April 2012 DOT Data Released
 

http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/repor...12JuneATCR.pdf

UA is again at the bottom of the consumer complaint category with double the next highest complaint rate for a major carrier (US Airways). And United is the worst or second-worse for on-time (depending on which set of numbers you look at).

No new data on oversales since that's compiled quarterly.

Thanks for posting. I don't understand these number sufficiently to guess at what the Apologists will say about them, but I surely look forward to hearing them.

Just curious: Was pmUA ranked this low on a "consistent basis"???
Dave

Sigh. If by apologists you mean "someone who takes into consideration all factors without hyperbole" I am one. :rolleyes:

April 2012 reflects the fallout from the 3/3 debacle, and it is not surprising UA is this low. Let's wait until June or July data, when things have gone back to normal.

Not in the metric of on-time performance; UA often led the majors in that category pre-3/3.

As to consumer complaints, I think (but don't have the #s in front of me to say for sure) that UA was often near the bottom, which given the fact they treated elites very well and everyone else fairly poorly was somewhat expected.

Of course now, they treat everyone poorly, elites and GMs alike. :eek:


(emphasis mine)

I'm highly skeptical that things will go back to normal (unless we're talking a "new normal") with June/July numbers. Will we see improvements over April? Undoubtedly. Will UA continue to score near the bottom? I have my suspicions, based on recent experiences in May and June... and they aren't pretty.

I see that you are, if nothing else, an optimist.

Dave

Fair enough. But I would rather see numbers from normal months, not turbulent ones. If UA is last in June/July, then that really means something.

Just FYI there is a typo on page 37, talked to a guy at the DOT today, it should read complaints filed in April / Incidents in April ... Incidents in March and then incidents in other months.

They said they are going to fix it, but for those of us that got to it early.

Wow, putting yourself out there, eh?

Yes. For the data ending October 2011, United was above only one other airline, Continental (in number of complaints per 100,000 enplanements)

In September they were at the bottom (just behind CO with 2.39 complaints per 100,000, while for example Southwest was at 0.38)

November 2010 (I'm just randomly clicking on the reports, not looking for high complaint rates) United was second to last, just ahead of Delta.

If you look at all of last year, except for January and August when they were 14th out of 16, and October when they were 15th out of 16, they were dead last for the rest of the months.

Granted it's a silly number, like 161 complaints out of five million people or 84 complaints out of 4 million people (depending on the month) but their being at the bottom of the pile has nothing to do with the merger.

For 2010, in March and September they were 12th out of 18, February and July 14th out of 18, August and October 16th out of 18, April, May, June, and November 17th out of 18 airlines, and they started off and ended the year dead last again.

I'm not sure if this result will be nearly as poor, since one of the reasons they cited for the Q1 loss was the revenue shortfall associated with less overbooking during the transition to pre-merger UA's Orion RM system.

As far as the rest of it, atrocious...

Not really. It's pure objectivity. Wait for a real month, not a month full with a major variable changing.

data from April shows that the transition did not go smoothly. I believe everyone here probably knows this. Data from later this year will show what any new normal is and the trend will tell a lot.

April's data is certainly meaningful, but no point in overstating what it means.

No, I'm serious. You are putting a real date on which we can judge one aspect to the merger...... unlike others, who state 'give it a few years'!

Which makes no sense...they said they overbooked less around 3/3, yet they had the highest IDB rate in the industry for the quarter.

I still don't understand what you all are calling a "real" or "normal" month. As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing anymore.

What are you basing this on? United has been at the bottom of the pile, or just two or three positions from the bottom for years. This is not a new normal, it's the way things are month after month.

The last time they were not in the bottom third of the complaint rankings (usually in the bottom two) was October of 2004, when they were ranked 8th out of 19 airlines.

There was no merger back in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, etc.

pmUA treated GMs like dirt, hence the consistently high complaint rating, but treated elites like royalty so most on this forum didn't take notice of the complaint stats before. That is obviously not the case now (or, at least, the treating elites like royalty part).

now they just treat elites like dirt but GM like royalty (TOD upgrades :D:D:D:D)

Maybe a lot less people volunteered for whatever reason. So despite a lower overall oversales rate there was a larger number of IDB's.

