On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 23:46:36 GMT, Raffi Balmanoukian
<walkabout@TAKEOUTTHETRASHTOREPLY.ns.sympatico.c a> wrote:

>in article hcdf4050hiv4h2566elprjjamf08ub9moo@4ax.com, Malcolm Weir at
>malc@gelt.org wrote on 3/4/04 7:08 PM:
>
>> On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 01:36:51 GMT, Raffi Balmanoukian
>> <walkabout@TAKEOUTTHETRASHTOREPLY.ns.sympatico.c a> wrote:
>>
>>> sigh....one LAST time. I'm saying WHAT THE HECK DOES A GUY JUMPING OFF A
>>> BRIDGE have to do with the people in the van in the vicinity at the time?
>>
>> Raffi, your ignorance and unwillingness to listen would seem to
>> suggest that you may be a lousy advocate!
>
>Mr. Balmanoukian, to you. First name is for people who have my respect.

Raffi, you haven't earned the right to demand anything from me.

Now, if you had asked, then I might have agreed, but you don't have
the substance (or apparently the intellect) to require a damn thing of
me.

>> Fact: The guy hit the van.
>> Fact: The (trained) personnel in the van responded to the injured
>> person. As in got out of the van.
>>
>> If you cannot understand the distinction between "being in the
>> vicinity" and "being involved", you may difficulty with pretty much
>> everything in life!
>

>They weren't involved.

So, despite the news reports that they got out of the van to try to
help the victim, they *didn't* get out of the van and and *didn't* try
to help the victim?

Raffi, if you cannot absorb the facts presented, you must be a treat
to watch in court!

> They were passengers in the wrong place at the wrong
>time.

.... who got out and tried to help, in accordance with their training
as "first responders".

> I wouldn't be fazed in the least.

That comes as no surprise. I dare say it is entirely possible you
wouldn't even notice, or would try to claim that the guy didn't hit
you, or something!

> If I was driving and struck a
>pedestrian, I would be devastated. If a guy splooked himself, that's his
>problem, not mine.

Sure. We've established you have the empathy of a pebble. But unless
you're now going to try to pretend you were there, you actually have
no idea what that crew *actually* experienced in terms of, say,
splatter and other charming consequences...

>And my point, throughout is - whether you agree with that or not, there's
>one thing we possibly, maybe, MIGHT agree on: it is not the aircraft
>passengers' fault. They weren't tramatized. They weren't there. They
>didn't see it. Didn't know the guy. Why should they be put out?

Because the airline decided that they didn't have a crew in which the
airline was 100% confident.

That has nothing to do with why the crew was sub-optimal, merely the
fact that, in the judgement of the airline, they were. Whether or not
you or anyone else would have reacted differently is about as relevant
as the fact that there was once water on Mars (which is to say, not at
all relevant).

>If the airline chose to cancel the flight, out of caution or humanity or bad
>karma or flip of a coin, fine. Let 'em get a crew together to get the plane
>in the air, on time and on schedule.

Do you *really* think they didn't consider that possibility? Is it
possible that you are *that* naive?

Where, exactly, are you proposing Air NZ find a spare, NZ qualified,
747 crew in Los Angeles? The local day labor site?

>> By law airlines cannot operate with insufficient crew. IIRC the
>> absolute minimum is one per 50 pax and at least one per cabin.
>
>So let them get 'em to the aircraft. LAX is hardly a backwater.

No, but it's 12+ flying hours from Auckland, and (as Matt noted) there
are crew rest implications. So possibly they could have reallocated
the crew rostered for NZ2 (departing for LHR a couple of hours after
NZ3 is scheduled to leave), thereby stuffing up NZ2 instead of NZ3.
It's unlikely that they could have brought the NZ1 crew in early
because of rest regulations, so that wouldn't work.

And so on.

Your entire position, Raffi, collapses in a sea of ignorance...

Malc.

On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 23:47:45 GMT, Raffi Balmanoukian
<walkabout@TAKEOUTTHETRASHTOREPLY.ns.sympatico.c a> wrote:

>> The retail price of a ticket from LHR to Australia is entirely
>> irrelevant to the issue, for a myriad of reasons, not least of which
>> is the fact that NZ doesn't pay retail for seats on NZ flights, and in
>> addition there's the issue that the UK-Australia market is entirely
>> different from the California-New Zealand market, and only someone
>> with a profound ignorance of airline ticket pricing would claim that a
>> parallel exists.

>For someone who proclaimed that the whole bit on pricing/experience is
>irrelevant, you certainly do go into your perceived expertise in detail.

You must be a terrible advocate!

Yes, the type of pricing you cited is irrelevant because the
circumstances were dramatically different.

Even if the type of pricing was not irrelevant (which it is) the
specific data you provided *is* irrelevant because it involved a
dramatically different routes on which dozens of carriers actively
compete compared to the two carriers that compete on LAX-AKL.

In court you must be a laugh a minute if you cannot follow such a
simple argument...

Malc

Malcolm Weir <malc@gelt.org> wrote:

>Where, exactly, are you proposing Air NZ find a spare, NZ qualified,
>747 crew in Los Angeles? The local day labor site?

It wouldn't hurt. The people in the local day labor sites in LA are hard
workers and eager to please which is more than can be said for the Air NZ crews.
The males are all gay and the females too aloof and worried about their makeup
to care about the passengers.

in article a0jf4091k6o7j7ve6l5puk865cvmaaa48a@4ax.com, Malcolm Weir at
malc@gelt.org wrote on 3/4/04 8:54 PM:
\
>> Mr. Balmanoukian, to you. First name is for people who have my respect.
>
> Raffi, you haven't earned the right to demand anything from me.

