swm61230

Not just the last but in reality all should be changed.

This just shows even more that people think UA is responsible for all the problems when in fact it is CO management at the top doing all of it.

Arrrgggg!

cornfedcowboy

IMO United gate agents,flight attendants, and airport staff are fine. That being said, I believe the heavy use of regional carriers and poor communication among them is one of the big downfalls. The app,gate agent,and airport departure boards each has differing information. It is almost impossible to accurately track when flights begin to back up. The regional RJ145's might be necessary but 99 out of 100 passengers hate them. Hard to have good ratings when probably 35% of your customers have to ride in an old cramped aluminum tube.

CO_Nonrev_elite

It's that they use them for 3-4hr ops is the problem. I don't think anyone minds being on them from DEN-EGE etc, but IAH-YYZ etc is nuts

Cymbo

On my recent trip to Thailand, I felt that the UA reservation agent was rude and unhelpful so I essentially travelled SFO-NRT-BKK-NRT on ANA and only used UA for the NRT-SFO leg because I did not want to return via LAX. I was stunned with the different level of service. My comment to the flight attendant on the SFO-NRT leg that there was something wrong with my meal..... it tasted like real food, drew a wide smile. OK, the seats in Y were tighter than Economy Plus but the level of service, free drinks and general enthusiastic demeanor of the crew was wonderful. I used the ANA lounge at NRT and it was excellent, food cooked to order, great selection of snacks and drinks and a wide range of newspapers. In fact it was so good I deliberately went back there rather than to the UA lounge at NRT on my return.

My NRT-SFO crew were youngish and largely Asian but they were scarcely seen all flight and the meal plus the apology of a breakfast was awful. I was so glad I had eaten the excellent curry in the ANA lounge prior to boarding!

halls120

This. Properly train your employees and motivate them to be positive and customer-facing, and everything else will fall into place. On my last long-haul trip, I had an interesting opportunity to ride with a group of DL FA's to the concourse and a group of UA FA's from the concourse. The DL FA's were happy, positive and clearly eager to go to work. The UA FA's were sad, negative, and defeatist.

Karl-MDW

For me the elephant in the room is the current management's goal to cut $2 billion. Cutting this amount and improving the airline do not seem compatible.

Everyone knows that UA needs to improve customer service on every level.

There are lots of companies that have learned how to improve customer service in the past. CO did it in the past! It can be done, but while attempting to cut $2 billion!

UA could start by making some changes to Mileage Plus that actually benefit and attract customers beyond those willing to spend big bucks for a mediocre, late, delayed, crammed into slimline seats travel experience.

Someone needs to fall on the sword for the over privileged elite comments and mentality.

United needs to re-learn what a frequent flyer program was designed to do: (in my opinion) and to attract customers by being ahead of the pack.

Maybe I am out of it, but I hope that it is possible to run a profitable customer service oriented airline while making investors happy.

BearX220

We have to get over these constant comparisons of great, enthusiastic service from Asian / ME3 carriers against awful, hostile UA experiences. UA is culturally incapable of duplicating. It's just never going to happen; management is tuned into Wall Street, not employees or customers, and out-of-control employees have no fear of reprisal. UA has to compete in some other area.

Sure. Look at Costco, Les Schwab, Apple. The woods are full of customer-centric companies that make investors happy. The trick is learning to ignore short-run, stupid investor yakyak, because uncomprehending investors demand changes that will damage ROI in the longer term.

When a company throws customers under the bus to suck up to Wall Street, as pmUA has done and JetBlue is now doing, it is ironic self-sabotage in the long run, as UA is learning and JetBlue will eventually discover.

bocastephen

I think the comparison to the 'unachievable' service of Asian carriers is unfair - they aren't doing anything magical or unique and it's not all cultural. If you've flown Alaska, that is an example of a company where (most) everyone is proud, happy and enthusiastic to deliver a great experience to customers.

Why do many Asian carriers deliver great service?

