Major United Policy Changes Announced

Old Apr 28, 2017, 6:04 am
  #181  
 
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Originally Posted by jsloan

Despite what the mass media might have you believe, this isn't a nefarious practice, as evidenced by the reports on the VDB thread of "I volunteered, but they didn't need me." People miss flights all the time. UA has historical information that helps them predict how many no-shows or last-minute changes they might get; they use that to figure out how many seats they can sell without having to deny boarding to anyone. They're quite good at it, but they're not perfect.
Exactly right. It's a good business practice. One of the facts that lost in the Dr. Dao story is that it wasn't a routine overbooking situation. It was extremely rare, the added passengers were a crew that needed to deadhead to their next flight, AND they were booked on the flight within a very short window prior to boarding. This would not have happened if it weren't UA crew. Dr. Dao never would have boarded the plane, and it would have been handled at the gate.

The new policy changes are fine, but more of a PR move. The fix that would have avoided the Dr. Dao incident was made a week or so ago, when UA changed their policy to not allow crew to be booked onto a full flight inside of an hour (IIRC is was 1 hr), of departure time.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 6:26 am
  #182  
 
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Originally Posted by richarddd
When thinking about the effect of reducing overbooking on airline pricing, consider why airlines haven't already raised prices.

We often think businesses price on a cost plus basis or in order to maintain some level of profitability, but market forces and competitive pressures (even in an oligopolistic industry) are very important.
True, but if profit is lower, than they will cut routes. We know how their spreadsheets work. If the revenue/plane is less, then when they run the math, more routes will not be profitable and they will cut.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 6:34 am
  #183  
 
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Originally Posted by richarddd
When thinking about the effect of reducing overbooking on airline pricing, consider why airlines haven't already raised prices.

We often think businesses price on a cost plus basis or in order to maintain some level of profitability, but market forces and competitive pressures (even in an oligopolistic industry) are very important.
With Oil prices settling at a 40'ish - 50'ish equilibrium range & rising labor costs, without overbooking, Airlines would be forced to reduce capacity growth. Now, this isn't necessarily bad for the bottom line; but, for obvious reasons, it certainly won't lead to lower prices.

UA needs to increase profit margins by reducing/limiting capacity, which now has become more challenging without aggressive overbooking and newly minted draconian measures, just to address a blackswan Pax event that will never happen again.

In my view, given the environment, Airlines will (or, ought to) seek to reduce capacity to increase margins. If done prudently, there are bright days ahead, especially with Oil prices likely capped at current levels.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 6:35 am
  #184  
 
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Originally Posted by itsallgood
EXACTLY! There are consequences to these changes.

The core problem is that airline ticket prices are too low. There are more people buying tickets than the system can handle. Basic economics says to add capacity and/or raise prices. Adding too much capacity carries huge risks for economic downturns (remember post 9/11?) so the best solution for airlines is to raise ticket prices.
I think it is very calculated.

Raising ticket prices, increasing delays/cancellations affects everyone in a relatively small way. Most people may not notice a few dollars more in price or remember a delay/cancellation. Problems that affect everyone don't show up on twitter or get picked up by the news.

A few DYKWIA people who don't know how to behave in public, follow the rules, and throw a fit might get recorded on video and go viral. Although it affects far less people and better for the whole, it can be very bad for PR.

Unfortunately this is the world we live in.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 8:54 am
  #185  
 
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Originally Posted by jsloan
You're making my point. Video is prejudicial because people tend to give it additional weight, as they assume it is accurate. It's a lot easier for the average person to determine when someone might be lying -- it's a survival skill that most people learn at a fairly young age -- than it is for someone to analyze a video and realize that it's incomplete.
Except that the experts who study this kind of thing say that isn't true.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 9:14 am
  #186  
 
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Originally Posted by halls120
Only if management gives front line managers the discretion to respond as they see fit. I think we all remember SMI/J and his posse at the beginning of the merger complaining about how front line sUA employees were too generous in giving out compensation. They were going to end that and "run UA as a business."

That sure worked out well, didn't it?
This, going all the way back to 2012, is what caused the Dao incident and much of United's loss of business. It can not be overemphasised that United will continue to fail as a business until it allows employees to use their common sense to address the problems that occur day in, and day out, in a complex network like United's.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 9:21 am
  #187  
 
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Yawn. When they show they care by not using 145/700 on 90+ minute flights, that is when I know they are serious about customers.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 11:59 am
  #188  
 
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Originally Posted by richarddd
When thinking about the effect of reducing overbooking on airline pricing, consider why airlines haven't already raised prices.

