channa

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.

bseller

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

aacharya

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

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.

exerda

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.


(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.

bseller

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

Dave

aacharya

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.

zabes64

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.

hobo13

Wow, putting yourself out there, eh?

cordelli

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.

EWR764

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...

aacharya

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

mattsteg

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.

hobo13

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'!

channa

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.

zoegksf

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.