cfischer

another day like today and SMI, J may see his final day coming. There is so much bad press out there right now and so many folks have gone through this more than once now ... it's going to hurt.

Just yesterday I got another Email from UA asking why I am flying less UA metal this year than last year (while flying more *A). It was easy, #1 was operational reliability. They are hearing this more than enough right now form folks who fly on premium tickets and are fed up. For example I am already re-qualified for 1K ... why on earth should I take UA when I have a *A alternative? Got to go to MUC in a few weeks ... LX and AC ... no way I am booking UA with the current reliability crisis ... $5K ticket lost.

harryhv

Other airlines have outages too but they will put notices on their web page, twitter etc. I guess for UA, a few hours outage is business-as-usual

woodway

I was a 11-year 1K with UA. Stopped flying for a couple years (due to job change), recently took a new job which will involve plenty of travel. I've booked two flights on UA so far and both experienced issues - the first from SEA->SFO->KIX, the SEA->SFO leg ran 1.5 hours late due to a mechanical issue which caused me to misconnect in SFO. The second from SEA->DEN was cancelled outright due to a mechanical issue. During this period I've also had two flights on Delta and three on Alaska and all have gone off without a hitch. It's only a couple of data points but I'm feeling a little snakebit on UA. Will likely focus on Delta anyway since they are actually growing in SEA.

jriley

I'm officially calling it for "Summer of Hell" for me
Original routing-
CLE-EWR-HKG-SIN depart CLE on July 7th 11:00 AM UA1909 (business class)
UA1909 delayed ATC talk to UA Club about a possible reschedule told don't worry your flight HKG is at 3:10 still have plenty of time- I suggested reroute of CLE-ORD-SIN at 10:00 AM flight to ORD departs @ 10:46 would have to pull my luggage from EWR flight again told not to worry. Go back and sit in club- 10 minutes later get another delay now EWR flight will not arrive until 2:57 PM clearly not enough connect time now- Back to desk I go- Now told not enough time to get baggage from flight for ORD flight. No other suggested routings from as cannot get to any of the hubs for an Asian flight in time from CLE. I ask what about flight to LGA that departs at 11:10. Desk "Good idea but you will have to get to EWR". Me "book it and pull luggage"-

$120 cab ride late and its now 2:00 I'm at EWR with an out of sync ticket trying to check luggage for a 3:10 push to HKG "see where I'm going with this yet" Get ticket in sync and UA kindly waives the luggage rule for me and agrees to check the bags
Get through security and go directly to already boarding flight- Assume my seat in BF and begin to sit and sit and sit notice no flying - flight delayed for "operational issues" flight finally pushes at 3:57 land in HKG after so-so service in BF but hey what should I expect I'm most of the way to my destination and can still get there on my originally scheduled flight all is well. Transit at HKG and arrive at gate for UA895 departing for SIN currently boarding group 4- Walk right on and assume my seat and I sit and sit and sit and sit offered a preflight beverage and sit and sit and sit. Announcement UA computer systems are down we have no idea how ling it will be boarded flight at 8:30 PM (captain did walk around cabin though and talk to each of us individually about the situation) UA system come back up and depart HKG for SIN at 10:13 PM. 2 hours on plane in BF with one beverage service never even offered option to deplane.

Arrive at SIN now ~1:30 AM and receive text message 1 or you bags did not arrive in HKG and will be on the next flight to HKG and delivered to you SIN

First meeting is in 7 hours I haven't seen a real bed or food in over 28 hours and I don't have clothes for my meeting

All of that being said though I did arrive at my destination safely and that is all that UA really wants to ensure so I probably should be Thankful

Welcome to the Summer of Hell or should this be renamed "The New Normal"

tuolumne

I have another story from last week. I'm in Winterthur, CH on business. Originally scheduled ZRH-EWR-SFO, 2-class 763. Everything's fine, but I had a last min meeting in Geneva. Ok, take the SBB train down, and it's a 3-class 67I out of GVA and can use a systemwide from C>F. Seems like a win win...