We often think businesses price on a cost plus basis or in order to maintain some level of profitability, but market forces and competitive pressures (even in an oligopolistic industry) are very important.
I agree with you on how market forces affect price but I think you're overlooking that a reduction in overbooking is decreasing the supply of "seats" available for sale. A decrease is supply produces a higher price.

I don't think we'll see a chance in the published prices, though. Just a reduction in the number of "seats" available in the lower fare buckets. The cheapest tickets will just sell out a little faster resulting in an increase in average fare paid.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 1:17 pm
  #189  
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If 3% of UA's traffic walks out the door because they're all pissed off at how Dr Dao was manhandled by the bouncers, and UA stops overbooking by 3%, then all is in equilibrium, right?
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 1:25 pm
  #190  
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The automated VDB system is interesting. If United does this right, that is a genuine enhancement.

I don't get the need for a "customer solutions team". Every United employee who interacts with customers should already be thinking about client service and able to implement creative solutions to get people to their final destination.

A separate team suggests I'm going to still run into a layer that has no empathy, refuses to think and solve, and just kicks me up the chain to more-creative people. If there's a large WX event, are there going to be enough of those people to serve the demand without queues? (No.)

The $10,000 VDB cap was a sweet PR move by Delta (McNews outlets like CNN, USA Today, and the ilk gobbled it up as expected), but nobody anywhere is ever seeing $10,000 in real cash for a single-flight VDB. Not with the paltry low payouts on IDB that are currently in place.

The "no questions asked" lost luggage thing could have some unintended consequences. Hopefully the airline will ask enough questions to confirm that it did indeed lose the bag.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 1:27 pm
  #191  
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Originally Posted by Kevin AA
If 3% of UA's traffic walks out the door because they're all pissed off at how Dr Dao was manhandled by the bouncers, and UA stops overbooking by 3%, then all is in equilibrium, right?
My guess: UA will lose a negligible amount of systemwide traffic, but perhaps a significant amount of ex-Asia traffic. I don't see loads on their domestic routes changing much at all. It's not like we're in love with the other two-thirds of the U.S. airline cartel.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 2:11 pm
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Originally Posted by pinniped
My guess: UA will lose a negligible amount of systemwide traffic, but perhaps a significant amount of ex-Asia traffic. I don't see loads on their domestic routes changing much at all. It's not like we're in love with the other two-thirds of the U.S. airline cartel.
they might lose a lot of traffic ex-Vietnam, but markets like Hong Kong and China...no one even talks about this case anymore.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 2:14 pm
  #193  
 
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Originally Posted by pinniped
The automated VDB system is interesting. If United does this right, that is a genuine enhancement.

I don't get the need for a "customer solutions team". Every United employee who interacts with customers should already be thinking about client service and able to implement creative solutions to get people to their final destination.

A separate team suggests I'm going to still run into a layer that has no empathy, refuses to think and solve, and just kicks me up the chain to more-creative people. If there's a large WX event, are there going to be enough of those people to serve the demand without queues? (No.)
Having a separate "customer solutions team" allows other front line employees to remain focused on doing other aspects of their job. Gate agents are already under a lot of pressure and taking more time to find options for VDB (or IDB) passengers could result in departure delays. If you bring in another team, the GA can still focus on getting the flight out without a compromise on the amount of attention provided to the other passenger.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 2:17 pm
  #194  
 
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Originally Posted by Kevin AA
If 3% of UA's traffic walks out the door because they're all pissed off at how Dr Dao was manhandled by the bouncers, and UA stops overbooking by 3%, then all is in equilibrium, right?
But there's no way they lose 3% of their passengers, and for whatever they do lose, there are a bunch of unhappy customers of other airlines that will fly UA.

People generally have short term memories about this kind of stuff. And those of us who spend a good portion of our time on airplanes realize that what happened to Dr. Dao would never happen to us.
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Old Apr 28, 2017, 2:28 pm
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Originally Posted by aoumd
Thanks for enlightening me as to the pmUA situation. Very different than what UA has become, and ironic given that Bethune hired SMI/J and yet Bethune ran a CO ship that did all the things Oscar needs to get UA to start doing again.
Lots of CO flyers talk about Bethune but pmUA agents bitterly complained about having to follow CO rules that allowed no flexibility. From what I have heard (and correct me if your experience was different) international upgrades almost never happened on CO. When my upgrade was denied right after the merger on a flight from IAD to NRT that left with 6 empty seats in C, the FAs told us: The CO policy is if you want to fly in C buy a business class fare. Upgrade certs are useless on the new United. It took a lot of flyers defecting to AA before this policy changed.

pmUA FAs still talk about how UA has always been and still is more friendly toward passengers (at least to what Smisek called "overentitled elites").
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