glcarter

Just sayin...

glcarter

Chris has an unregulated venue for what is clearly a vendetta, and you chastise someone who chooses to challenge. Give me a Reliant Sized break. Wow.

anc-ord772

This thread is going to get a timeout and cleaned up soon.

BigPoppaCO

Vendetta? LOL

ual787

My post, regarding Channa and his overused phrase of ‘Rah! Rah! Rhetoric,’ was somewhat out of line, but it was an honest response to my frustration with his same post in nearly any topic that mentions Continental service. I feel that Channa fails to see the opposite side of the coin.

Generally, three things affect an employee’s performance to give great customer service: skill/talent, work environment, and morale.

Skill/Talent
A customer service agent or a flight attendant do not generally need any large amount of technical talent to do their job. A friendly attitude, ability to work independently without supervision, and willingness to make a customer happy go a long way in helping them do a “good job.” Sure an agent who is good with computers will surely be able to navigate SHARES faster and handle that aspect of their job better, but really, technical skill or talent are not too important for the majority of front line employees. Also, there are no performance indicators that can really be measured for these employees, thus forcing them into a pure seniority based environment (senior flight attendants hold longer flights on weekdays, senior agents hold daytime hours during the week at the airport, holidays off, etc.). Jeff and management have no real control on the performance of these employees, unless they blatantly break the rules or violate their contract. This means management can not really track “skill/talent” so they take try to make the best of the remaining two categories I mentioned above, outside of enhancing their employee training.

Work Environment
A modern work environment that helps these frontline employees do their jobs better and makes their job easier goes a long way with their ability to satisfy customers. An agent that has an easy program to make seat changes, rebook, etc. will surely do their job quicker and won’t get stressed in irrop situations. Aircraft that are all modernized and do not have a lot of variations/ sub-fleets, will not cause such a dramatic negative customer experience during swaps (i.e. swapping out a new config B777 to an old config B777). Continental has done a great job at implementing fleet improvements extremely quickly and when implementations were not done, they guaranteed equipment on certain routes (i.e. LHR went all flat-bed first). CO has done a lot “right” on this front, implementing DirectTV on nearly the entire domestic fleet with internet to be rolled onto these flights beginning next year. This year alone, E+ will be installed on 35 aircraft. This type of investing in its fleet and technology has made CO’s customers loyal and generally happy (not to mention the entirely up-to-date side walls, carpets, etc. that most of UA’s fleet does not have) as they almost always know what to expect. Jeff has made a positive announcement in investing in the fleet, this will surely make employees happier and be able to perform their jobs better (ie speeding up the originally scheduled B777 configs).

Morale
Morale is a hard thing for Jeff to improve due to the changes that are taking place in frontline employee’s jobs. As I mentioned earlier, these jobs are seniority based, and fairly repetitive. Unlike most jobs, where things can change day-to-day and employees are used to change, FAs and Gate Agents have jobs that hardly change. Due to the merger, everything is changing for all of these employees, some changes for the better, some for the worse. This has caused a lot of worrying amongst the employees. Also note, the clientele (aka frequent fliers) at each carrier has changed. CO is NOT used to throwing everything at their frequent fliers to get them to remain loyal, their service used to do that alone. When a United Global Service member starts talking to a CO agent about a delay, demanding miles and compensation, a CO agent is not used to that, so will surely treat the customer differently. When a CO flier gets on a UA plane, and isn’t offered a pre-departure beverage, or a hot meal on an Airbus aircraft without ovens, they are shocked and think the merger is bad. There are positives and negatives to this merger that are different for everyone, and all the changes are affecting every single employee’s morale.

If Jeff says in his videos that he has the “best employees” in the business and this helps the employees feel good about their jobs, stop hating! I like the "Rah! Rah!" Even if this helps 10% of the employee’s morale, that mean those 10% are likely to give better service. I know it’s a slap in your face when the customer service then sucks, but seriously, give these people a break.

CO has won a lot of awards (who knows if they really mean anything, but they make the employees feel good about the work they do), and the employees used to take pride in their service. With the merger everything is changing, Jeff is just trying to keep the morale high with this intro… give him and the company a break. When everythings is said and done, hopefully United fliers will see that these hard working people are the "best in the industry" (for an American carrier) and begin liking Jeff essentially thanking them.

I love CO and have almost ALWAYS had great service!
Ual787

Luvs2snowbordbut1kSEA

Oh please. This is exactly what I was talking about, and what Channa and others have tried to point out to the blinded beverage drinkers.

