Can VIPs Get Flights Held for Them? United Airlines CEO Says Maybe
Sharon Hsu August 28, 2018
Chicago, IL, USA - March 17, 2016: A United Airlines 747-400 landing on 28C at the Chicago O'hare Airport.
The final boarding call often seems to be an airlines’ most consistently applied rule: passengers who end up on the wrong side of the boarding door when it is closed are completely out of luck. The door will not reopen. But who decides when the door shuts and, more importantly, when and for whom it’s held open?
Many airline passengers have had the experience of running through a terminal toward their flight, hoping that they make it to the gate before the boarding door is closed.
But are there VIPs so important that an airline will hold flights for them, no matter the circumstance?
Bloomberg’s David Rubenstein posed this question to United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz this week, asking him if there was any truth to the “rumor in Washington that members of Congress can get airlines held for them.”
Munoz dodged the question about Congresspeople, instead replying, “We generally, as an operation, don’t want to hold anyone, because we have a schedule to keep. If one of my gate agents sees a young woman with three kids running down and our schedules says we close it in thirty seconds, and she’s a minute away or ten minutes away, whatever, we have historically tended to shut the door to get [the plane] out on time.”
He added, however, that a new policy leaves such calls to the discretion of the gate agents, who can judge if it’s more important for a morning flight to get out on time or if there’s leeway for the last flight of the evening to delay for a few minutes.
Munoz noted that there might be instances in which it is appropriate to hold aircraft “for the right amount of time, for the right person,” but refused to name who that “right person” might be.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
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And it is up to the discretion of the supervisors and planners, NOT the agents, to hold the flight. The agents basically have no say, and in fact, are under pressure from others.
So these idiots who run UA will hold a flight for some damm politician out of courtesy but can't even bother to sit families together. Just another one of many reasons not to fly the unfriendly skies. Time for Jeff to find a new job. He has run this airline into the ground.
In my experience, no UA doesn't hold flights, even if you are GS. I was a victim of this earlier this week flying from BOS to SIN. I had a plane change at SFO, the plane landed with about 50 minutes to make my connection, but our gate was occupied. We sat on the tarmac for a full hour, while my SFO - SIN flight departed on time (I got a text message that UA1 had left the gate), then about 5 minutes later we taxied up to gate 92 and my flight had just departed from gate 93. Yes, I was not a happy guy as I missed a major customer event in Singapore.
Whats up with continuing to lead with 747 images that United no longer fly????!!!
The underlying issue is taking a delay for not pushing back. Ridiculous since we then sit on the tarmac waiting to take off. Any delay is easily made up in the air if it is not major. So frustrated with flights arriving late and then rushing to board and it is presented as the customer's fault. Get off my lawn moment.