bmwe92fan

Well, regardless of your opinion the facts are on my side - if you were on NH or SQ your head wouldn't have been hit - and if you believe otherwise then you have to admit it was a simple accident - having nothing to do with age - except for that pestering fact that "some" UA FA won't help pax put their bags in the overhead (because it's literally a rule) - while other airlines will.... Accidents happen - [unduly personalized content edited by Moderator.]

grapegrower

[Reference to previous post edited by Moderator re unduly personalized content.] The FACTS are the younger FAs pretended not to see the incident/accident and the older one did and did something about it.
I fly tens of thousands on miles with SQ and only ever see the FAs helping with overhead storage when the pax is incapable or asks for help. To say the incident could never happen on SQ is just fanciful.

milepig

Well, at one point I had a back problem and couldn't life much. The UA FA apologetically said she couldn't help since she was just off months of unpaid leave since she's hurt herself helping pax in violation of the work rules and her injury wasn't covered.

fastair

Not every work rule designed to minimize carrier costs (work injuries) is negotiated by the employees unions. Many of them are implemented by the company to protect the company from paying out large sums of money and getting no production from the injured employees. Is there some inside knowledge that this is something that was negotiated by the union(s)for this right? In my job, I'd have to say that almost 100% of the rules that prohibit me from say running, lifting heavy objects, operating machinery that I am not trained for. standing in potentially dangerous locations... are unilaterally imposed by the employer with no negotiating by the collective bargaining group. It's a simple cost benefit analysis by the employer, nothing more, nothing less. Most actuarial things where insurance and injuries are done this way. They see that the risk is not worth the reward, therefore it is simply banned without need for a negotiation. They (employers) spend lots on injury prevention training and policies so they don't have to spend more on injuries. More and more companies are going this route, with prevention training vs recovery, as are many insurance firms in the workplace. Since most US carriers don't have a weight limit, nor do they weigh carry on bags, I think that a person's own carry on bag, since it isn't tagged or accepted for handling by the airline, SHOULD be the person's own responsibility/ If one cannot carry on their own bag because it is so heavy, perhaps it should not be their carry on bag, or perhaps US major carriers should do like the foreign carriers that help you lift your bag, and limit them to say, 10kg in total, and weigh them. Be careful what you compare US carriers to, you may not like it if you get your wish if US carriers were to emulate them.

MSPeconomist

1) What's wrong with performance-based merit pay? In fact, what's wrong with the company (trying to) get rid of poor performers?

2) What's wrong with accountability? FAs see passengers' full names and other information on the manifest. Passengers should have some sort of name so that if a complaint is filed, the FA cannot deny that he/she was the one who did it.

porciuscato

Firing someone for not wearing ID may sound a little harsh. But, unfortunately the worst actors are precisely the ones who try to hide their identities.

My sister-in-law was recently on a United flight with an FA who was behaving particularly horribly. She didn't complain or anything, but the FA saw her looking towards her badge. The FA quickly and pointedly turned it around so nobody could see it.

Again, just a unique number would be adequate. No need to compromise anyone's privacy.

BearX220

United cabin service has the reputation it has because of three and only three factors:

1. FA invulnerability, and apparent immunity from service or behavioral standards. Sanctioned anonymity helps.

2. FA work groups see themselves as the company's adversaries, not bound up with representing UA or advancing its interests.

3. Seniority system that puts the most bitter, least motivated / manageable, most invulnerable employees on the highest profile routes flown by most influential customers.

Until all of these factors change UA can fill the skies with Polaris seats and the customer experience will still be a random crapshoot.

bmwe92fan

I agree with you - and have often wondered how one would rank cabin crew based on performance at UA - performance evaluations by the purser / lead FA?? I also wonder how it is that other airlines seem to have happier and more performance oriented cultures (with notable exceptions of course). In the end - I think it comes down to how UA treats its employees - which probably hasn't been that great for a long time now.

Ber2dca

There'd be an easy solution. Put up a customer service survey at the end of the flight on each passenger's screen. Log who does what on the flight i.e. who serves which section when. You can associate the surveys with the FA who did this or that. You can create a crew average score and a personal average score. You can identify how crews perform and you can identify how individuals perform.

It wouldn't require too much to implement that. Of course, it would require union approval.

luckypierre

A brutally succinct appraisal of UA's cabin staff. When Smisek assumed control, his remarks about monetizing everything and tough businessman talk (i.e. the passenger is a financial target) and his cronies obvious disdain for their frequent customers (overentitled elites!) seemed to inflame each of these negatives.

BadgerBoi

What a load of old rubbish.

bmwe92fan

Yeah, well grapegrower and I got in to it - and a lot of the comments were too personal and were (rightly) removed and therefore makes no sense now - so I'll just leave it and your comments alone.

Sabai

The above is pithy summation of why UA IFC is an anachronism:

1. Bigger seat
2. Better wine
3. Bowl of soup
4. Same 'tude as in the back.

Eadward

Just got back from PEK. Had one of my most notable bad FA experiences with Mike on the way over - and good with Anne on the way back. Usually my experiences have been more middle of the road. UA really needs to do some training and in fact weeding out of lousy FA's.

WineCountryUA

Topic Check

This thread is discussion about UA service levels and UA FAs.
Generic discussion of unions (a highly divisive topic) is not appropriate in the UA forum discussion and is better as an OMNI forum subject.

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator