By the way, the bit about there being no more cancelations is simply a lie. There's a whole bunch of flights I can show you right now on my reservations system - which happens to be the one that Aerolineas uses internally as well, so no accuracy issues - that are available for 12 August, and exactly the same for 5 August, but which simply don't appear for next Wednesday, 29 July. Same for other days. These missing flights miraculously happen to coincide with La Nacion's list of cancelled flights.
Ultimately, every country gets the apologists it deserves. I am amazed by the fact that the very people who live here, who do travel and claim that Aerolineas makes this travel more possible, aren't up in arms over this. That Recalde does not recoil in fear of being laughed out of town when giving these pathetic excuses.
When 200 flights nationwide are cancelled, you don't put weather in 2 cities affecting maybe 10-15 routes on the list of reasons. In normal settings that item would be put last if at all, upon penalty of merciless mockery.
You don't list 'presiones gremiales' - everybody knew vacation was coming, and you knew that the unions knew this. Either the pilots were WAY out of line, in which case your second press release of the day - (after total radio silence beyond 2 days of empty blathering that everything 'esta normalizando') - should be about
naming and shaming them, rather than calling out Clarin for inaccurate reporting on the reasons*. Or they weren't out of line, in which case desmanejo is exactly the right word - as senior management, you make sure shit like this won't happen, talk to your unions, deal with the situation.
(really this could be another post. Aerolineas put out two press releases today. The
first is the stupid "how dare you not realize how awesome we are" piece that we're in the middle of dissecting. The
second is titled, I kid you not, "CLARÍN FALTA A LA VERDAD UNA VEZ MÁS". It dedicates a paragraph to showing how out of touch Clarin is with reality: they stated that Aerolineas has 66 planes, whereas they actually have... 73. I read a fairly large amount of press releases, and I have yet to see anything nearly as juvenile. Don't remember anything that even came close. Also reminded me of
Stephen Colbert's takedown of Asiana Air's juvenile indignation about a racial joke, in the face of a spectacularly disastrous landing at SFO).
And you sure as hell don't blame a nationwide shutdown on one of the busiest weeks on 'maintenance', unless you wish to demonstrate ignorance of the term 'amateur hour'.
Anywhere on the planet, this would be grounds enough if not for a few C-level heads to roll, at least to not say anything to look stupider than your actions have made you look already. Over here? Argue over the trees so we can all pretend there is no forest.
