Karl-MDW

I thinks the article was well written and fairly spreads the blame all around - except that it makes no mention of the airline's de facto dismissal of its best customers..

The trouble is, we all know what went wrong. We all know the bad decisions management made.

However, four years into the new airline, we still do not have a management with a mission and a vision - expect to cut its way to profitability - if that is even possible.

Let's hope that the board will soon find a management team with a vision and the ability to please investors and customers.

SOON!

flyinbob

Yes, that is what INTERNAL means. Passengers cannot determine aircraft assignments. It is the management culture of not giving a damn about customers, most likely the majority being UA customers, and awaiting the day they can simply change the name back to Continental and just forget about United.

What "Cranky" missed is that Jeffy IS Continental, through and through, and his attitude toward customer loyalty is what sets the tone. So most former UA customers blame Jeff, and unfortunately that means Continental by extension.

seanp7

The point about an IAH/EWR-fortress-defending regional airline with absolutely no experience being a global, competitive, customer-hungry airline is spot on.

To the sCO folks stating yet again "no UA innovation" - look at New International Business, New F, more Economy plus, and JFK-SFO/LAX. That stuff surprised (and impressed) me at the time and it was exciting. To ignore those key aspects of the hard product is quite laughable.

CopperSteve

Ding-ding-ding, we have a winner.

The right chief executive can make a significant improvement his first day on the job by verbally defining the culture of the company. The practical implications will take some time, but every employee - top to bottom - can be made to understand the vision of the company and that only they, the frontline staff, can make that vision a reality.

Some companies get that, some do not. As I type this, I am becoming more and more surprised at myself for adding to the bottom line of a company that doesn't get it.

RJ1

I was both a sCO and sUA customer, and back then they both were fine in my mind. The merged result is not good, at least at this point. The thing I hate the worst is the heavy reliance on regional jets to the destinations I travel to. Uneven customer service is a close second. Have shifted my flying elsewhere, except to burn my accumulated points.

abaheti

I posted about this at the time, but I still recall immediately after 3/3, being on the phone with a pmCO agent, striking up a chat about how it is going and how things seemed difficult to get done now, and she tells me that "yeah, its been explained to us that we need to train the UA elites" because they were used to getting away with too much.

And a pmUA agent telling me that a CO manager had been placed in the call center to make sure they "enforce whatever SHARES says" even if it means not helping the customer, because the customers have to be managed. I remember one Hawaii 1K desk agent almost in tears when she had to tell me "no" to a simple request that would have been granted the week before.

No understanding that pmUA flyers were not stuck with the airline like pmCO flyers were at the fortress hubs, and no understanding that in a very large, complex network/system, that situations come up all the time that rules can't anticipate. Seems to have worked out well for them.

tuolumne

Well that's certainly unnecessarily harsh. Legacy UAL had nearly 100 3-class widebody aircraft to the deal - no small number. They also brought with them high-revenue business flyers in numbers and spend that CO never had. And let's not forget the most enviable hubs in the industry (in the top business/governmental centers of the country).

Do I agree UAL was in a period of contraction following 9/11? Yes, absolutely, and the numbers prove it. They went through a long painful Ch.11, with management focused on making the company an attractive dance partner, so to say. Much of what Tilton did still angers me to this day. But to insinuate they sat there and did nothing is a bit much - p.s., Ted, a branding overhaul, IPTE, 787/A350 purchases can all be directly attributed to the previous regime.

And they also achieved their end goal, having all but reached a complete merger framework with US right before Smisek called out to Chicago at the 11th hour and asked to start talks again. Either way, Chicago and Tilton won - they had both US and CO asking for a transaction to take place. Without it, CO would have been squeezed to its ultimate demise. They needed UAL more than they needed them, as CrankFlyer post makes abundantly clear in his characterization of CO as having an incomplete route network.

ibuyyoufly

This!

2/3's of the employee base will always follow a great leader who has a vision and a plan AND communicates both of those to the employee's. The other 1/3 the company doesn't want to keep.

What has resulted is at best felonious and it's my personal opinion too much respect has been lost and can never be earned back before a change to save the company needs to be made.

halls120

I wouldn't be too hard on Jose. After all, when the CEO publicly bashes pmUA employee, it empowers front line workers to do the same thing.

edcho

Woahhhhhh that's my story and they weren't yelling at her (just taunting and bullying her)... and they were sUA FAs that were doing the taunting and bullying.

That incident still upsets me but to be fair to Jose and UA, there are plenty of FAs out there that tell me that they don't mind crossovers too or don't tolerate the sUA/sCO infighting.

cfischer

You mean the hard product is laughable? I agree. F is a joke compared to almost all other carriers. sUA Business is miles behind the competition and even coach is much worse than many other carriers. Most pax avoid sUA C like hell. Many year ago it may have been acceptable but in today's market it cannot compete.

BearX220

When management seems the customer as an adversary-cum-enemy, all that "flyer friendly" nonsense looks doubly silly.

channa

Well it worked. Customers are being managed all right. Managed to find their way to Delta and American.

airplanegod

Or as I always say you can avoid the drama and fly DL/B6/WN/US/AA/AS/HA/Any International Carrier

relangford

I flew both pre-mreger CO (60%) and UA (40%), and was OK with both. Before the merger, UA had some pretty worn-out aircraft but great CS; CO had a little better and newer Boeing-only aircraft (making maintenance easier) but so-so CS. What I don't get is: why, even now - not next year, management cannot get the crew issues settled. If UA is ONE airline, an FA hired on 1/2/2006 is junior to one hired 1/1/2006. For the few hired on the same day, toss a coin or deduct sick days or something. IMHO, it makes no sense for "crossovers" - all the FAs work for the same company. Even as irrational as unions can be, there should be some way to get a just and acceptable combined seniority list (that is, since "seniority" rather than "ability", "quality", "dedication", "hard work", etc. is more important for aircrews). There should be no CO FAs or pmUA FAs, there should only be UA FAs. Let's put UA management and both unions in one room, lock the doors to the bathrooms, and deny food until they can agree.