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United to close HNL & DTW reservations office & DTW GS office {work from home option}

United to close HNL & DTW reservations office & DTW GS office {work from home option}

Old Sep 3, 2015, 4:06 pm
  #76  
 
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Originally Posted by sbm12
A few more details from United on the DTW/HNL call center closings, for those who are interested:
  • DTW set to close in March 2016
  • HNL set to clsoe in June 2017
  • UA "anticipate most employees will accept the opportunity to work from home"
Thanks for posting, I hadn't seen an official statement.

Standard quote for something like this. And in fact, it very well could be true. Some will accept the cut and stay. Others will stay, until they find a higher paying job. And it's a high turnover job in general, so it's hard to prove cause and effect.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 4:46 pm
  #77  
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Originally Posted by FlyWorld
This alleged quote would be slightly less misleading if it included this text: "after accepting a significant pay cut and then paying for their own computer equipment out of their diminished earnings."
The same spokesman I was corresponding with also acknowledged that there is the split pay scale. The company does not believe that will impact the retention numbers.
Originally Posted by halls120
Why screw over loyal employees by making them take a pay cut?
Probably also worth asking the union. These employees are represented by the IAM and as a group agreed to the contract with the split pay-scale in it.
Originally Posted by harryhood
For GS like me who value having dedicated agents to talk to during IRROPS or complex issues that ordinary agents seem unable to handle with any consistency, this hurts the most.
Why?

There has been no indication yet that the changes include disbanding the GS desk. Presumably some number will stick around and keep working and the overall structure of the call center operations - including the dedicated group - is likely to remain.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 4:57 pm
  #78  
 
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Originally Posted by FlyWorld
Nobody who flies on United Continental for more than 75,000 miles per year would ever agree with this assertion.
I can. I can count the number of times that my contributions to airline coffers (mostly UA) since my college years have been channeled through a phone agent. 99.9% (well, I might be exaggerating by a point or two ) of my purchases have gone through the internet, and I go all the way back to United Connection on Compuserve. I understand that many people have complicated travel requirements, but mostly, people purchase and travel with little if any snags in between.

I had been saying this for years before the merger, that UA provided the best customer service when I didn't have to talk to any UA staff--except FAs, but including phone agents. IMO, automation is great, and more the better. If UA had chosen Apollo, we'd still be talking about "dot bomb" and complaining about how utterly useless it was when compared to the much better CO's. (see below)

Originally Posted by FlyWorld
Smisek has trashed the old United Airlines computer systems and replaced them with a buggy and unreliable system that doesn't work...
It's fashionable on this board to blame everything on SHARES, but the fact remains that UACO's website and mobile app are, in most practical instances, better and more automated than those of other airlines. Thanks to SHARES, and no thanks at all to Apollo. PMUA never even bothered to develop a mobile app at the time of the merger when PMCO already had a very functional one going.

The reason is that PMCO and now UACO owns an intellectual right to SHARES. Developers can tailor-make information in SHARES to provide more functions for .com and app. By contrast, UA had sold Apollo; DL sold Worldspan; and AA sold Sabre. DL got religion and recently bought back some rights from Worldspan (now Travelport) so that it could start catching up to UA. AA can't do much with Sabre, and that's why AA's website and mobile app are almost completely useless for anything beyond booking flights (can't even do this on the app; it takes you out to the mobile site) and FLIFO (I'm exaggerating, but not by much).

I'm not saying that SHARES is the best CRS. There are many things about it that annoy me, like the inability to replicate PMUA's WILMA boarding process and auto-cancelling all my downline flights when I SDC and the system mistakenly assumes that I no-showed for my original flight. I am saying that SHARES, Apollo, Worldspan, and Sabre are all of the same ilk, that they come with their own quirks and idiosyncrasies.