CO service is just OK- it's a C. It's not GREAT, it's also not horrible- it's just OK. This idea that they are far superior is the Rah, Rah statement- when they are not even close. At best, they are at par with UA IMHO. AT PAR

I am not a big fan on WN, but their service is worthy of such claims. AS has similar accolades. CO has won awards and so has UA- doesn't mean beans if they treat their best customers like dirt. I am glad you have had great service on every flight. I have had barely OK service on almost every flight.

The reality is that both companies will need to improve if they want to retain share... but the coming possible changes to MP might help them fall faster.

I appreciate that you withdrew your rather rude previous comment. I am surprised CO moderators allow it- it doesn't fly with UA mods.

star_world

And there you have the root of so many of the endless debates on this forum. For every viewpoint like yours (which is relatively balanced, albeit one I disagree vehemently with) there is another viewpoint - like the one I have, where I'd rate CO somewhere around a B- and UA firmly as a D. At best, I have had functional service from UA. Not once have I encountered an agent willing to go the extra mile, had a meal I actually enjoyed or sat in a premium cabin seat I was completely comfortable in. CO absolutely doesn't excel in these areas but more often than not I go away thinking it was an average experience. Occasionally good, but rarely. With UA the lasting impression I get is that it's a company that lacks any innovation in its hard product or catering, and whose employees are still bitter with the company. That reflects in their daily attitudes. I get these experiences occasionally from CO too, but it's far from dominant.

As long as you have conflicting viewpoints like this from people who have flown several million miles on a vast array of airlines (and as a result have a level of balance) you're going to struggle to get people to agree.

UA-NYC

Sorry, this just says that you haven't flown a lot of UA. The company's willingness to do anything to get you to where you need to go is pretty well known, especially if you have ANY type of status. Alternate routings, co-terminals, OALs, etc. Not sure if any PClub agents are known by name compared to RCCs employees such as Marci at PDX, Annie at SYD, etc.

While my UA meals don't measure up to my NH/LH/OZ/LH experiences, I have enjoyed them plenty. Of course, YMMV, but we aren't talking Sizzler here.

So you've never sat in the new IPTE F suite? Or had a great solo seat on the Explus aircraft? Experienced PS row 9? Had a 3 class int'l bird on a domestic route? Been in the bulkhead row on an Airbii? UD on the 747?

UA did come out with the new C/F seats ahead of the CO ones that are so lauded, correct? And we all know CO based their design on UA C, with a few tweaks - they're ~90% identical.

Ysitincoach

When was your last DL flight?

Seems Richard Anderson is taking a cue from Jeff...except where Jeff comes off as Ivy League, elitist and snobby, Richie comes off as a hillbilly that I do not want to continue to do any business with.

njcommodore

ANY type of status? Are you kidding? UA is the KING of differentiation of elites. 1Ks are treated (and think they are) the top of the food chain, above all others. I HAVE flown a lot of UA in the last 12 months and while I haven't had any IRROPS I do agree that the premium cabin seats aren't more comfortable than CO. But see, the great thing about America and FT is that everyone is entitled to express their own opinions. Oh, and while I don't know the names of many PClub agents, I have seen people who frequent the clubs more than I do single specific people out.

GTITAN

I dunno. While I agree that CO gets praised more often than it should honestly, when I was 1P on UA back in the mid 2000s, it was lack luster for me. IAD was horrid, flights were canceled left and right, almost always got the ICC. Now, as a 1K I think UA has been marvelous honestly, but the criticism that UA is really good for it's 1Ks and GS's has merit. YMMV of course.

Safe Travels

UA-NYC

Oh I have no doubt that UA goes above and beyond for 1K/GS. However, I still maintain that low/mid-tier elites get treated very well as well - like many others, I wasn't always a 1K, and I can greatly attest to this.

Sure, this is a public forum, express away. But when I see "no agents help me, all the food is inedible, no seats are comfortable" - I have to disagree just a bit with that.

TWA Fan 1

This is a very good question.

CO starting receiving high marks during its turnaround under Gordon Bethune in the late 90's and early 2000's.

You have to put this era in context. CO had previously been devastated, pulverized by the slash-and-burn management style of Frank Lorenzo, under which it regularly scored last on every metric for the airline industry.

So when Bethune started to turn things around, there was a flash of elation on the part of customers.

Also, because an airline's reputation lingers on after things change (more on that later on), CO was not especially popular with business travelers, so a lowly OP Silver could be virtually guaranteed an upgrade on any flight.

