April 2012 DOT Data Released
Jun 15, 2012 | 11:51 am
#61
Suspended
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: SEA
Posts: 12,485
I think what we've seen with the company is that CO's mentality towards error tolerance is much higher than what we saw at UA pre-3/3. Whether it be the reliability issues we've seen with the systems (ticketing, upgrades, partner flights dropping, etc.), or IDBs, or IRROPS, it seems the company is tolerant of a higher failure rate with higher customer impact that PMUA customers are accustomed to.
While IDBs are indeed few and far between, the impact is real. Tell that couple who misses their honeymoon cruise but gets a $100 IDB check that it's very, very, very small minority of people who get impacted. Remember this is not PMUA where they're popping you on an AA flight 30 minutes later to get get you moving. This is SHARES UA where it takes close to 30 minutes just to process you (assuming there's nobody ahead of you), so your rebook has to be a minimum of an hour or more in the future.
It is hard to get IDB'd when the planes aren't full...
We can play with the numbers all day if you want. The point is the UA numbers are worse than industry average, and we should hope they are working towards improving them, along with all of their other systems and operational issues, even if that's not the trend we've seen in the past few months.
Jun 15, 2012 | 11:56 am
#62
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
I'd also tell the couple on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to get to the cruise port a day early and buy trip insurance.
And infinitely more likely than on JetBlue. That still doesn't mean it is actually likely to happen. Just being 20x worse doesn't mean it is necessarily actually bad.
Second, everyone has 250 friends. Thats the multiplier used when you offend a customer. Those 12,000 customers have the ability to influence 250 people each and through word-of-mouth. Thats 3 Million. Now all of a sudden, that number is meaningful. In fact, more meaningful than any of the influential Media Headlines I listed yesterday in another thread.