pruss2ny

is anyone else as engrossed as i am in the daily drama provided by @united?

on one hand its a phenomenal look into customer interaction (and attempted service) in a largely stressful environment (for both cust and company).
on the other hand,its a constantly updated DYKWIA board for people who either throw snarky comments suggesting UAL doesn't know how to run an airline:

@united Sitting at #LGA waiting for deicing - more than an hour delayed. Plane has been at gate all night. #poorplanning #thinkahead

(..so they shud have de-iced the plane last night? and then let it sit there?)

or people complaining about on-board conditions:

It's literally 90 degrees on the back of this plane. Sweaty mess. People getting overheated...Blasting hot air!@united

(hoping maybe this was mentioned to the FAs)

or people threatening never to fly again due to "constantly" delayed flights...
with my favorite being one who was doubtful to ever book UAL again since her last 3 flights were delayed..and then shows a screenshot of 3 regional jet flights over a 6mo+ span that were delayed an avg of 20mins and a max of 28mins
...filed under @unitedhatesamericans

i know i probably am being the snarky one here, but i can't stop trolling the twitter feed, and suspect at least someone else out there is in the same place i am.

jacobac00

When UA stopped serving limes, I often enjoyed tweeting photos to UA of my Bloody Mary with lime from my DL flights. Childish? Of course! Still entertained me while at 35,000 feet.

weirdlyndon

My favorite was this past week. Someone I follow had retweeted another pax' interaction with United on Twitter. The guy was flying SFO-ICN but he snapped a pic of his inflight map that showed the plane heading towards Houston and also included a pic of the FlightView map. There was a huge chunk of 'green' weather indicated on the map around PHX/ABQ area. United's Twitter response to his tweet was that the flight was flying to avoid a patch of weather. Again, this was a SFO-ICN flight. I had a good chuckle at that stupidity.

sbm12

https://twitter.com/united/status/558438787878227971

And, interestingly enough, the issue was with the map provider but the UA folks didn't figure it out.

UA staffs the Twitter team mostly with reservations agents. They are, IME, much better than AA and on par with DL about handling rebookings and other reservations issues. They're pretty bad for chatting about cookies or getting answers to MileagePlus questions, but so are DL & AA IME.

MattR23

When I'm bored I'll search twitter for what people are tweeting at United. It can be quite amusing. Plenty of passengers venting about delays, screenshots of text alerts from United about delays, many complaining about change fees, many tweet that "they'll never fly @united again," many "thanks for the upgrade" tweets with obligatory photo of feet in footwell, many complaints about boarding procedures (no family preboarding, not back-to-front), some asking to hold planes for tight connections, many complaints about missing checked bags.

If you can sift through that, every now and then you get some real doozies, from DYKWIA passengers or some pretty bad foul ups by United.

noah

I took their response to be slightly tongue in cheek. Yes, the problem was with the data provided which they could have acknowledged, but in reality the team responding to the volume of stuff they get doesn't have time to research each thing in any great detail. Part of what they need to do is respond to what's coming in to @united.

Sometimes I'll mention @united in some of my tweets that are not intended to solicit a response from them (i.e. I recently offered an expiring CPU to my twitter followers) and they'll respond anyway. Thats part of what the team are trained to do - respond to let you know that they are there and you can engage with them through that channel if you want.

I do sometimes look at the inbound and outbound stuff they send but I can only take so much. It makes me appreciate both my own (relatively smooth) travel experience on United and what the employees have to put up with from the masses.

sbm12

Yes and no.

There is absolutely no need to respond to most of the mentions they get. If there is something where a response and engagement can help build the brand then that's a good time to respond. If it is just a rant about the temperature on the plane then that's a good candidate to be ignored. JetBlue has figured this out best of the airlines IMO.

p924s87

I don't know why I never thought this flip through @united. Wow. This is hilarious. Looking for some epic Alec Baldwin-esque rants from twice a year travelers...

CO_Nonrev_elite

There will always be petty rants, but on most days, for every single petty rant on the other airlines, there are 20 about United.

Dead last in every metric isn't a lie. It's fine to say that some customers have petty complaints, but Delta, American, Jetblue, Virgin, Southwest, Alaska etc would then get the same, and they just don't get complaints anything like the level that United gets them.

sbm12

Check out this one from DL today:



https://twitter.com/nick_farina/stat...02760361410560

And, eventually, one DL and one WN flight were escorted by fighters into ATL this afternoon.

The DL folks were probably doing the correct thing, though it does come off as a bit surreal when read in a vacuum.

https://twitter.com/DeltaAssist/stat...40522397179905

weirdlyndon

They're actually following protocol on this. They are required to gather as much information to assess the threat while they also communicate with their corporate security.

On another note, charge your phone!

sbm12

Not my phone.

But I'll let him know you're concerned.

whitethunder

I have had GPU posting issues and @united was able to help me out, but only after serious twitter ranting... Sad I needed to do it in the first place, but at least they got the job done....

fastfxr

I used to get a little 'negative' with them at times, but they've come through for me more than a time or two, so I absolutely love them.


They've got a thankless job there, for sure. United probably pays them MILLIONS to do it.

craigsnyc

+1

I tweeted earlier today to AA, UA, DL, et al saying good luck with the storm. They do have a pretty thankless job, especially during crazy IRROPS such as Juno has brought us.

**Great post, btw!