I checkin for Newark, check 2 bags, and wait at gate. First delay announced 30 min prior to boarding. Second delay announced 30 minutes later, this time for an hour. I know where this is going. UA protects me on the adjacent 763 flight to Dulles which leaves 2 hours after the EWR scheduled departure. I board my Dulles-bound flight, and I see that the EWR flight is boarding as well in the next gate. I think "oh well that was a wash then".

Right before the door closes, we have 2 F pax from EWR flight board our IAD flight - Newark just cancelled, right after they boarded it. "aircraft Maintiennce".

But wait, story's not over.

Have a great flight in my favorite F cabin, and arrive in Dulles on schedule. Except, my connecting SFO flight has just cancelled. I think no biggie I'll get on the next SFO-bound flight, UA340, the 3-class 777. Except the flight is overbooked by 12...I don't clear standby. Meanwhile Dulles is a hellish, humid mess, with 60 people waiting in line at the CS desk for hotel vouchers. I needed to get out of there.

UA protects me on IAD-LAX-SFO and I'm good. Wait at gate. "Flights delayed due to inbound aircraft". Ok...but I only have a 1 hr cushion before the last LAX-SFO flight leaves for the night...30 minutes late we board, taxi out, but wait! Dulles issued a stop to our flight due to traffic on our route. OK...

We land in LAX about 20 minutes late. I can still make the connection. Yeah right...we ended up sitting in the little 737 for over 25 minutes waiting for a gate. I misconnected, as did a trove of people hoping to make it on the Sydney flight. Disaster! By this point I'm totally spent. Get a hotel and take the first flight out in the morning.

My bags made it the night before on UA340 and were waiting for me. Thank god. I guess the moral here is I should've flown Swiss nonstop. (I prefer UAL's seats)

WineCountryUA

Moderator Note

Posts related to UA's June Operational Performance have been removed.
Please see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...rformance.html .

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator

tom911

Did UA cover the hotel?

dsquared37

As a 1MMer and 7 year 1K+ I've received no correspondence from UA as to why my mileage has dropped to zilch.

Apparently they at least think you're worthy of retention. Kudos to you.

BearX220

You're one among many, though. I was a multi-year Plat with a slumping patronage curve since 2013 that's plain as day if anyone at UA cares to look. My 2015 YTD spend is $272. Never any outreach from the airline. Their organized loss analysis seems confined to enterprise accounts.

villox

I wonder if the outreach should be more thought of as a "survey" as opposed to a sales outreach. That is it's someone just trying to figure out from a sampling of people who've dropped their travel WHY, as opposed to trying to convince them to come back. Would explain why it's seemingly random as to who gets contacted.

Artpen100

So far in 2015, I've flown two UA TATL flights and a handful of domestic ones. All for business. I guess I was lucky that the two TATL ones were on time, but the last two domestic UA flights I had were cancelled for maintenance after being delayed for 3 hours (I just cancelled the trip and rescheduled), and 2 hours delayed (late incoming). All my other TATL flights and a few domestic flights have been on other airlines (BA, Virgin America, AA) and have been uneventful. (For one meeting I flew BA and my colleague flew UA. Guess who made it to the meeting and whose flight was cancelled and arrived a day late.) I am sufficiently concerned about reliability now that I may not book my next TATL on UA even though R is currently available. For domestic, they still have some of the best direct routes for me, and there usually is some backup, so I will still try them. But if another airline flies direct the same place, I will probably not choose UA.

zoegksf

Me too. Mine 2 years ago was around $12,000.00. Last year $2516.00, this year $610.00 with not a single flight booked for the rest of the year. I see the pattern but United obviously doesn't or could care less.

malgudi

Perhaps I'm missing something ... clearly, UA doesn't care (neither do you) and it's time to move on. Why then the irrational pining for "outreach"/"loss analysis"?

DHalltheway

Could it be that instead of not caring, they have their hands full with something else?

NYSE has something similar and I don't recall any official statement until later.

BearX220

It would be inaccurate to emotionalize / personalize this. A lot of us have moved on. It's just an inexplicable, case study-worthy business lapse. Most mature businesses perform loss analysis to understand why they failed to make deals, retain customers, hang onto customer lifetime value. Typically such research more than pays for itself. The idea that customers are an inexhaustible resource, churnable / replaceable without cost, is immature and almost always wrong. The "irrationality" lies with United Airlines.