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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Apr 6, 2016
April 6, 2016
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The Airlines:
Perhaps you saw the grainy video of the (now former) United Airlines flight attendant exiting her flight at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental airport by deploying the plane's inflatable slide and scooting down onto the tarmac. United grounded her while investigating the incident.
The 159 passengers apparently didn't notice the hasty exit because there was a medical emergency in the back of the plane. A rep for the company says the "unsafe behavior is unacceptable" and "does not represent the more than 20-thousand flight attendants who ensure the safety of our customers."
But Business Insider says she chose a pricy way to go: the incident could cost the airline between $6-and-$12-thousand dollars just to repack the undamaged slide into its container. Repairing and repacking a damaged slide could run as high as $30-thousand dollars!!!
The Boeing 737-900 was briefly taken out of service for maintenance and then was returned to its scheduled use. (Lee /Kaye)Top-10 Airlines in the US:
The annual Airline Quality Ratings are out --done by folks at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Wichita State University-- which compares everything from on-time performance to customer complaints on the airlines. The top 13 airlines (followed by last year's ranking):
13. Spirit Airlines (not ranked in 2014)
12. Envoy Air (12 in 2014)
11. Frontier Airlines (8 in 2014)
10. American Airlines (7 in 2014)
9. ExpressJet (11 in 2014)
8. United Airlines (9 in 2014)
7. Skywest (10 in 2014)
6. Southwest Airlines (6 in 2014)
5. Alaska Airlines (5 in 2014)
4. Hawaiian Airlines (2 in 2014)
3. Delta (3 in 2014)
2. JetBlue (4 in 2014)
1. Virgin America (also number one in 2014)Fashion Emergency:
AMY SCHUMER was included in Glamour magazine's new special "plus-size" edition. She was not happy about it, and took to Instagram to explain her interesting reasons why.
"I think there's nothing wrong with being plus size," Amy said on her post. The problem, she said, is that Amy ranges between a size 6 and 8 and her inclusion in Glamour's special issue, puts her, as she says it "in their plus size only issue without asking or letting me know and it doesn't feel right to me. Young girls seeing my body type thinking that is plus size?"
The Hollywood Reporter says Amy's take sparked a huge online debate about women's body image, prompting Glamour's editor-in-chief CINDI LIEVE to respond to the controversy. In a series of Twitter posts, she said, ""We love Amy Schumer, & would never want to offend her. To be clear, [Glamour's] special edition never called her plus-size." The editor added that the special edition included a previously-published story on Amy under the "Women Who Inspire Us" headline because Amy's "message of body positivity & talking back to body haters IS inspiring. (To me, too!)"
Lieve closed out with an apology that also addressed the ongoing fashion industry debate about what being "plus sized" means: "To be clear, size 6-8 is not plus. (Even size 12 --frequent size of "plus" models-- is smaller than average American woman!) But women of all sizes can be inspired by one another's words. So sorry if implication was otherwise, Amy." (Bartha)Captain Obvious:
An exhibit of big inflatable bunnies in San Francisco is getting round-the-clock security to prevent them from being destroyed.
The two-story illuminated rabbits at Civic Center Plaza are part of a public art installation titled "Intrude" by Australian artist AMANDA PARER. They bunnies have been assigned 24-hour security detail to prevent the kind of vandalism that targeted Super Bowl artwork earlier this year. The exhibit is vulnerable because it's in a place where it's accessible to everyone. (Still) -
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