Murnane in the Running for Idiot of the Year

Idiotofyear 228-1

Yeah, okay. Time to get back to airlines today. After having to deal with Fred I got to endure a four and a half hour trip to the dentist yesterday. As a result, yesterday seems to have disappeared in a haze of nitrous oxide. Well, not really. Today my jaw feels like I was hit by a truck. And Fred wasn’t around for his piece of bacon this morning.

But hey, what better way to get back to normal (or what passes for normal in this industry, as I often say) then to start perusing my email in-box. And what do I find in my in-box today but a tidbit from today’s Arizona Republic:

“Peter Murnane, the Mesa Air chief financial officer who is accused of destroying evidence and trying to cover it up in the face of a lawsuit filed by competitor Hawaiian Airlines, this week was nominated for Idiot of the Year in the Washington Post’s blog on offbeat news. In his OFF/beat blog, blogger Emil Steiner cited the regional airline’s court testimony last week that Murnane inadvertently deleted key business documents while he was deleting pornography from his computers. The headline on the Monday post: “Attack of the Terrible Excuse: Mesa Air CFO Digs His Hole Deeper.” Last year’s winner of the award was a Georgia mother of four who wanted Harry Potter books banned from school libraries. Murnane is on leave from the company while an internal investigation is conducted.”

Yeah, well,  while Peter Murnane is now the front-runner for this guy’s “Idiot of the Year” award, I can safely say that his boss, Jonathan Ornstein is now clearly the front-runner for this year’s PlaneBusiness Ron Allen Airline (Mis) Management Award.

Someone is really going to have to screw up big time in the last three months of the year to alter this outcome.

FYI, the “Idiot of the Year” pic is direct from the Washington Post. Not sure on why the caption is misspelled. I guess maybe it’s just an idiotic thing to do.

Editor’s Update: 1/21/08: Working Link to Original Column in the Washington Post is here.

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