Originally Posted by
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The CO vs. UA debate again
I did not fly CO enough to tell but I do know, whether in F or Y, I have a better chance of staying hydrated if the crew is pmUA
There is definitely something seriously wrong with how the company trains its employees. Some examples:
1 - the GS/1K free food/drink thing is now mostly for us to ask and occasionally argue for our free food. A well-intentioned move from the top and totally botched in execution
2 - I asked 3 different employees at the same Service Center in ORD about Weather/ATC hotel/meal for 1K and got back 3 different answers - ranging from a firm NO to a firm YES.
If they can't even get these simple things right for GS/1K, what can they get right for regular passengers?
A lot of us here hated Smisek and I think expected too much from Oscar. I am pretty sure POLARIS was planned in the Smisek era and the October MP rule changes were probably started during Oscar's watch. Personality-wise, Oscar seems a lot more approachable. Even pmCO employees did not like Smisek on that front.
Whatever happened with memo-gate, I think this is probably a compromise and having him continue to lead might not be the best idea. However, we are not aiming to have the best airline either and Kirby might not be friend to us either.
I have always received free food/drinks as a 1K but I fly mainly on legacy UA routes. Much better treatment from legacy UA crews.
The UA culture toward ordinary fliers was never very positive, but elites were treated very well until Smisek destroyed that culture (ease of upgrades--I could find alternative upgrades at airports such as FRA and NRT by asking what was available, eae of rebooking, etc until Jeff outlawed such practices as part of his war on "overentitled elites." Right after the merger SWUs as they were known became useless--as a GA told me when an IAD-NRT flight took off with 6 empty C seats (I was number 3 on the upgrade list; on the connecting NRT-SIN flight my seatmate also did not clear and he had his secretary cancel $500K of paid C/F international flights the same day).
COdbaUA lost a lot of business. I had little choice, but the big winner was AA. Don't folks remember that and remember why so many cheered when Smisek was forced out? Don't give me stories about the CO culture. I've lived through it. Alas, it seems to be coming back.