Air NZ crew heads home alone after LA suicide

in article , Geoff McCaughan at
wrote on 3/2/04 5:09 PM:

In rec.travel.australia+nz Raffi Balmanoukian
a wrote:
in article , Jim Davis Sr. at
wrote on 3/1/04 9:09 PM:


"Raffi Balmanoukian" a
wrote in message
news:BC68DDEF.214AE%walkabout@TAKEOUTTHETRASHTOREP LY.ns.sympatico.ca...

As for suing....NZ should consider going after the estate of the deceased
for all of its damages, including the dent in the van 8-)

Go after the Estate? Oh Gawd! The guy probably had nothing, or very
little.

Not if he had insurance payable to his estate.

Life insurance is usually void in the case of suicide.

Often only for the first two years of the policy, at least in N.Am.

On Tue, 02 Mar 2004 01:04:58 -0700, matt weber
wrote:

On Mon, 01 Mar 2004 11:50:43 GMT, (Miguel Cruz) wrote:

Max Burke wrote:
Some of the crew were prepared to work the flight, but it was Air NZ
management that sent them all home on an empty plane... Sending the
aircraft back to NZ empty would have cost Air NZ a lot more that just the
crew's wages they paid out...

Here's what I don't understand - wouldn't it have been cheaper to pay for a
parking spot for 14 hours and fly a new crew out? The traumatized crew could
head home on Qantas.

It is complex, but if they had to fly a crew in, the delay would
probably have been 24 hours or more, meanwhile, you do have the
aircraft slated to go somewhere else from Auckland. In terms of
revenue, it may be better to send the aircraft home empty and just pay
for one planeload of displaced passengers instead of two.

Plus we don't know:

a) how many passengers were displaced
b) how many seats were available on alternate flights departing that
day.

A quick peek shows that after as well as NZ3 there are two more
747-400s operating LAX-AKL (NZ1 and QF26), and that's not considering
passengers en route to other cities (e.g. MEL) that could be re-routed
via (say) SYD.

It strongly sounds like the Air NZ team looked at the options and
figured displacing those passengers was the most viable option.

Malc.

"Raffi Balmanoukian" a
wrote in message
news:BC6A7543.21571%walkabout@TAKEOUTTHETRASHTOREP LY.ns.sympatico.ca...
in article , Geoff McCaughan at
wrote on 3/2/04 5:09 PM:



Life insurance is usually void in the case of suicide.

Often only for the first two years of the policy, at least in N.Am.


13 months in most NZ policies

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 19:06:11 -0700, matt weber
wrote:



The decision was made to fly the Boeing 747-400 back to Auckland with
only the 13 crew and in-flight service director on board. An airline
spokesman said the cost of flying the aircraft home without passengers
would have been "up to $50,000".

Somebody's arithmetic is more than a bit suspect... Two ways of
looking at this, but for starters, it is a 6500 mile mission, so about
12 hours, and about 240,000 pouns of Jet A, or about 37,000 gallons,
at current rates that is about 33,000USD just for the fuel. That says
nothing about landing fees, maintenance, or anything else.

The other way is to look at NZ's ASM cost. It is about 11 US cents,
and that puts the price at about 280,000USD.

Either way, NO WAY IT CAN BE DONE FOR ONLY $50,000

Huh? The aircraft was going to fly the route anyway, so landing fees,
maintenance, etc. would have been paid anyway.

Operating empty of passengers (but not, I'd bet, cargo) means that it
would save some fuel, plus catering costs. But those costs would be
borne by the alternate flights (NZ1, QF26, etc.) so that's a wash.

The only additional costs that would be incurred would be the
compensation to the passengers and any incremental costs of having
other carriers like Qantas (or whoever) take their passengers.

I'm not seeing a problem with the $50K number...

Malc.

Raffi Balmanoukian wrote:

Does finding a horse's head in my bed count?

I don't think your employer needs to take responsibility for poor dating
choices.

CollectorNZ wrote:

Recently (like 3 days ago) I had the occasion to hear Air NZ cancel a
flight from Wgnt due to crew illness and that was that, no other
explanations.

Slightly more informative than the normal "due to operational
requirements", anyway.

in article , alfred at
wrote on 3/2/04 6:48 PM:

Raffi Balmanoukian wrote:

Does finding a horse's head in my bed count?

I don't think your employer needs to take responsibility for poor dating
choices.



Even more so when I sleep with the boss!

(self-employed.....whatever were you thinking? 8-))

"CollectorNZ" wrote in message
...
Just how many people jump of Motorway Bridges in LA

Try finding the figures

don't know, don't actually want to know

probably near
http://www.cdc.gov/
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm
or local coroners reports

They do usually try not to hype it too much, media attention is like
an advertisement.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00031539.htm
It does have some fascination, evidence this thread.

People are not fundamentally logical and not machines
no matter how much we try to cast ouselves as such
or try to mould others to that imaginary ideal.
Yet, even machines break.

Terry Russell wrote:
"CollectorNZ" wrote in message
...

Just how many people jump of Motorway Bridges in LA

Try finding the figures


don't know, don't actually want to know

probably near
http://www.cdc.gov/
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm
or local coroners reports

They do usually try not to hype it too much, media attention is like
an advertisement.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00031539.htm
It does have some fascination, evidence this thread.

People are not fundamentally logical and not machines
no matter how much we try to cast ouselves as such
or try to mould others to that imaginary ideal.
Yet, even machines break.



People - Machines... I just had a memory flash, and remembered.....

From "Midnight Express" (AKA "Be Careful With Your Carry-ons In Instanbul")

Ahemt- You see we all come from the factory. Sometimes the factory makes
bad machines that dont work. They put them here. The bad machines dont
know they're bad machines. but the people at the factory know. They know
you're one of the machines that doesnt work.

On Tue, 02 Mar 2004 19:05:29 GMT, AKM wrote:

mtravelkay wrote:

15 years ago, while on a temp assignment in LA while working at IBM in
Austin. during the development of AIX/PS2 at Locus Software in the
Herbel Life building, I was staying at the Marriott LAX. One night a
bunch of us were coming back from dinner. In front of the hotel was a
body draped in a sheet. Apparently, someone jumped from the 14th floor,
presumably because there was no 13th floor.

If you correct for the American way of counting floors, would it be only
the 12th?

No, the 13th. They run from 1-12, skip 13, and start again at 14.

Tarla
****
A word to the wise is infuriating.

--Hunter S. Thompson