Finally, while CO was going through its phoenix-like revival, its main rivals were going very much downhill. Over at United Airlines, the year 2000 gave us the infamous "Summer from Hell," the aptly named and acrimonious labor dispute that embroiled United and continues to poison the waters there to this day.

Delta, this once proud jewel of the south, was driven to the depths by the epically horrendous tenure of Leo Mullin, during which the carrier lost over $5 billion, 12,000 people were laid off, and the pilots were strong-armed into taking a 30% reduction in pay.

Despite all this, Mullin did not turn down a multi-million dollar bonus, to which he was entitled by the terms of his contract, which allowed him to earn the bonus if Delta exceeded industry average performance.

Eventually, and under pressure, Mullin returned the bonus, and he resigned his post. But he ended up having the last laugh, as he was awarded a pension of $1 million a year for life, even though he had worked at the carrier for less than six years.

At American, the post 9/11 funk hit the carrier square in the mid-riff, just as it was completing its buy-out of the burned out shell of TWA. Although American continued to putter along as the only major airline that did not declare bankruptcy, it did so by cutting corners dramatically, especially on its capital budgets, leaving it with one of the oldest and most decrepit fleets in the industry.

Like most of its rivals, the management at American seemed at a total loss of how to right the ship and they began the petty nickel-and-diming that would become the industry standard, no more pillows or blankets, no free meals in economy, and, eventually, the relentless quest to monetize every aspect of the airline outside the actual seat itself.

In the middle of this gloom and doom, Continental was sailing smooth, free of labor strife. As personified by its charismatic and colorful leader, Gordon Bethune, the airline's people probably were right to exhibit a little swagger. While its rivals were literally ripping pillows and blankets out from under their passengers' hands, Continental still served them hot meals, and service with a smile.

Continental truly sensed it was the last bastion of the traditional airline experience.

Much of the swagger that pervaded the airline's culture could be perceived in its snarky and cocky marketing, campaigns that trumpeted its status as the only carrier looking out for the passenger:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjaFRiWCUMg

Of course, the irony is that a big part of Continental's success was due to the hated Frank Lorenzo, the little, dirty and unspoken secret that resulted from Lorenzo's maniacal cost cutting was that the airline now had a cost structure more in line with an LCC than a typical legacy.

But things are always changing and the pendulum started to swing the other way by the mid-2000's. Gordon Bethune resigned as CEO in a conflict with an influential CAL board member who also agreed to resign.

When Larry Kellner, an accountant by training, took over as CEO, his mandate was clear. Yes, CO ranked first in all the surveys, but its bottom line was lacking.

So Kellner did what any self-respecting bean counter would do, he counted beans. He cut a little here, a little there. Slowly, but inevitably, the excellence of CO was whittled away.

Then fuel costs hit the roof, and CO, saddled with the highest capital costs of any legacy carrier in America (which is also why they had the newest fleet), started slashing and burning.

Pillows and blankets were eliminated, although the savings were dubious at best (the figure that was announced was an underwhelming $600,000 a year).

One of CO's defining features was that it was the last legacy carrier in America to serve free meals in coach. Eventually, this, too, was cut, although, when Continental went to pay-per-meals, at least they offered a few hot options.

Continental then cut its staff of phone agents, all of whom were "on shore." Unlike the out-sourced call centers operating in Bangalore for United and others, the CO phone agents actually knew their stuff and could be of real use. But after the cuts, the wait times increased exponentially. During times of severe weather, Continental's lines were completely overwhelmed and some passengers could not get through for days on end.

In the middle of all this retrenchment, Continental also was hit by the double whammy of being a victim of its own success. Just as the improved airline under the first years of the tenure of Gordon Bethune remained vastly unpopular with most business travelers, the latest iteration of the carrier, the one that no longer had pillows or blankets, that no longer had free food in economy, the one that charged for checked bags and IFE, was by now vastly overwhelmed by fiercely loyal business travelers, who clogged its elites boarding lines, who competed in vain for ever diminishing upgrades, who experienced the monumental delays of Newark airport, caused in no small part by the airline's expansion there.

Many of Gordon Bethune's approaches were maintained by his successors, Kellner, and then Jeff Smisek. But neither man had the charisma nor the street cred of Bethune, a one-time Navy airplane mechanic who was one part management super-hero and one part blue collar grunt.

With the more aloof and esoteric styles of Kellner and Smisek, the fragile formula of success that defined Continental under Bethune, turned into little more than empty bromides, and began to fray the culture of the airline.

