Greetings from the SkyTeam lounge at Heathrow. I received an email from reader Tom in Boston yesterday who asked the following:
Hi Adam, I was wondering if you’d be willing to post a poll on your blog. I read your post back in March titled Asiana First Suite Class Coming to JFK…Great Award Availability!, and was able to secure two first class seats on Asiana for my wife and I for a dream trip in October using UA miles and Ultimate Rewards. As a DL Diamond member, I’m an extremely frequent flier, and normally would NOT change my habits at all following an accident. These things unfortunately happen and are normally not indicative of future problems on the same carriers. However, after reading about some of the training and cultural issues you’ve discussed (Can Cultural Issues Cause Plane Crashes & Another United Pilot Email re. Asiana) & (Korean Pilots Avoided Manual Flying, Former Trainers Say On Record this Time), and hearing other US based pilots speak out, I feel that there is a possibility that there is a true systemic training problem at select carriers abroad. So how about a poll, and are you keeping your award flight?
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6 comments
I won’t fly into SFO at the moment due to non working airport equipment.
Thanks for re-posting this! I was able to get a first class seat on this flight with UA miles and it worked out so much better than the UA flights.
Tom sounds ridiculous. You should stick with DL then.
I’m sure Asiana does not want your business either.
I would not hesitate to fly them, in fact, just booked a Shanghai to Singapore trip on Asiana via Seoul. If you are worried that much, I suggest you stop eating seafood in Boston, because you will be surprised with how they prep them. And no cab in NYC, from seeing how scary they perform the maintenance work. To do such a stupid pull is just stupid. and if you are DL Diamond, why would you want to fly on Asiana, which is non Skyteam partner?
sometimes, keep your stupid thoughts to yourself.
I have a flight booked in suite class for November and I’m still excited about it. I’ve flown their regular first class before and loved it but looking forward to an even better experience.
If you said yes…I find you fairly dim
They might have some issues in their training structure, but there are many issues that a culture impose on pilots. Korea for example impose a strong belief in health among their citizens (pilots). Your pilot might be more rested and healthier and better focused than some pilots from other countries and more emphasis is placed on memorizing facts. This might be impractical for application of theory, but if your pilot has to go through an emergency checklist, you definitely want the one that has memorized it and is rattling it off of the top of his head.