1. company is proud of, and takes care of its workforce
2. employees are brand-centric - they are ambassadors of the brand and treat the company as their own
3. employees are provided with the tools to be successful and proud - good technical systems, clean aircraft, well managed operational support, an overall sense of teamwork, uniforms that emphasize professionalism and beauty (for both men and women)
4. a well respected brand and company to work for - reputation is important
5. well run, constant training and education and a set of understandable and achievable standards to meet and ongoing support for those who need remediation
6. a belief in service at its core - they are not running a busline or just taking people from A to B - they are creating and delivering an experience and the outcome of that experience is high satisfaction and loyalty

...and all of this comes through employees with a very short 'useful life' and little job security or unions to protect them. They are there because the job is something to strive for and the brand is something they want to work for.

Contrast this with UA, or most North American carriers for that matter.

bocastephen

Yes and no. If you're talking about activist institutional investors who are demanding short term numbers as they trade in and out of their holdings, then you'll never make these people happy unless you're playing a numbers game to drive the share price in an environment where share price performance is all that matters.

If you're dealing with investors taking a long term value approach where short term metrics and results are background noise in an overall long term strategy the investor agrees with and wishes to join, then yes.

The former includes idiots like Hunter Keays who has been the main champion of destroying what was Continental and United before the merger, and is part of the bandwagon cheering on the destruction of the once bulletproof brand of jetBlue - which is happening so fast and so aggressively, it's actually painful to watch.

Strong leaders set a vision, create a strategy and stick to it while surrounding themselves with team members who support that vision and are the right people to execute it. They include leaders like Herb Kelleher, Gordon Bethune, and outside the airline business, Frank Stronach is a good example...these are leaders who run the company their way, middle-finger pesky analysts and investors (Stronach was known to tell unhappy investors to go F themselves and sell the stock if they didn't like it) and create an environment for the strategy to play out - and if things go wrong, they are leaders prepared to stand up and take responsibility rather than continually point fingers at nonsensical culprits they blame for their own shortcomings.

entropy

Unless you're WN... delivering slow and steady returns.

its Hunter Keay, no S, but he is certainly an idiot.

http://blogs.rollcall.com/the-contai...air-travelers/

Gems like these:

bocastephen

He is only 25% of the problem - 75% of the problem is in the form of Smisek and Rainey who give him credibility and a seat at the strategy-building table, a place he has absolutely no right to be.

In essence, if you look at the United product of today, it took the shape of Keay's vision down to Smisek's statements on "80% is good enough". Now with somewhat improved inflight meals in F and a very welcome United Club food experience update, are we starting to gradually turn the corner and eschew some of his gibber-gabber nonsense, or are we just playing a quick game of panic-induced "catch-up to Delta" so the brand doesn't fall so far behind, the cost to upgrade would be out of reach? Or possibly UA is seeing a noticeable outflow of Elite customers to competitors?

I like to be optimistic, but with the current leaders and BoD in place, I still need to call this a catch-up game rather than a real turning of a new page.

cesco.g

Indeed: it will take years to rebuild confidence and a mostly satisfied & loyal HVF customer base UA had at the onset of this merger. While I hope for the many great employees of this company, I doubt it will ever happen.

channa

Many, many years.

At the time of the merger (2010), UA was really starting to shed the last of the PR baggage it was carrying from the Summer from Hell (2000).

Just like from the comment in the article, CO was still riding on a cloud from its heyday (early 2000's).

This is going to take some time to fix.

Even if they:
- Got rid of Smisek & crew
- Reverted MP to the more customer friendly program it once was, and fixed redemption issues
- Got rid of SHARES and replaced it with something more efficient
- Empowered staff to fix and accommodate things
- Had empowered customer service to resolve and handle issues
- Improved food/bev for high-level Premiers on board
- Restored better quality booze in the club
- Fixed the TODs/upgrade issue to have better delivery on upgrades
- Added PTVs to all (or most) of the planes
- Came up with a new logo and brand (the new United)
- Gave bonus miles to win people back

It would probably still take a good 4-5 years or more after all of that to really kill the United sucks perception.

fly747first

Once an underachiever, always an underachiever. Case closed. Sorry UA, you lose again.

Buster CT1K

And those overly hard "slimline" seats are just not appropriate for flights over 60 minutes, never mind transcon.

What a shame to see SMI/J ruining this great airline.