Those numbers don't matter because FT members were happy then. Now that they are not the same ranking shows that the company is failing. ;)

I agree. Let's save this post for posterity, shall we?? ;)

Dave

Right -- worse protection, lower compensation offers, who knows. Historically, CO had much higher IDB rates despite fewer VDBs.

The numbers may always have been below average, but they were never as bad to this degree...having 2x the complaint rate of the next lowest major is horrible.

Here is some historical DOT data to put the April numbers in context. The 2012 data below does not include the April data.

INVOLUNTARY DB’s PER 10,000 PASSENGERS
VOLUNTARY DB’s PER 10,000 PASSENGERS
COMPLAINTS PER 100,000 ENPLANEMENTS

Want some popcorn to go with your Tootsie-Pop®? ;)

These numbers are meaningless!!! When the DOT allows weather related delays, certain mechanicals, etc to be counted then I might glance at them. Keep in mind if flight X that departs @ 6AM is late 25 out of 30 days departing SFO due to FOG. But the 5 days there is no early fog the flight leaves right on time, then that flight is considered on time 100% of the time.. How ridiculous........

You've said this several times, but it's not true. The DOT stats that are being reported right now are on-time stats ... if you read the report, you will see that weather-related, ATC, and other delays that might be considered outside of UA's control still decrease UA's on-time percentage.

Whether or not these stats are meaningful regardless of this is still open for debate, but these do include all delays longer than 15 minutes regardless of the cause. If you were to remove delays that the DOT considers to be outside the airlines' control (weather, etc.), UA's on-time percentage would shoot up to close to 90% (as would everyone else's).

Silver lining? It is clear that Delta's highest rate of complaints came during its integration with NWA. United's result is poor, but in light of the data, not entirely out of the blue.

Incidentally, there is not one period in the last four years where pre-merger UA registered fewer DOT complaints than Continental. I guess CO really had everyone brainwashed... ;)

Sykes is correct. Airlines don't get to submit certain data and exclude wx/atc. If that was the case airlines with hubs in ewr/JFK/lga would have HA like ontime numbers. They all count. Heck, even ord, with the Obama related atc issues doesn't get to exclude delays that are caused by presidential fundraising/campaigning trips or weekends home. They all count.

:-: ^ :-:

The actual stats can be seen here: http://www.transtats.bts.gov/OT_Dela...elayCause1.asp.

It's possible. But none of these data show DL being 2x the next lowest rate, which is what we've seen from UA over the past two month. If this is a trend, that's really bad.

Are you trying to say that the rate of complaints doesn't matter, only the difference between the next lowest ranking?

I think they both matter.

The rate is important, and the comparison to others gives perspective.

I agree, and I'm not trying to downplay these piss-poor results. However, there is evidence (based on the last mega-merger) that the results improve as the integration progresses. We'll see if UA holds true to that.

Those us with a background and experience in statistics would say that, while the absolute rates are all low, the real interest lies in statistically significant differences, as has been shown with traditionally high PMCO (now COdbaUA) IDB rates.

I understand your personal opinion and situation may be different.

Yes, it shows UA's performance has been relatively consistent while its competitors have gotten better.

If the absolute numbers really are all so low then why does it matter that one carrier is "twice as bad" as another? Any given passenger is still tremendously unlikely to experience the issue, right?

Whether I've got a 1:10,000 or 2:10,000 chance of an IDB the odds still say that it is never going to happen to me, even if I fly 100 segments a year over 40 years, right?

October 2011, United 1.84 complaints per 100,000 enplanements, Continental 1.92

August 2011, United 2.54, Continental 2.65

January 2011, United 1.58, Continental 2.11

Like US AIR? Judging from what I have seen so far there is an equally good chance they will not pull out of it anytime soon. They made a big blunder with the decision to go with the cheaper IT option Smisek Mr. Nice guy videos are a joke and the "new" coffee sucks not to mention the CFO comment on elites.

Touche. I was just looking at the periodic results noted above. The fact that both were well into the merger process by then is not to be discounted, however. As an independent carrier, CO came in with a better DOT complaint rate. Sadly, the product of the integration has been a worst-of-both scenario.

US complaints rate were a full point better than UA's and a similar margin better than during their integration with HP.

OK. I will go w your more up to date info. Years ago I know as a fact that was not the case as I used to put those numbers together for a legacy carrier to submit to the DOT. But it has been some time since then and that was my one and only job in the airline industry.