Emergency landing after row of seats comes loose

[eolesen]

Quality control does not happen after the job WT, final inspection does. There is a huge difference between the two.

Exactly. QC is making sure the techs actually know what they're doing, as opposed to appearing to know what they're doing.

It's the same in manufacturing, medical, IT, or just about any ISO 9001/AS9100 certified company...

 

[WorldTraveler]

Where in my post does it say that QC happens ONLY at the end of a job? Hint: Nowhere.

In fact, it is AA’s lack of QC BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER the seat changes that resulted in passengers “free to move about the cabin” even with the seat belt fastened. But if the QC had been done AFTER the fact, whatever errors that had occurred BEFORE or DURING the process would have been found and corrected. But since there was no QC ANYWHERE in the process, AA was turned into the laughing stock of the industry and customers were sent fleeing once again for airlines that could provide some semblance of reliability and safety, the basic deliverables for any transportation company.
Speaking of AFTER the process, AA mgmt’s response AFTER the unglued seat incident is far more telling than the incident itself. By AA’s own admission, they didn’t clean their planes sufficiently to keep even basic mechanical functions working and didn’t bother to clean the seat tracks before reinstalling the seats. What 14001 principle would allow that kind of workmanship, E?
I’m sure in your vast educational experiences, E, you studied the Tylenol tampering case since it is classic B school stuff. Apparently, AA mgmt did not since they were clearly still daydreaming from the previous course entitled “GuAArAAteed executive compensAAtion.” You’ll recall that the reason why Tylenol rebounded in the marketplace and ended up BETTER OFF after the tampering incident than before was because management at Johnson and Johnson took responsibility for the crisis and rewrote the book on safety of consumer products even though they were clearly the victim.
In contrast, AA’s competitors to/from its Cornerstone cities are running 97%+ booked load factorsout of those cites today and then again returning on Monday just as has occurred for several weeks because consumers didn’t believe AA’s fAAnciful story of shifting blAAme to everyone else – but that shouldn’t be a surprise because that is exactly what AA mgmt has done for the past 10 years – with AA continuing to give up key revenue to competitors.

Consumers aren’t stupid. They weren’t stupid during the Tylenol murders and they aren’t stupid now WRT to air transportation. They can see through AA mgmt’s fAAilure to take responsibility for ANY of the month long delays and cAAncellations and tens if not thousands of former AA passengers are now flying other carriers.
You see, E, Clint was right. AA works for the customers and they aren't pleased w/ the performance they have received over the past month.

BTW, E, can you tell us what 9001 practices led to the failure of key components of Amadeus on this past Monday that resulted in hundreds of delayed and cancelled flights?

 

[eolesen]

Whatever, WT. I totally agree that AA corp comm bungled this, but again, you're heading thousands of miles off on tangents. Maybe you need a Tylenol yourself?...

I didn't need to study that case -- it happened one town over from where I grew up. We watched what was happening. Few had cable (and CNN was hardly a national presence then), so it was handled old school -- company issued statement, TV covered it at 6pm and 10pm, while the newspapers carried it the next day. You didn't have every Tim, Dick & Harry sitting in their basement commenting, re-tweeting, etc. about it as it was happening.

The more interesting case study would be how would the Tylenol case have happened in a world with 24 hour news channels, YouTube, and social media.

No idea what you're talking about on "key components" from Monday. Whatever happened, it wasn't on the scale to warrant an internal broadcast or talking points, so I'll assume it was probably isolated to airlines outside the US.

 

[comatose]

Exactly. QC is making sure the techs actually know what they're doing, as opposed to appearing to know what they're doing.

It's the same in manufacturing, medical, IT, or just about any ISO 9001/AS9100 certified company...

It's not QC to determine the competency of the mechanic just the quality of work.

But you and WT already knew that like every other expert know it all.

 

[WorldTraveler]

comatose,
Perhaps you missed that I said that AA did not do what was necessary even before the seat issue including having the right people and a clean working environment, something which AA cited as a contributing factor?

E,
it is precisely because we live in a digital age that crisis mgmt has to be better than just blaming others. There are examples of companies and organizations that have successfully navigated crisis in the digital age.

DO you really think that AA's PR dept. acted on their own w/o feedback and support from the rest of AA mgmt?

 

[AA89]

Ok let's end this once and for all.

Have Clint Eastwood interview the empty seats and find out what's going on.

 

[Lloyd Grey]

Don't disagree on QC being the ultimate issue, [deleted], but my point is that errors happen industry wide, which is what your question was. They just happen to occur very infrequently, which says that QC in general does work.

QC? QA? That is in the confines of an "I" block on the check card. In reality, AA management has for a very long time looked the other way as long as the planes flew on time.

Culture shock: If AA managers had to answer personally for kickoff delays on their watch, heads might roll and 29F investigations might reveal the facts for a change.

Are you witness to a felony? Can anyone prove it? You might want to worry about signing the release block for certain individuals.