Not a demand. A statement of fact. And first name familiarity is something
to be earned, as your parents should have told you in early infancy. And
yes, there is enough iconclasm in me for that to be intended as the insult
that it is.

> Now, if you had asked, then I might have agreed, but you don't have
> the substance (or apparently the intellect) to require a damn thing of
> me.

Don't worry......what's the bromide about battles of wits with the unarmed?
Oh yes, it goes along with the saw about being called worse things by better
people.


>
> So, despite the news reports that they got out of the van to try to
> help the victim,

Victim? He committed suicide. He's not a victim. He got exactly what he
asked for. The passengers in the van, and the would-be pax in the plane,
did not. They were the victims.


> Because the airline decided that they didn't have a crew in which the
> airline was 100% confident.

Great. Every airline can have a 100% safety record by never putting a plane
in the air. I dare say the UA flight I took on 9/15/01 (or is that another
irrelevant experience?) had far more potential for trauma in having had its
coemployees killed, its planes hijacked, and its landmarks attacked than a
random event like this? I felt entirely confident in the crew. And
well....whether you like it or not, I'm still of breath to argue with you,
whatever a waste of my time that may happen to be.


>
> That has nothing to do with why the crew was sub-optimal, merely the
> fact that, in the judgement of the airline, they were.

Fine 'n' dandy. Don't take it out on the pax.




> And so on.
>
> Your entire position, Raffi, collapses in a sea of ignorance...

*troll*

in article ovjf405a726aa4u47rhmk84c23a7vtai4o@4ax.com, Malcolm Weir at
malc@gelt.org wrote on 3/4/04 8:59 PM:

> On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 23:47:45 GMT, Raffi Balmanoukian
> <walkabout@TAKEOUTTHETRASHTOREPLY.ns.sympatico.c a> wrote:
>
>>> The retail price of a ticket from LHR to Australia is entirely
>>> irrelevant to the issue, for a myriad of reasons, not least of which
>>> is the fact that NZ doesn't pay retail for seats on NZ flights, and in
>>> addition there's the issue that the UK-Australia market is entirely
>>> different from the California-New Zealand market, and only someone
>>> with a profound ignorance of airline ticket pricing would claim that a
>>> parallel exists.
>
>> For someone who proclaimed that the whole bit on pricing/experience is
>> irrelevant, you certainly do go into your perceived expertise in detail.
>
> You must be a terrible advocate!
>

So you keep trolling. I'll leave that up to clients to decide.

A good number of clients.

in article ovjf405a726aa4u47rhmk84c23a7vtai4o@4ax.com, Malcolm Weir at
malc@gelt.org wrote on 3/4/04 8:59 PM:

> On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 23:47:45 GMT, Raffi Balmanoukian
> <walkabout@TAKEOUTTHETRASHTOREPLY.ns.sympatico.c a> wrote:
>
>>> The retail price of a ticket from LHR to Australia is entirely
>>> irrelevant to the issue, for a myriad of reasons, not least of which
>>> is the fact that NZ doesn't pay retail for seats on NZ flights, and in
>>> addition there's the issue that the UK-Australia market is entirely
>>> different from the California-New Zealand market, and only someone
>>> with a profound ignorance of airline ticket pricing would claim that a
>>> parallel exists.
>
>> For someone who proclaimed that the whole bit on pricing/experience is
>> irrelevant, you certainly do go into your perceived expertise in detail.
>
> You must be a terrible advocate!
>
> Yes, the type of pricing

......as opposed to the experience itself, your original position.



> In court you must be a laugh a minute if you cannot follow such a
> simple argument...

I wouldn't expect anything else from you.

Now, as amusing as it is (in a cat-with-dead-mouse format) to carry on this
exercise in futility, I will disengage from replying from this Macbethean
(where Malcolm also took advantage of the efforts of others...) "tale by an
idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Goodbye.

"Raffi Balmanoukian" <walkabout@TAKEOUTTHETRASHTOREPLY.ns.sympatico.c a> wrote in
message news:BC6D3ABF.2174D%walkabout@TAKEOUTTHETRASHTOREP LY.ns.sympatico.ca...
> in article hcdf4050hiv4h2566elprjjamf08ub9moo@4ax.com, Malcolm Weir at
> malc@gelt.org wrote on 3/4/04 7:08 PM:
>
> > On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 01:36:51 GMT, Raffi Balmanoukian
> > <walkabout@TAKEOUTTHETRASHTOREPLY.ns.sympatico.c a> wrote:
> >
> >> sigh....one LAST time. I'm saying WHAT THE HECK DOES A GUY JUMPING OFF A
> >> BRIDGE have to do with the people in the van in the vicinity at the time?
> >
> > Raffi, your ignorance and unwillingness to listen would seem to
> > suggest that you may be a lousy advocate!
>
> Mr. Balmanoukian, to you. First name is for people who have my respect.

Time for the killfile.

You've had your moment of fame.

And I get the feeling it'll remain the high point of your life.

On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 20:02:35 -0500, chuki chuki
<chukichuki@ugauga.uga> wrote:

>Malcolm Weir <malc@gelt.org> wrote:
>
>>Where, exactly, are you proposing Air NZ find a spare, NZ qualified,
>>747 crew in Los Angeles? The local day labor site?
>
>It wouldn't hurt. The people in the local day labor sites in LA are hard
>workers and eager to please which is more than can be said for the Air NZ crews.

Snag is that they're probably not actually qualified with all those
pesky regulations and training stuff...

>The males are all gay and the females too aloof and worried about their makeup
>to care about the passengers.

Are the women gay too? Are the guys also aloof? Do the gay guys
worry about their makeup, or the makeup on the women?

It does seem to me that passengers who make unwarranted statements
about other people might be hard to care about...

Malc.