News and notes from around the interweb:
- Union tells United flight attendants to be mindful and respectful on social media, or risk their jobs
Flight attendants at United Airlines are being reminded to be ‘mindful’ and ‘respectful’ on social media following a slew of high-profile incidents involving crew members at the Chicago-based carrier, including a gay Catholic flight attendant who was fired for allegedly liking transphobic posts on X.
In a timely memo, the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) said crew members should be aware that with technological advances, they can quickly be identified as flight attendants for one of the largest airlines in the world even if they don’t actively mention what airline they work for.
“We should always be cognizant that anything we share on social media is NEVER truly private,” the memo cautioned, warning flight attendants that they could land themselves in a lot of trouble if a connection can be made between a controversial social media post and their job as a flight attendant.
- Awesome captain!
@united flight 500 from Indianapolis to San Francisco. Maintenance delay, pilot comes out and says ‘we’re not taking this thing up unless it’s safe’ – about 10 mins later, offers free cockpit photos to the entire plane. Currently ~70 passengers lined up and waiting. @america is… pic.twitter.com/3EijAw1Tnq
— Casey Marx (@REALCaseyAMarx) February 20, 2025
- Not confidence-inspiring.
Hey @united , what does it mean if this tamper indicator indicates tampering? pic.twitter.com/QE2kgr5PWZ
— racistTodler (@RacistTodler) February 20, 2025
- Reduced to a single precheck queue for the whole airport, Austin has become a real mess. These lines are quite common and take 35-40 minutes to get through. Fortunately this week I flew out mid-morning on Tuesday, PreCheck was quite long but CLEAR actually wasn’t terrible.
Whoa! As often as I travel I have never witnessed this semi-organized chaos at @AustinAirport.
Pre-check ✅ line hundreds and hundreds deep.
Thank you to nice workers on megaphones directing us.
But sheesh! pic.twitter.com/YGe2pRQ0S1— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) February 21, 2025
- Military charter – or just where United sends basic economy passengers?
- Avoiding a Capital One credit line decrease
- United is introducing new dishware starting in May and extending to domestic flights in June the food matters more, of course, but dishware can make a big difference in perception of the food. The normal (mediocre) fare in the new American Airlines Admirals Clubs looks so much more appealing on their nicer dishes for instance.
- Cool visualization
Map Showing Only Domestic Flights Within Countries pic.twitter.com/Vj2f0UC0Zz
— Epic Maps ️ (@theepicmap) February 21, 2025
Gary, why do you still live in Austin? You can do your job from anywhere. Move to the NYC metro.
Austin didn’t take off post-pandemic as many had hoped. Now the fact is you have 2 kids and they need an education. As an erstwhile New Yorker yourself, you don’t need me to tell you that the NYC metro is where you raise kids if you want them to be educated and successful under conventional terms. Kids who grow up in/near NYC are exposed to an extreme contrast between the rich and poor which lets them know “yeah, being poor really sucks, so I’m going to work hard to be rich.” Furthermore, the opportunities for hard workers in New York are abundant. Contra the middle of the country where such opportunities are, to say the least, limited.
NYC has outstanding schools in ways that other cities don’t. Peers, teachers, and fellow parents are cultured and worldly in ways that people in other cities aren’t.
Also, NYC area airports (including EWR) have TSA Touchless, the type where you just look into the camera. No ID or boarding pass to show. The longest I have ever waited in such a line has been about 30 seconds.
At IAD I sometimes found that the regular TSA line was shorter than the precheck line.
It’s not uncommon to have a long line at TSA Pre Check and you look over there’s no line at regular screening. Usually the result of not enough ID checkers at Pre Check and/or those billion dollar machines that take forever.
Being careful of social media postings in relationship to keeping a job has been going on for quite a few years and not just with the airlines. When applying for a job, new prospects may be requested to disclose all social media accounts. This is much more intrusive than before where you were not required to list your friends and write down the conversations you had with them. A reason to be anonymous or even deceptive in communications. New bosses try to gain control over what was written even though the original employment contract said nothing about what was written. My brother, who is paid well as a programmer and IT professional, has zero social media accounts.
Zero social media is a huge red flag these days. Your dates can’t look you up. You can’t e-schmooze with clients and colleagues (current, former, or prospective). Not all social media is meme sh*tposts with neo-Nazis.
I’m not going to invalidate your opinion that your brother was paid well. But, to elaborate on my prior comment about NYC, raising kids here has one major advantage. They will have high standards. In ass-backwards middle America, you’re paid well if you make $200,000. In NYC, you aren’t paid well if you make $2,000,000.
@Richard (don’t be a Dick) – There’s a reason people left NYC and continue to leave it. Woke schools are only part of it. Attitudes like yours are the other part. That and the failure to prosecute anyone but ex-presidents. And I happen to like NYC. But anyone I know who lives there tells me not to move there right now.
Once in Austin, I saw the regular line much shorter than Pre, so moved over to it. But I found it did not save time as you have to take everything out and the people were a lot slower.
Incidentally, at IAD I have seen Pre much shorter than Clear.
Money isn’t everything. NYC is a great place….to visit.
Please, everyone, ignore Dick. He has horrible ideas.
@Dick — Cut it out, man. You always go way too personal on here. Not cool. And you’re giving New Yorkers a bad name. As one, I feel shame for the way you are portraying our actually great city and state.
@Rich — NYC is wonderful to visit and to live. All are welcome here.
“Personal” is your opinion and New Yorkers are infamously reserved in a way that most of the rest of the world finds cold and rude. You’ve surely heard New Yorkers are rude? That’s not because New Yorkers want people to get outta the way. Everybody wants people to get outta the way. People say New Yorkers are rude because they’re cold and distant. Stop doing this. Take an interest in people and get to know them personally. If you don’t want to do this GET THE HELL OUTTA THE CITY and move to the middle of nowhere and die of cancer.
Good news, UA was able to upgrade all elites to F on the Gitmo flight.