Bad experiences on United Airlines?

[unicorn]

The experience of Dr. Dao (the video of which I'm sure we've all seen) reminds me of some bad experiences I've had on United myself. For a while, I was a good United customer. One time, when I was a Gold premier member, I was about to take a flight from SFO to Kona, Hawaii. I had selected my window seat months previously. I was seated in my seat, reading a book prior to take-off, when a stewardess told me I had to move to some middle seat further back in the plane. When I asked her why she told me "I don't have to tell you," and I had no choice in the matter. I made a bit of a fuss asking to speak to supervisors and so on, just to make sure the plane wouldn't be able to arrive on time, but I eventually moved to the other seat. A previous time, a flight attendant was rude to me, and took off her name tag. Her supervisor refused to give me her name so that I could register a complaint. After the 2nd incident, I switched to another airline and haven't flow United since. I've been a 2nd-level premium member with USAirways/American since then (about 8 years). One might think that when a customer goes from flying 50,000 miles a year to 0, the airline might contact the customer and ask for input as to why the customer no longer flies with them, but this airline didn't seem to care. 

Given that involuntarily bumped passengers are entitled to $1350 compensation by law, the logical response from the flight crew when no passengers were willing to take them up on the $800 they were offering, would be to increase the offer to $1200 (or even $1350 if they had to). I would think someone would have been willing to take the $1200. But I guess the crew had to show the customer who's boss. How airlines can treat their customers as irrelevant and still stay in business is beyond me. I'm going to Denver in June, and I'll take American with a plane change in Phoenix rather than take a non-stop on United. If I really wanted to take a non-stop, I'd fly Southwest, but no way I'd fly United. 

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/04/11/how-united-airlines-could-take-customer-service-lesson-from-delta.html

[RA1]

No competition and no incentive beyond the bottom line.

Best regards,

RA1

[OneFinger]

These say it all.

 

[BigK]

4 hours ago, RA1 said:

No competition and no incentive beyond the bottom line.

Best regards,

RA1

True.  The last round of airline mergers should not have been allowed under Sherman Anti-Trust laws.  I was a loyal Continental customer (and 1 million miler) before they merged with United.  For years you could tell the difference between the Continental and United Flight attendants.  They were kept separate for years.  The United Flight Attendants were always ruder and less customer service orientated.  The lack of competition affects fares and the level of customer service.  Quite possibly, layers of middle management that have been cut to increase profits without giving authority to make decisions at lower levels (Gate Agents) contributed to this fiasco.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of profits.  But companies must balance customer service with profits.

 

[RA1]

FWIW- When UA went bankrupt a few years ago, they treated their own employees just as shabbily as they are currently treating the flying public.  

Best regards,

RA1

[MsGuy]

OK, call me stupid but can someone here explain to me how this problem arose in the first place?

I understand about overbooking and why it's done and the buying out of bumped passengers and all that, but doesn't all this get sorted out before folks board the plane? 

It ain't like United doesn't know how many seats there are and how many people showed up and asked for a boarding passes. How is getting seated passengers  off the plane even a thing?

My thoughts keep circling back to the three stewardesses who traipsed in late & needed a ride. Did a quickie in some manager's office play it's part in this fuck up? Naw, no way it could be that. Nobody's that stupid.

Now if it was a cute steward...

[Guest Larstrup]

1 hour ago, MsGuy said:

OK, call me stupid but can someone here explain to me how this problem arose in the first place?

I understand about overbooking and why it's done and the buying out of bumped passengers and all that, but doesn't all this get sorted out before folks board the plane? 

 

Most times they do know. In this case IIRC, there was a change of aircraft which limited the space which was originally and probably over-sold too, and due to the size of aircraft now flying that leg-segment it became worse. But, this scenario was then further fueled by UA employees needing to get to another city to pick-up a flight trip, which was probably unexpected as well. Shit happens every second in the airline business.

Regardless of all that, its how you handle these things. UA reminds me of my first boyfriend. When something goes wrong, blame and punish the one you love and need.

[unicorn]

[unicorn]

[boiworship]

It was a fine airline twenty years ago, but low prices and general prole drift have contributed to making air travel awful. In the US, Alaska is the best airline. 

[JKane]

United couldn't have handled it worse, and never should have let the last 4 people board in the first place.  They also should have simply upped the reward until they got volunteers, there was no point whatsoever in offering less than they'd have to pay out for involuntarily bumping a passenger.  

But that passenger also refused a lawful order, which I think carries extra weight if they'd have had a Flight Attendant or Pilot deliver it (but it was probably the gate agent who'd fucked this all up from the start).  

Once they went down the involuntary route and had the computer pick they kinda got locked in.  If the doctor hadn't been flying cargo-class on the cheapest possible ticket he wouldn't have been in the pool.  If he wasn't on the last flight out of the day it wouldn't have been a problem because more would have volunteered.  

Also did he have a psychotic break, has there been any info on him?  

The police over-reacted, clearly.  They probably have only needed to remove belligerent drunks from planes before, nobody cares if they get roughed up a bit on the way out (and it's probably not that easy to remove somebody who doesn't want to go from the back of steerage). 

And after all that the plane was delayed 2+ hours and United got what probably amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bad publicity.  For want of smarter or better trained gate agents / supervisors / manager, all of whom really should've been the first fired.  

[MsGuy]

CNN claims that a review of United records show that the flight in question was not in fact overbooked. Rather they decided after seating the passengers that those stews just had to board that particular plane come what may.

Now whether that decision arose from a need to resolve an urgent stew scheduling problem at some downstream connection, a superb blow job by an enterprising stew or sheer cussed arrogance by management, only time and further discovery in court will tell.

Please note the above alternatives are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

 

[RA1]

boiworship-

I think you must mean 40 years ago.

 

Best regards,

RA1