The idea that anyone on HN is innocent of making statements similar to those he did are laughable, and posts just like them make the front page and are the most-upvoted every day. Are people not allowed to have opinions anymore? It isn't like they hired him to clean up house and that was his approach; he saw a terrible user experience and he gave his advice on how to fix it. Often times, starting fresh is the best way to do that.
A UX architect came forward to apologize and let him know why things were the way they were (again, corporate politics and the design process). AA found the email by scrubbing their Exchange server and fired the guy over discussing that process.
I have no opinion of Sᴧbtle, but I can't fault Curtis's conduct in this episode. He offered a completely valid critique of the antiquated web presence of a large and poorly-managed company. When he received a response from someone involved in the production process, he republished it w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶p̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶o̶r̶d̶i̶a̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ [edit: OK that was a bit strong] cordially. It is unfortunate that someone lost a job in a knee-jerk corporate response to that candid exchange. Everyone likes to be employed, but I doubt even that UX person will admit to having lost a good job. I hope the next employer snapped up the person promptly, and I hope that the new organization is much less dysfunctional. Whatever the case, Curtis is responsible neither for the poor culture at AA nor for the erstwhile employee's poor anticipation of the probable response of that culture.
In the meantime, I'll be unchecking "AA" on the sidebar of the Kayak site for the foreseeable future.
Suggesting people he'd never interacted with in any way (who, mind you, ended up not being the responsible parties anyway) be fired wasn't a valid critique of much of anything.
And I don't think that registering that Dustin was "astounded" that the designer he received the email from had a good portfolio or only admitting to having been "partially wrong" with respect to the firing comment was particularly cordial or respectful, either.
I agree that the whole debacle reflects -much- more poorly on AA than on Curtis, but his conduct wasn't beyond fault by any means either.
I'm an in-house designer at a company whose print and web design I detest, and I would hardly blame anyone for going off on a rant about it, including telling the company to get rid of their current crop of designers (which can be a part of the problem, because even after shareholder input there are still little things you can do, and often times they can only go off of what they're presented to begin with).
Truth be told, I would be grateful because my voice has gone unheard. That's the name of the game with a lot of in-house design; you make due with implementing non-designer's ideas for a steady paycheck and good benefits.
A UX architect came forward to apologize and let him know why things were the way they were (again, corporate politics and the design process). AA found the email by scrubbing their Exchange server and fired the guy over discussing that process.
Original complaints: http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html
The UX Architect's response: http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html
Dustin's response to the firing: http://www.dustincurtis.com/incompetence.html