push airlines into flying aircraft with broken parts? Having to pay tens of thousands of dollars to a plane load of passengers might just make an airline decide that a particular break isn't bad enough to down the aircraft.
Guns don't kill people -- people kill people.
But the guns seem to help a bit. (apologies to Eddie Izzard)
"Acts of God" is a legal term encompassing chance events, sudden natural disasters, and other unforeseeable and uncontrollable happenings. Forest fires, lightning, earthquakes, meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, sudden sinkholes, etc.
The lawyers and judges understand what it means. It's a standard part of contracts and has nothing to do with any deity or religious belief whatsoever.
> Mann said. 'Putting mechanical issues in the same category as an act of God -- I don't think that's what God intended.'"
Really! If God wants you dead, He'll snap a spar or something while you're up in the air, praise be His kind and holy name, and praise to His kindness as our Father.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I suspect it may not last too long, if customers who are delayed and stranded by these 'acts of God' simply make sure they get the name of the person at the counter telling them so. "Could you please spell your name, so I can be sure to get it correct in my letter to the FAA, BBB, and when I ask about it in the Stockholders meeting?"
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
They're working their way towards being able to charge extra for the plane being on-time. Mark my words.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Its really not that much of a stretch now that a few of the states are talking about teaching creationism in science class.
It sounds like you have a very small flight sample size.
I travel a fair bit. In the past 4 years I have had at least one instance where I have experienced atrocious customer service by EVERY single airline in the US. I have rotated through them all. I would call getting in 6 hours late a mild delay.
Southwest has never given me a food voucher for a delayed flight. (Probably since they don't give out meals.) They did give me a hotel voucher once when they diverted me to a different airport at 9PM on New Years Eve due to fog. The voucher paid for $50 of the $120 hotel room that THEY directed me too. They have also lost my bags, are incredibly reluctant to put me on an earlier flight (with space) unless I pay their $100 flight change fee, and I can never find a Southwest attendant staffing any of their counters to help me with any problems unless it is 10 minutes before a flight departure time. And I won't even mention my last flight, where I had place a mentally disabled gentleman's bag in the overhead bin for him because the flight attendant was too busy screaming at him that it wouldn't fit, instead of doing her job and helping him.
Of course, all of these grips are not specific to Southwest, but can be applied to any airline nowdays.
And who cares how many damn bags of peanuts and cookies they give out? These are $0.50 snacks. This isn't Halloween and I am not 10 years old. Remember when the airlines used to give you full meals before Southwest undercut their prices with their food-free flights? Remember when you didn't have to be pumping the "Check me in" button 24 hours before your flight to get a window seat?
If it sounds like I hate Southwest, I do. I hold them responsible for the loss of many of the creature comforts that we used to have as airline passengers. Sure, they brought air travel to the masses by lowering fares by 20%, but they decreased flight comfort by 70% in my opinion. And they also increased the chances that I will have to sit next to an obnoxious moron dressed like a slob, who is watching a movie on their computer without headphones while yelling at their friend in the next aisle. And since all of the other airlines have now matched them, the only option for increased comfort is to pay 400% more for first class.
It's a lose-lose situation, no matter how many cookies you get on the flight.
I had the pleasure of flying more in the 70s and 80s, when you could get some service. Many a Friday was spend hustling to LaGuardia (and then JFK) to catch the shuttle to Boston, then being driven across the airport to catch the last Delta flight to Bangor. I missed it every 3rd or 4th time. Stayed in the Airport Hilton on their nickel (rack rooms, no real money), ate the free downstairs breakfast, and on the 7:05 to BGR. My luggage never made it, they called me Monday and I was happy to drive over.
And the stretch where I had to fly from PWM to GSO. Ah, Continental lost my luggage 4 times in 6 trips. And found it a week later. Now you can't really carry toiletries, not to mention a Micra which is such a handy tool for so many reasons, so I would be gate checking and doing without some stuff. Nice.
But the big airlines got cheap in the wrong places. And fuel prices crushed them. And deregulation means we are probably travelling somewhat cheaper, much more often, and much less comfortably then we might. I try not to whine about the seating or the 'food'. I'd just as soon pick up a $8 sandwich as eat whatever they call food today.
Now to work out how to afford business class to avoid the cattle drives.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Mann said. 'Putting mechanical issues in the same category as an act of God — I don't think that's what God intended.'
Maybe not your God.
We will take your money, but you should not have the temerity to demand anything in return. Hell, you should not even *expect* anything in return. Just give us your money.
Insert
American used the "mechanical failure" excuse on our vacation flight at the end of June. They cancelled the flight 3 days ahead of time, citing mechanical failure, and bumped us to a flight the next day, costing us (11 total passenger in our group) an entire day of paid vacation time at the resort (roughly $3500). After multiple phone calls, complaints, etc. they refused any sort of reimbursement. So putting "mechanical failure" on an Act of God list or not, it is still an industry excuse not to be liable for messing up your plans.
It is on 'force Majeure.' If you RTFA, you'll see that's what all this hubbub is about, mechanical problems being listed alongside acts of god in the Force Majeure list.
I mean, Jesus IS my co-pilot...