I prefer the term passenger over customer. I had a very hard time making the change when the company changed it's prefer term.

Thank you for the thanks.

I was just showing an example of how delay codes/reasons can change. This was not a factual account of the OP's flight.

We're not dysfunctional, we just don't do things like you want or expect ala UA's Elite culture of today with their Sky Kits.

I'd like mhmm 25 SkyKits a Year to subsidize my travel =) Hahah

SkyKits are not the issue. CO taking responsibility for its own screwups is.

I'm presently dealing with another issue which is clearly CO's fault, yet they're not willing to take responsibility, blaming a partner, and in the background taking care of it on the sly.

In the end it will get resolved, but who needs the games? A simple, "I'm sorry about that, looks like we dropped the ball here, give me a couple days and I'll take care of it," would be preferred.

Getting even an apology out of CO can be a challenge. It shouldn't be. They screw up like all the others. It's okay. The fact that CO often can't see that is part of the cultural dysfunction, and why I so often talk about the "Rah! Rah! We're the best!" attitude over there.

I understand your frustration. I do believe that they are working on getting WE CARE better and more able to correct errors.

I think it's a plus that they took it to only emails instead of verbal because now it's not personal or becomes personal to the person assisting you in your complaint. And in addition they can forward the emails to the correct people for attention and/or explanation. Nothing should get lost in translation.

I dont know after all CO is great if you are flying TATL, UA has just a few destinations they serve. And although CO needs E+ in the worst way, their AVOD even in coach is yrs ahead of UAs, and COs planes are in better shape although UA has been trying hard

I dont know any 2 large companies that didnt have problems after they were 1. And I dont expect that everything I have come to love about UA will remain.I only hope enough good from both will produce 1 great carrier

Apologies for my confusion.

Is the info you gave an example of publicly available somewhere?

sfogate --

I always appreciate your thoughtful comments. I understand that your job is never an easy one at an airline.

As for this topic, my only complaint with CO is the way that irregular ops are handled. I always get the sense that CO's gate agents are left hanging trying to find alternates or told not to find alternates, rather than having a team of people behind the scenes working on potential missed connections and rebookings. In the past, AA and UA both have had day of operations teams actively protecting passengers in irreg ops situations.

In CO's defense (surprising to hear from me, I know), CO does have people working behind the scenes protecting customers, even on OALs when necessary.

The problem is, if they haven't worked on your record yet, and you're needing to get rebooked, it can be very difficult to get a CO agent to do this for you, as if they're told not to touch it.

I remember one instance last year, when I was on a flight that became two hours late and was a guaranteed misconnect to my final destination. There were no other CO options that day until the redeye (about 12 hours later). The first response from the agent was, "They haven't gotten to this one yet," and she wanted to leave it at that, as if she was not the right person to deal with it, and I should just sit back and wait for this supposed rebooking department to take care of it. I thought that was peculiar, because here I am, in a multi-airport city, trying to figure out whether I should go to the airport, and if so which airport, and to which airline, or whether I need to adjust my plans or cancel and refund my trip. Meanwhile, I was also beginning to wonder if CO Insider was the rebooking department, after all, nobody else in the company is empowered to do much. ;)

Anyhow, the point is that CO does do it, but they also don't have the agents necessarily working in conjunction with them as a team.

Compare to say UA, which has consistently resolved these sorts of issues reasonably. They even watch the flights for VDBs -- I have on multiple occasions added myself to the VDB list, and by the time I got to the gate, a flight operations supervisor saw me on the VDB list and put protection in my record. Doesn't happen all the time, but it has happened several times.

I am dealing with a similar issue (partner flight that CO claims cannot earn miles (it was a B-fare OAL ticket!).

After a few hours of calling OPSC (on various occassions), I got one agent who finally agreed that yes, I should earn miles on this fare. Then she says "It takes two months for us to process this". WHAT??:mad:


I hope the same with my problem. BUt would have appreciated a response like the one channa said above.

I have had several little issues with CO (nothing super bad)
,,,but the frustration gets added on because CO claims nothing is their fault.
Sometimes I am made to feel its my fault because I chose to fly CO.

I used totally believe in the C.O.O.L-aid. But, I am slowly seeing the dark side.
However, its not to the point where i am going to say "oh, I hate CO, I am leaving, etc".......

What I feel CO does not do well is that it does not value the time of its elite-flyers. If they valued my time and took care of the responses quickly, I would be way happier.

Very well said.

I have never not gotten what I wanted out of CO. That said, it has sometimes been arduous to get a satisfactory resolution out of them -- much moreso than dealing with other carriers.

As you said, they don't value our time. IRROPS can be stressful as it is. The last thing I need is to have to deal with seven agents to get it resolved, when I know that other carriers (AA, UA, DL) would be able to handle it effectively on Call #1.