From a passenger's perspective, UA is the most automated airline among the US3 (plus WN) right now. This year I began splitting my flying between UA and AA. I've needed to call AA for assistance even for mundane things that UA's website and mobile app can easily handle. To me, that constitutes inferior service. YMMV of course.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 5:32 pm
  #79  
 
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Originally Posted by sinoflyer
From a passenger's perspective, UA is the most automated airline among the US3 (plus WN) right now. This year I began splitting my flying between UA and AA. I've needed to call AA for assistance even for mundane things that UA's website and mobile app can easily handle. To me, that constitutes inferior service. YMMV of course.
Agree 100%. Almost everything that requires a phone call with AA can be done on ual.com. How AA doesn't allow sponsoring upgrades and redepositing miles online is beyond me. And their app is pretty bare bones.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 6:20 pm
  #80  
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wow. That's terrible news. UA is already under-performing DL in call center customer experience and this is going to do nothing other than making it worse. UA's phone support (at least as a 1K) has substantially improved over the past year ... now it will go downhill again. Sad.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 7:23 pm
  #81  
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For all those defending this move, is there a rational explanation for CUTTING pay, when United's costs will drop significantly by the loss of the brick-and-mortar expenses? Isn't that enough savings? Taking away pay of employees seems nothing but simply malicious and dishonorable, if not simply wrong.

Last edited by goalie; Sep 3, 2015 at 8:17 pm Reason: Removed quote of deleted post
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 7:28 pm
  #82  
 
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Originally Posted by NewportGuy
For all those defending this move, is there a rational explanation for CUTTING pay, when United's costs will drop significantly by the loss of the brick-and-mortar expenses? Isn't that enough savings? Taking away pay of employees seems nothing but simply malicious and dishonorable, if not simply wrong.
Although I'm not defending this move, there is a one word explanation that comes to mind:

Greed

And some day, when the final chapter of this merger saga is written, I predict the conclusion will be:

Too much greed didn't pay.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 7:31 pm
  #83  
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I am not defending it so much as pointing out that there is more to it than the idea that all employees will hate it and quit.

As for the pay rates, the employees are represented by the IAM. Why did they agree to a contract if they didn't like the terms? In that sense this is like the smaller stations getting outsourced. They knew what the terms allowed for and agreed to them. Doing so but not believing that the company will follow through on its end seems delusional to me.

https://www.iam141.org/docs/2013-201...0EMPLOYEES.pdf

ETA: Also, it seems that the agents are entitled to $75/month in telecom expense reimbursement for working at home.
RRAs will be eligible for an internet/telephone expense reimbursement if they are employed as an RRA on the last day of the month worked and worked the following minimum number of hours that month:
The hours requirements are 86 for FTEs and 43 for part time.

The pay cut is ~15% based on my review of the contract.
Hourly rate starting 1 Jan 2016 by years of seniority
Code:
<1	10.25	8.72
1 - 2	11.02	9.37
2 - 3	11.28	9.59
3 - 4	12.05	10.25
4 - 5	12.82	10.9
5 - 6	13.59	11.56
6 - 7	14.61	12.42
7 - 8	15.64	13.3
8 - 9	16.66	14.17
9 - 10	18.97	16.13
10 +	24.96	21.22
My guess is that commuting costs are not 15% at the 10 year level. But I also don't know what value people assign to their time or what the commute times are like. I've driven a few times in Oahu and I'd be surprised if the numbers were small there. On top of that, picking up OT should be easier so those same hours previously spent commuting could become paid. That may bring the total comp for the total time spent back up to a decent level.

There's nuance in this, just like everything in life.

Also, mildly interesting, is that airport agents make more than phone agents, except those working at the clubs with 8+ years seniority.

Last edited by goalie; Sep 3, 2015 at 8:18 pm Reason: Removed quote of deleted post
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 7:42 pm
  #84  
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Have cut back on flying UA, but still very sorry to learn of the HNL center being closed. They were by far the best and friendliest agents IME.

Originally Posted by boat9781
Agree 100%. Almost everything that requires a phone call with AA can be done on ual.com. How AA doesn't allow sponsoring upgrades and redepositing miles online is beyond me. And their app is pretty bare bones.
Not to defend AA, but it's possible that the website will be improved once they are finished with the other aspects of the US-AA integration. A lot has been put on hold while the management has focused trying to nail down the basic aspects of the merger with the minimal disruption of their systems.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 9:02 pm
  #85  
 
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Originally Posted by goodeats21
"United is no where close to having reservation systems that do not require calls. Their operation is in the toilet (delays and cancels), their systems do not update in "real-time" and the only way to get help is to call.

