Air NZ crew heads home alone after LA suicide

in article , AKM at
wrote on 3/2/04 3:05 PM:

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?



Nah, the 14th would be the 13th. What the rest of the world knows as the
"first floor" is the ground floor in N.Am.

in article , AKM at
wrote on 3/2/04 3:05 PM:

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?



Aaah, I get you now. Yes, the 12th in the civilized world.

in article , mtravelkay at
wrote on 3/2/04 3:26 PM:

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?


I was assuming he was American and clueless, with no idea that Americans
number building levels differently. He probably has never heard of
Celsius, or the Metric System and believes the dollar always gets stronger.




My fave is still the sepps with the skiis on their car in Nova Scotia in
July. I could even make some allowances had they been from south of the
Mason-Dixon, but these blokes were from Vermont. Their explanation: "we
saw it was 68 degrees in Maine and 18 in New Brunswick...."

Raffi Balmanoukian wrote:
in article , AKM at
wrote on 3/2/04 3:05 PM:


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?




Nah, the 14th would be the 13th. What the rest of the world knows as the
"first floor" is the ground floor in N.Am.

But in this case, there is no floor labeled as "13th floor" at this
hotel, which would be the twelth floor in Europe. So, the 14th floor is
really the 13th floor in the US way, and it is the 12th floor if
numbered the civilized way.

in article , mtravelkay at
wrote on 3/2/04 3:44 PM:



Raffi Balmanoukian wrote:
in article , AKM at
wrote on 3/2/04 3:05 PM:


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?




Nah, the 14th would be the 13th. What the rest of the world knows as the
"first floor" is the ground floor in N.Am.

But in this case, there is no floor labeled as "13th floor" at this
hotel, which would be the twelth floor in Europe. So, the 14th floor is
really the 13th floor in the US way, and it is the 12th floor if
numbered the civilized way.


mmm-hmmm. See follow up posting.

In rec.travel.australia+nz Olivers wrote:

Catering to the supposedly tenderer sensibilities of the cabin crew, surely
mostly female (and with a good chance that one or more of the males among
them might be light in his loafers), the line provided them a free ride,
while forcing the cockpit slaves to function almost as if they had not been
in the van projectilized by the falling body.

A devastating analysis, only let down by the fact that the cockpit crew were
not in the affected van, only the cabin crew were.

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.

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