United fires FA's for refusing to fly

If I saw something like that on a plane I'd be embarrassed as hell that the plane was dirty enough to write on. I'd also wonder how the hell they got high enough up to actually do it? Would I refuse to fly? Possibly. My 'gut feeling' has kept me out of trouble before, and I've learned to listen to it. However, let's say that I raised a fuss and the airplane got inspected and no threats found... I'd probably go.

Do they deserve to be fired, I say no. Their trip missed without pay, yes, but fired, no.

It's not really expected that you know who goes there....But I can assure you it gets visited fairly regularly. Hopefully the crew, security etc could explain that it's an area of the aircraft that isn't "off limits". Like if this was written at the top of the tail maybe that would raise an eyebrow. Nobody really goes up there. But the area right underneath the rear Nav lights and APU bay...Yes, there's equipment that goes there.
 
If I saw something like that on a plane I'd be embarrassed as hell that the plane was dirty enough to write on. I'd also wonder how the hell they got high enough up to actually do it? Would I refuse to fly? Possibly. My 'gut feeling' has kept me out of trouble before, and I've learned to listen to it. However, let's say that I raised a fuss and the airplane got inspected and no threats found... I'd probably go.
Don't ever walk around a Brasilia, or our CRJs in the wintertime then ;)
 
Somewhere I've got a picture of one of Eagle's older ATR 42s sitting at the hangar in ORD. It's probably as filthy as that 747. But we were Eagle... so... it was just kind of expected.
 
What's scary is that history has shown, especially in aviation, when we get complacent with things - thats when the wrong stuff starts slipping through the cracks. Devils advocate (not that I ever think this is likely), but graffiti scratch or painted on airplanes by ground handlers is a joke that you see all the time or whatever, until one day it isn't.

I think my sympathy and support for the FA's stems from my short season as a gate agent working with for a major airline. I've seen everything from employees who truly care about their airline, to part timers paid minimum wage and given a 20 min power point presentation to perform an unsupervised "security check" on the 4am shift they won on the bid because of their low seniority.

Just in the last few weeks we've seen a Delta ramper successfully smuggle a hundred+ weapons on some delta airplanes. It's only a matter of time before something that was a "oh that always happens" evolves into "oh man that always happened but I never thought it would turn into this".

and tsa=lol.
I can't take issue with anything you have said. The only thing I can say is that at some point our attention to detail when it comes to security becomes a detriment to the operation. There is safe and precautions, then there is just down right paranoid. When you see smudged faces that (to me are obviously the work of a bored mechanic) and think it's a security risk you may not be crossing the line between the two, but you are definitely in a head long rush towards it.

I still just honestly don't understand the mind set that seeing something like that is signs of a security risk. It's so inconsequential I wouldn't give it a second though. It's right up there with "oh, snap, catering left out of one can of Coke Zero in the drink cart. I bet it's missing so as to make room for hand gun."

They are both over reactions in my mind. I will say this, though, I thing termination of the flight attendants was a massive escalation of force by United and sets a bad precedent. I will be shocked if they don't get their jobs back.
 
As someone who schedules FAs every day they are always looking for an excuse to get pulled from a trip (9/10 times they are full of crap) . We had a situation the other day a couple were "joining the mile high club" on her flight and she was too traumatized to continue on her trip ugh...
 
And did the FA's ever see it, even after they heard about it? Not like the would be walking around on the ramp.

Inquiring minds want to know!

Perhaps United's new Pilot contract allows flight attendant to do the pre-flight:sarcasm: . I am sure the word got around by whoever did the pre-flight.
 
And here we have the extrapolated end result of advertising and marketing. Every moment of everyone's life is a pivotal moment in human civilization (in our minds). And not without good reason, it turns out. We've been pretty much programmed from birth to view ourselves as characters in a television show, rather than one of several billion-with-a-"b" clowns who barely have time to read a couple of books and expire in between all the messages that are being sent to us by, uh, well, us.

So who can get super mad at these advertising-products who saw a symbol of some sort, and imagined that it might be threatening? For all they knew, it was the Pythagorean Theorem writ in Lobachveskian space. Or the latest trademark of Kardashian Enterprises. Or the image of the Profit (sp!) to whatever Derka-Derkas are most upset about the 21st century this week. To most of us, they're equally mystifying.
 
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That was a uh "field-expedient" adjective. Non-Euclidean geometry. Like where two parallel lines DO meet, eventually.

LOOK JUST GO WITH IT OK?
 
I won't quote, because I don't have enough fingers to point with, but the statements about 'all those airliners disappearing without explanation' comes down to one: Malaysia 470. Now that the black boxes are surfacing, we'll know what weather-related things happened with Air Asia. We know that the other Malaysia 777 was shot down.

Still a lot of unknown contributory causes, and unanswered smaller questions, but the 'big plane are falling everywhere' has the ring of truth usually attributed to Fox 'News'. United was right to try to stem this ridiculous over-reaction. Did they over-react? I can't judge that without more facts, but they were right to try to stem over-blown hysteria.
 
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