Some of us do not like to be reminded we survived another year on UA.

After the merger they added stars to the manifests, which was a UA thing. This is in addition to status.

I think 3 stars was GS, 2 stars paid first and 1K, and 1 star or no star everything else. It was meant to handle the pmua meal sorting drama.

So FAs have had a quasi way of seeing who didn't pay if you were below 1K.

Doubt many pay much attention to it. Not sure if it's still there.

This app is called Link. Its not fully developed yet. Its still a prototype.

Flight attendants can view:
-Customer Names
-Birthdays MM/DD only
-Milestones for recognition
-Premier Status levels in Seatmap
-Customer flight itineraries

This is the problem living in an "opt-out" world. It should ALWAYS be opt in, but companies won't allow such changes in laws in Congress.

United needs to allow customers the option of NOT having their personal information available to ANYONE who doesn't NEED it, which is just about anyone. FAs have NO REASON to have that information.

It seems most of your complaint is that they "already have it on paperwork" and don't see it as UA trying to eliminate paperwork and make things more efficient.

I think birthday would be better listed if you are flying ON your birthday (ie. Together with milestones).

Regarding flight itens you've never been on a flight where they announce connecting flight info? I don't see the problem with giving more/better visibility to FAs. It would be nice if it was real time and could give updates on rebooking/IRROPS issues they could deliver to the pax. When I landed in NRT from SIN connecting to SFO-JFK if I didn't turn my phone on as we landed it would have been until I got in the lounge and that knowing there I was able to save my butt and snag one of the last J seats on NRT-EWR.

Information (given here) is not the enemy.

More interesting than the birthday angle is that UAL is training their onboard staff to be quasi res agents, rebooking flights for customers. On request? In IRROPS? With the company's track record of "training", this should be interesting.

Much ado about nothing. Anyone who has used the Internet for ordering anything has pretty much given away all of this information and more. Simply do.not.care.

I'd be surprised if this is true, I think the article is a little confusing because it focuses on flight attendants. I suspect the same app will be used by some of the roaming CS folks, like the ones you see at ORD sometimes.

Which is why identity theft, computer fraud and theft, and other computer crimes continue to skyrocket. People. Do. Not. Care. It's too inconvenient in their "busy" lives.

Which says a lot about us.

I don't think the issue is that people don't care that the sites they want to do business with have their personal information. Rather, the problem is a combination of super poor password hygiene (using "grandmom12345" as your password on every site you visit, from supercutekitties.com to your bank) and sophisticated phishing schemes.

No news here. United keeps personal data about you. That's it. Now they have it to hand. Woo-hoo.

Pray tell how would FA access to MM/DD birthdays and city/state (as noted on your OP account) lead to identity theft? One needs the year and the actual address to do anything else.

Based on the specifics that the FAs know, this provides no concern for this traveler. Actually, many here would also expect the join date of MP as well as "closeness" to MM be tracked.

No, it's not that. I expect the companies that are taking the information to have the appropriate security in place to safeguard from hackers. I get the feeling that any 'outrage' is more about FAs having access to personal information, not out of any security concern. That is why I am indifferent to the outrage...theoretically, any worker at any company you have done business with could find this information (or more).

Calm the worries..

Birthdays are only shown If it is on the day of travel, occurred yesterday, or will occur the day after the flight.
It will appear as Bday+1 for birthday tomorrow, Bday for birthday today, and Bday-1 for birthday yesterday .

To see a customers itinerary, you need to have an active live connection. At the moment, they can not rebook IRROPS. Once in the air, it uses cached data, onboard Wi-Fi doesn't work because company-issued devices are currently not able to bypass the customer pay firewall. But that will change in the future.

Well, that raises an interesting issue. Will FAs now be tempted to spend even more time playing with their phones in-flight once they have Internet access?