When the merger with United was announced, Continental's people, already battered by the endless cost-cutting, by the crushing pressure of dealing with over-high load factors and the industry's number-one aircraft usage time, raised their hackles over the prospect of the combined carrier "rationalizing" the pay scale at the lower rates paid the United's people.

When today's CO loyalists defend the airline's great service, it is in large part an exercise in nostalgia, not that glimmers of the old days are completely gone, but the Continental its admirers recall fondly, is a slowly fading memory, one that grows more faint with every passing day.

star_world

I've flown 250k+ miles on UA, including in all of the seats / cabins you refer to above except the ITPE F suite - I save my reward F trips for non-US airlines

So sorry to burst your bubble - I stand by all of my points above. The product is pretty ropey, including the 1990s vintage IFE that graces the domestic fleet. I was 1K on UA for several years in the past when they were allegedly at their best, and I still never had that "great" experience. Maybe there's a reason the specific named employees are known - I've certainly never encountered them. the hard product may be average on occasion (as an upper limit) but it's always let down by the employees' attitudes in my experience.

channa

I recognize that CO does some things well (e.g., int'l BF food, transcon catering, complimentary DTV in F, etc.). But at the end of the day, and as others have pointed out, there is this expectation of better, when in fact CO is average.


I agree. However, I agree that CO's handling of these has been suboptimal.



Part of the job is not just skill, but also having the appropriate tools to do the job effectively. I have long maintained that the complexity and cumbersome nature of a system like SHARES detracts from customer service and creates a culture of making excuses to blow off customers. After all, if helping someone will take you 15 minutes, and you can find an excuse not to help, why help?

Ask any CO agent in a joint club who can see the UA systems day in and day out which they'd rather have. Most would not pick SHARES.

I fear that this culture will come over to the UA side when they come onto SHARES.

But more on the seniority argument, I don't really find much correlation between seniority and service. Sure agents and FAs get better over time as they refine their skills, but some lose their desire. It's a wash, IME.


And here again CO has failed to invest in technology. For example, CO remodeled the IAH and EWR terminals installing LED light boards, while other carriers had more flexible flat panel displays popping up everywhere. A GA working a flight having to constantly asking standby status or upgrade status questions will obviously have more work to do than one who has the gate displays.

Regarding your point about aircraft and variants, going into this merger, CO actually had more aircraft variants than UA did. Even today, I believe that's still the case. Sure, many of CO's configurations were 737 variants (I think they had 4 versions of the 738 alone), but for an airline that talks about being streamlined and not having many variants, they actually weren't doing as well as their counterparts.

Similarly, with the DirecTV implementation, I'm not so sure that's a positive. They ripped out free IFE and replaced it with DTV. Then, the movies are in a loop, not on-demand, so that's not exactly modern. And customers have to pay for it on the world's largest fleet of Pay TVs. They even have to pay for the canned entertainment on over-water or international flights where the satellite TV does not work for the bulk of the flight.

On a recent UA flight, a couple of the FAs I was chatting with were excited about getting TV on the plane. Of course, in typical CO style, they never mentioned to the UA staff the other side of the story, so I pointed out that it's $8 to turn it on, and they were both shocked.

I'm not sure how this sort of stuff makes employees be able to perform better. They will now have to field queries and snide remarks about DL, VX, or B6 having free TV (or F9 which charges, but gives it free to Elites).


This is where Jeff blew it. Going into the merger, the UA folks were under Tilton's rule for years, were looking for something new, and Tilton had the ability to be the white knight.

He did it right for a week or two -- meeting with people, shaking hands, making himself visible. Then he started with his usual MO of being two-faced. He tells employees we need to "work together" while unilaterally moving the explus RJs onto CO routes, potentially violating the CO scope clause.

From the UA perspective, he's made visible cuts to to the product (pillow removal, coffee downgrades, blanket hiding and quality downgrades). And he's made public comments about wages remaining low. Not exactly the kind of stuff to endear one's self to a group of people.

The turnaround has been remarkable. In October, the UA staff was really excited, hoping for something new and exciting. Then it started to dwindle. And now, the man is hated.

Meanwhile, he's shooting a new video every few months, talking about "changes we'll like" and the "finest people in the business," all while probably 79,999 of the 80,000 co-workers roll their eyes at the man when he comes on the video.

The culture that Gordon created is now a mockary. FAs often fast-forward over the video and joke about the word "co-workers" and have created the nickname Smilton for him.


I would argue that short of resigning, the #1 no-cost thing that Jeff can do right now to improve employee morale would be to eliminate that video. It would probably increase customer satisfaction while he's at it.