This is crappy anyway you look at it."
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 10:02 pm
  #86  
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Old Sep 4, 2015, 12:06 am
  #87  
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Originally Posted by sbm12
I am not defending it so much as pointing out that there is more to it than the idea that all employees will hate it and quit.

As for the pay rates, the employees are represented by the IAM. Why did they agree to a contract if they didn't like the terms? In that sense this is like the smaller stations getting outsourced. They knew what the terms allowed for and agreed to them. Doing so but not believing that the company will follow through on its end seems delusional to me.

https://www.iam141.org/docs/2013-201...0EMPLOYEES.pdf

ETA: Also, it seems that the agents are entitled to $75/month in telecom expense reimbursement for working at home.

The hours requirements are 86 for FTEs and 43 for part time.

The pay cut is ~15% based on my review of the contract.
Hourly rate starting 1 Jan 2016 by years of seniority
Code:
<1	10.25	8.72
1 - 2	11.02	9.37
2 - 3	11.28	9.59
3 - 4	12.05	10.25
4 - 5	12.82	10.9
5 - 6	13.59	11.56
6 - 7	14.61	12.42
7 - 8	15.64	13.3
8 - 9	16.66	14.17
9 - 10	18.97	16.13
10 +	24.96	21.22
My guess is that commuting costs are not 15% at the 10 year level. But I also don't know what value people assign to their time or what the commute times are like. I've driven a few times in Oahu and I'd be surprised if the numbers were small there. On top of that, picking up OT should be easier so those same hours previously spent commuting could become paid. That may bring the total comp for the total time spent back up to a decent level.

There's nuance in this, just like everything in life.

Also, mildly interesting, is that airport agents make more than phone agents, except those working at the clubs with 8+ years seniority.
So someone who will regularly deal with your TOP customers, making them happy and continuing to insure your most important revenue, will make less than $10 an hour in many cases??? Are they INSANE?

Curious about people who live in cities or areas with a higher minimum wage. Does that affect it?
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Old Sep 4, 2015, 12:30 am
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Originally Posted by NewportGuy
So someone who will regularly deal with your TOP customers, making them happy and continuing to insure your most important revenue, will make less than $10 an hour in many cases??? Are they INSANE?
....
I'm pretty sure that's not how it is seen from the C Suite at Willis Tower. There, the way to insure UA's most important revenue is seen to be to sign corporate sales contracts that force business travel to fly UA. That, plus fortress hubs, are what insure UA's most important revenue stream, at least until Delta poaches enough corporate customers.

Notice that when DL takes out full page ads celebrating their operational reliability around the time of year that sales contracts come up for renegotiation, UA executives take to the media to discuss their plan to have a plan next year to be as good at ops as DL. That shows you where the attention to customers is these days.
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Old Sep 4, 2015, 12:31 am
  #89  
 
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Originally Posted by NewportGuy
So someone who will regularly deal with your TOP customers, making them happy and continuing to insure your most important revenue, will make less than $10 an hour in many cases??? Are they INSANE?
2 insane assumptions on your part:

1) That UA would put new hires into answering GS calls. It jives little with reality.

2) That UA is currently hiring new phone agents. This also jives little with reality.

Most phone agents in DTWRR and HNLRR have high seniority and are earning at the max end of the scale. They are not returning to year 1 if they choose to relocate or work from home. That's not how the pay scale works.
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Old Sep 4, 2015, 12:48 am
  #90  
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Originally Posted by sbm12
As for the pay rates, the employees are represented by the IAM. Why did they agree to a contract if they didn't like the terms? In that sense this is like the smaller stations getting outsourced. They knew what the terms allowed for and agreed to them. Doing so but not believing that the company will follow through on its end seems delusional to me.
Implicit in this comment is the assertion that because the union agreed to terms that allow this to occur, the result is necessarily fair to employees. That's wrong. The interests of union leadership often diverge from those of the rank and file. And labor agreements often get rammed through with rank and file not really understanding (or having any ability to alter) the long-term effects.

"Your union agreed so tough luck" is a rather one-dimensional way of looking at what's going on here.
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