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Tag: US Airways

  • US Airlines Apologizes For Porn Tweet

    Anyone who uses the Internet knows how easily a simple typo can cause you to bring up a screen of offensive images that you didn’t plan or desire to see. US Airways recently found out that you can just as easily post an offensive image by clicking the wrong button. The company was trying to flag and delete a pornographic image on Twitter when they accidentally tweeted it instead.

    Another Twitter user had sent the image to the airline’s page, and it depicted a girl and a toy airplane. The customer was upset that her flight was delayed and sent the image as a way to express her anger towards the airline. The image is now gone but as with most things of this nature, it has not been forgotten. It stayed live for over an hour before the company realized what had happened and removed it from the page.

    While most people thought the tweet was a joke, others took offense to it and tweeted negative comments about the company and the tweet.

    The company released an apology after the image was removed saying,

    “We apologize for an inappropriate image recently shared as a link in one of our responses. We’ve removed the tweet and are investigating.”

    US Airways is merged with American Airlines, who has also had Twitter issues. Earlier this week, a 14 year old girl tweeted that she was a member of al-Qaeda and was planning an attack on the airline. They also released an explanation and apology on Twitter and confirmed that they were investigating the tweet and the people responsible for it. They later deleted both tweets.

    US Airways has said that they do not plan to fire anyone over the tweet and believe it was an honest mistake.

    Do you think the company handled the accident appropriately?

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Blind Man and Dog Booted from Flight Causes Outrage

    The rare event of a flight cancellation via evacuation of the plane occurred Wednesday, after a blind man and his service dog were ejected from a US Airways jet.

    Albert Rizzi was instructed that his service dog Doxy had to stay under the seat in front of him. After Doxy allegedly began roaming the aisle a bit, flight attendants ordered Rizzi to control his dog. According to US Airways, Rizzi then became verbally abusive, and was removed from the flight. Other passengers became so outraged that the captain emerged from the cockpit, and told everyone that the flight was cancelled.

    Rizzi and other passengers claim that Doxy barely moved and wasn’t misbehaving. Twitter user Sophie B recounted the events as they’d unfolded:

    After the flight was canceled, all passengers, along with Rizzi and his dog, were driven by bus from Philadelphia to Long Island. Rizzi and Doxy eventually made it home:

    US Airways released this statement on the matter: “On flight 4384 from Philadelphia to Islip, Long Island a customer with a seeing eye dog was asked to keep his dog near his feet when the dog was walking up and down the aisle. The protocol for service animals is to keep them at foot of the passenger. When a flight attendant asked the passenger to keep the dog where it needed to stay for safety reason the passenger got verbally abusive. A decision was made to return to the gate to take the passenger and the dog off the plane. At that point, other customers were unhappy about the situation. The crew did not feel comfortable operating the plane so a decision was made to cancel the flight and U.S. Airways bussed the passengers to Islip NY.”

    Another passenger, Frank Ohlhorst, stated, “When we, the passengers, realized what was going on, we were like, ‘Why is this happening? He’s not a problem. What is going on?’” Rizzi said he was “humbled” by the reactions of the other passengers, who ended up joining him on the bus ride to Long Island.

    Image via YouTube.

  • US Airways Plane Makes Belly Landing At Newark Airport

    A US Airways flight was forced to make an emergency landing at the Newark, New Jersey airport early Saturday morning, around 1 a.m. EST, according to multiple reports. The aircraft would not lower its landing gear during its approach to the airfield, forcing the pilot to circle the airport in an attempt to reverse the problem. When this did not work, the pilot was forced to make a belly landing, which, according to ABC New York, was on one of the airport’s long parallel runways.

    The aircraft in question, a Dash 8-100, had 31 passengers on board, none of which were harmed during the emergency landing. Here’s an example, courtesy of Wikimedia, of what the plane looks like:

    (image)

    Over at YouTube, ABCNews posted their segment, which included some eyewitness video of the landing in question:


    From where I’m sitting, it looks like the pilot needs a bigger seat, what for those huge brass cojones, and all. For those of you whose imaginations aren’t quite vivid enough, here’s a clearer example of what this morning’s belly landing resembled:


    That, of course, is not from the US Airways landing.

    Further indicating the pilot’s impressive skill in executing such a landing without jostling the passengers to the point of injury, there’s this nugget from Yahoo news report, “Sparks flew upon landing, but the pilot managed to keep the airplane on the runway and the wings level.” From my limited point of view, it sounds like this pilot might be ready for the Top Gun competition. They’ve already got a cool pilot call sign going for them, and yes, I am talking about “Sparky.”

    Lead image courtesy

  • US Airways Expanding Wi-Fi: Demand Up!

    Lets be honest, air travel is pretty boring. Sure, if you are a first time flyer it can be exciting, but that quickly wears off and you start shuffling through the junk mail in the seat pockets ahead of you. Well it doesn’t have to be that way.

    Demand for in-flight wi-fi is on the rise and has doubled since 2010. Hanging at about eight percent, experts say it should reach ten percent by the end of the year. Many of the flights have wi-fi provided by Gogo Inc. They basically cover all the big guys; Delta, American, Alaska, Virgin America.

    If you are interested in their service it will cost you about $5 for a ninety minute session. For those who are frequent flyers, a monthly subscription will run you about $40. This doesn’t sound too bad, especially considering there’s not much to do during flight anyway.

    So the latest news about w-fi comes from Gogo Inc. and US Airways. US Airways wants to get Wi-Fi capability on almost all their flights and they want Gogo to help them out. Slated to begin this sumer, many crafts will get ATG-4 wi-fi treatment, which features increased data capability and streaming services.

    US Airways’ senior vice president of marketing and planning, Andrew Nocella comments on the upgrades:

    “US Airways is excited to bring entertainment to the skies and enhance our inflight experience for both business and leisure travelers,”

    “Not only are we ensuring customers stay connected on more of our flights with the expansion of Gogo Wi-Fi, but we are placing customers in the pilot’s seat of their entertainment experience with Gogo Vision.”

    Michael Small, Gogo’s president and CEO comments on the new relationship with US Airways:

    “We are excited at the opportunity to connect more US Airways passengers through the expansion of Gogo and look forward to offering them access to Gogo Vision through the new multimedia platform,”

    “The new platform will give US Airways passengers access to myriad online entertainment options, all of which will be available by opening the browser on their Wi-Fi enabled device.”

    Sounds like travel will be a little easier to bear with the addition of these services. I hear complaints that flying isn’t what it used to be, but perhaps this will bring back some of the excitement. If anything, a flight can be a chance to get away and maybe catch a good movie streaming off the wi-fi.