ffI

Allegiant has TERRIBLE customer service and they are far from bankrupt.
They are the most profitable. Perhaps the 2 are not as simply related.

ffI

What was SFH?

Michael D

So are "they" recognizing this or just "us"?

If only "us" then kietherson has a point and I agree with his feelings.

A large number of the complaints it seems to me is that United is less PMUA and more PMCO which makes me think "they" aren't adapting this all alleged necessary attitude. So everybody is going to leave United, I mean, nobody is happy with the new PQD requirements, I mean United is headed for chapter 11.

Madone59

Exactly ^

sbm12

Summer from hell.

Basically a combination of runway/air traffic congestion at ORD, lots of summer thunderstorms and a work-to-rule effort by pilots. It crippled the airline. Relative to that the current UA is doing fantastic.

:-:

BearX220

Google is your friend.

Summer 2000 -- the "summer from hell" -- a legendary low point in United labor relations, in which front-liners adopted work-to-rule and slowdown tactics to exact concessions from management, throwing untold numbers of passengers under the bus in the process.

http://www.chicagolegalnet.com/cases...s-heavy-tolls/

I'll never forget watching a whole long desk's worth of UA customer service agents at ORD clicking their heels and abandoning their posts en masse one night during a thunderstorm delay, leaving hundreds of stranded passengers in line with no help. People told wild SFH stories for years afterward.

A few years later, when UA did slide into bankruptcy, the employees eventually seemed to realize that abusing the customer base could hurt the company and cost them their jobs... but it took several more years to lure some of those burned customers back. Me, I swore off UA for a long time and went over to NW/CO.

LinBros

Or the higher yielding demand for UA declined which caused the RM systems to backfill with lower yielding fares. RM at UA is based on historical data which when not replicated causes adjustments in order to ensure full airplanes.

There is no evidence that the RM staff is not skilled but there is at least anecdotal evidence that purchase of higher yielding tickets is not as strong as before. The fact that the RM folks continue to fill airplanes and yet have some seats available for last minute high yield fare purchase despite the changing demand curve suggests that the RM folks are in fact quite capable.

fly18725

Not previously noted: most of the RM analysts and managers came foe United. People focus on the make up of executive leadership, but the rest of the corporate organization is quite different.

mduell

Neither will UA - BOB is not in their, or even their partners, route network.

sbm12

FWIW, the JetBlue TrueBlue program actually can get you to Bora Bora with their partner Hawaiian Airlines, something that Star Alliance cannot do.

Indelaware

Nope. Hawaiian (HA) does not serve Bora Bora (BOB). Only Air Tahiti (VT) does.

fly747first

Yes, but Allegiant has an entirely different business model. It isn't even a hub-and-spoke carrier.

Allegiant and Spirit are the most profitable airlines and as horrible as they are, at least they acknowledge they are ultra low cost carriers and you don't hear them coming up with fake statements such as being flyer friendly.

sogboulder

Certainly not Spirit, but at this point the only real differentiators from Southwest for a coach passenger would be Star Alliance and the route network. And, of course, Southwest's superior on-time and customer satisfaction performance.

In any event, the current model certainly seems to be profitable (although not as successful as DL). They can continue in this mode pretty much indefinitely as far as I can see, so I think you're quite correct that anything like Ch 11 is unthinkable.

United isn't failing as a company. They are, however, running a pretty lousy airline.

fly747first

Actually no. The RM systems are monitored by analysts who are supposed to review the inventory allocations of their assigned markets on a weekly basis. If you are a terrible analyst, then you wouldn't be on top of your flights and consequently, the systems will automatically make adjustments to fill the flights as needed (well more dynamic systems like AirMax would, but older ones like PROS wouldn't) and these adjustments, which would result in lower yields, would catch the analysts entirely by surprise (again, if you are on top of your flights every week, you would know when demand is shifting and raise red flags right away, not months later). When I was GS, I had the displeasure of sitting next to UA analysts who only wanted to work there for the non-rev benefits, and by the way they behaved, it left no doubt in my mind that their skills were limited at best.

Your statement: "The fact that the RM folks continue to fill airplanes and yet have some seats available for last minute high yield fare purchase despite the changing demand curve suggests that the RM folks are in fact quite capable" is entirely wrong. Even a Senior Analyst with limited skills would know how to train the systems to force the higher buckets when the flight is at say 90% load factor or higher. This can be done at the market level very easily which wouldn't even require the analyst to review flight by flight, not to mention the obvious fact that UA has cut so much capacity that common sense should tell them that they should hold a few seats for last-minute business passengers.

sogboulder

I think the CO-bashing here is a little unfair. My few flights with CO after they abandoned DEN as a hub with the construction of DIA were all quite pleasant. Both airlines had good points going into the merger - my major gripe is that the merged airline seems to have adopted the worst features of both of its components without capitalizing on their strengths. Just because Smisek and a lot of his team came from CO doesn't make the new airline's failures the "fault" of pmCO. I think that pmUA flyers outnumber pmCO flyers, so there are just more complaints from them. I don't think anybody's exactly thrilled with how the merger has played out.

In any event, it's silly to think that a profitable airline is going to go Ch 11 (barring some sort of catastrophe or a really severe economic downturn). It's just not going to happen.