It is not xenophobia but simply the training and level of authority outsourced agents are given. It is the same type of thing with Emirates agents in India. It is not that the Indian agents do not want to help but they are not given any authority to fix certain problems. Requests have to go through Dubai and the relevant person in power never responds. Thus they know what they need to do, want to do it, but the systems are set up to prevent them from providing any customer service--or policies are implemented and the agents have no idea about the changes.

This is the primary reason I stopped flying United. There is nothing worse in dealing with a customer service agent than having somebody who does not know how the operations of the company work and has no authority to go beyond the set script. Luckily more and more things can be done online but when you do need human intervention it is always so much less frustrating to actually talk to somebody--wherever in the world s/he is-- that actually has the training and authority to resolve the issue.