:eek:!:eek:!:eek:

Where is UAInsider when you need them to mitigate a PR nightmare?:confused:

I was booked for EWR-MAN last night and that too was overbooked. I heard some of the GAs blaming the merger for this :confused:

Overbooked is not bad. it adds to overall airline profitability. That's a CO route, so blaming PMUA is appropriate as UA tends to overbook more than CO. However, they also have much much lower IDB rates because of an easy rebooking process and standard $400 VDB offer. CO tries to lowball an offer, takes 10x as long to rebook, so yes, it's a problem. Overbooking was rarely a problem in the PMUA world.

However, this has nothing to do with this thread.

All three of my past three UA transcons have gone mechanical, resulting in delays, equipment swaps and many very inconvenienced passengers.

This story unfortunately doesn't surprise me at all.

Hard to know what to do in these meltdown situations.

In any other commercial situation, like a shop, I would ask for my money back and leave. At the gate this is very difficult to do. The airline can produce many variations of the product they sold or promised and get away with it. Now that we are dealing with a new company which is taking full advantage of this flexibility, I feel very trapped with a UA ticket.

The combative staff reported are an unwelcome escalation from the situations I have experienced. The GAs so far have all been very polite to me, though one could see they were stressed out.

Whatever PMUA used to do in terms of how much they overbooked, how is "blaming PMUA" in any way appropriate? The PMUA decisionmakers are not running CO. It's the PMCO management team now running both UA and CO. So what do the previous actions of former UA management have to do with current overbooking on a PMCO route? :confused:

I'm certainly going to think twice about paying to possibly be subjected to this kind of treatment/experience when there are alternative carriers. Thanks for posting, OP.

3/14 EWR Terminal A
 

I flew ROW-DFW-EWR-YQB on 3/14.

I flew AA ROW-DFW-EWR, without incident, although we had a one-hour ground hold in DFW because of weather at EWR.

I then went to my UaEx connection at EWR Terminal A and descended upon a scene of pure chaos. Hundreds of people sitting on the floor, a fetid odor hanging over the place.

Just as I approached my gate (A26), I witnessed the PA police breaking up a scuffle between an irate passenger and a gate agent. I was later told that the passenger's flight had been delayed over 5 hours and that the agent had then boarded the flight without making an announcement that could be clearly heard in the gate area, so the passenger missed their flight.

I'm not sure if the gate agent blamed the merger.

I can confirm, however, that when announcement were being made for my flight, they were not audible in the gate area either, but rather at the other end of the terminal, near the bus loading area.

I thought it would be helpful to mention this to the gate agent (who was not the one involved in the altercation). She was extremely snappy, but I did notice her reach down below the counter, as if she were pushing a button.

After that, the announcements were audible in the vicinity of gate 26...

My flight was only delayed about an hour...not bad.

This is the part that really baffles me on this one.

Well, this may sound crazy to some (if not most of you), but this is the first post that makes me think that this is possibly really getting out of hand. Yikes!

What a mess! Airline employees were being way unprofessional.

if you're a co GA and you've rarely had overbooked situations, then post merger you suddenly have them, it seems logical that you'd blame ua.

How did they accommodate the passengers that didn't have seats on this flight? Did it go a little more smoothly than this incident at LAX?

There is no such thing as a GA who has not commonly dealt with overbooking, unless he/she works for jetBlue (which does not overbook).

Amazing report. Between this situation, the recent AA FA melt-down and other similar situations likely taking place, you've got to wonder about flying these days at all. it's making my road-trip idea sound more and more interesting...and fun.

Wow terrible handling no doubt. Hope this doesn't become something that happens more than once a year.