watersign

Loving the passive tense here. Contacted by whom? You?

CX HK

If you need any case studies, look no further than Lotte and South Korea... tremendous impact on Lotte's business.

eeprofessional

Remeber the pax, Dr. Dao is travelling with his wife on the same flight. How United choose him and not him and his wife escapes me. Maybe Racial bias by the GA??

United committed brand suicide by what they did to Dao, the pax; with Munoz adding insult to injury. What United did is UNACCEPTABLE given how Asians are extremely sensitive to racial bias.

Asians have LONG memories (just look at grudges of China over Japan, every 4 years or so bunch of riots against the Japanese in China) and far reach, meaning parents influences their children's decisions.

United should have offered more in travel vouchers (1200, 1600, 2000 if needed to get people to deplane voluntarily) and maybe 800 in cash plus rebooking the pax and hotel stay. UA definitely need to retrain all their employees over racial sensitivity.

Munoz is a moron when it comes to understanding Asians. UA should be okay within the US with Asians may permanently booking away from UA. But UA could kiss the Chinese (if not the Asian) market goodbye if Munoz doesn't do something in front of the Asian market (China and Vietnam mainly, but lots of them in Asia also.)

** remember right now UA is fighting for share in the Asian market and can't compete against Asian carriers on cost, on the pax and on their labor, period. Asian carriers are catching up on other factors like timetables, service, and equipment. Don't forgot the likes of Emirates on the worldwide and US flights.

Munoz at the minimum should apologize to Dr. Dao (in English and Manadrin), the pax publicly. On Munoz's knees if he has to. Munoz probably have to compensate Dr. Dao anyway because there will be lawsuits against United. Otherwise you will see people boycotting UA for transpac flights or pickets at US airports (probably courtesy of Chinese embassies in the US cities)

tcmb99

I am not a regular traveler in US, just a few times a year. But this whole situation is something that would be almost impossible to see anywhere else in the world.

First of all US is the only place I see people being removed from planes AFTER they have been boarded and seated. In fact I hardly ever witness overbooking in Europe and Asia, you guys can correct me if I wrong. And if there is overbooking it is handled at check-in, not the gate by refusing the people who come late or don't have online check-in. I was flying PHO-LAX on 9th April with American on first, and saw a bunch of people being removed from the plane without any incident, and than a pilot and some other employees took their seats.

Every time I fly in US I am amazed at the craziness that goes on at the gate, with all the upgrades, overbooking, offers made etc. It is like live sports betting at a game.

First class passengers fly first for a reason, they pay a premium to get better service, usually in the form of a more comfortable seat, and the ability to get out of the plane earlier.

When you change an aircraft you can change all seating assignments, deal with compensations and solve any other problems you have BEFORE boarding. Even for a an economy passenger to go through all the airport security, deal with waiting for a plane, boarding and doing all the boring stuff to be removed from your seat just before take-off is the most unpleasant experience ever; and unless it is some sort of emergency should not be done at any cost.

I am sorry but some of the US flying FT passengers here have starting thinking all this is normal daily operations, and people who think otherwise are spoiled.

Well there are many great airlines around the world who rarely overbook, solve their problems beforehand, and do not treat their customers like boxed cargo when something goes wrong. The issue here is not a problem with United in particular, it is an issue with aviation in the US in general.

jinglish

His wife was selected for IDB too. She didn't object as strongly as he did.

AggieTexan

I'm not a frequent flyer -- I'm a leisure traveler who didn't really follow the details/politics of the merger. All I can speak to is my experience as a consumer. The important point is not who caused it, but that it's gotten to this low point and needs to change.

gbs1112

Overbooking is an 'accepted' airline practice but after Chicago maybe it need looking at. The airlines say they are taking into account estimated no-shows and may occasionally get it wrong. But if a ticket is paid for on a non-refundable basis it is no problem for the airline if that passenger does not show up, the airline has its money. The contract should go both ways and that seat should be guaranteed for passengers who do show up.

Who are these no-shows who will cause a loss of revenue for the airline? Are there any, or many?

Asking for volunteers to give up their guaranteed seat is acceptable and the offer might be attractive but if there are no volunteers those with a ticket for that flight board and are welcome.

eeprofessional

CX doesn't use the US bump system, but they are billions in the hole and going down fast for their poor customer service AND losing against the Chinese carriers eating CX lunch.

UA C-suite shoiuld go over to AS, SQ, OZ, and even WN to see what they are doing right and learn from it. UA could make its long haul meals better, more snacks. UA can make its entertainment options in more languages (ie manadrin).

UA could be at risk of losing its gate slots in all PRC Chinese influenced countries.

Sabai

Despite pushing "friendly" as a United trait, the toxic corporate culture at UA created the passenger-hostile procedures that were so vigorously defended by Clueless Munoz.

Either take the $800 or face public humiliation? Yeah, that's a sure winner. I guess UA is struggling to pay for Smisek's parachute.

The hubris of this company and its horrid employees is exceeded only by its operational incompetence. Are there exorcists who handle corporate accounts?

ZZYZXROAD

He is of Vietnamese decent, not CN. Vietnamese do not like CN and vice versa, why would this affect CN passengers. There were other Asian passengers and other minorities on the flight, they were not asked to leave.

chrisboote

Yes, you are wrong ...
And that is why you seldom see it

In the UK (and to a lesser extent the EU) many more fares are fully flexible, which means many more no-shows, and many more incidents of overbooking, where someone changes their meetings to stay a day longer or come back a day earlier

The EU has strict rules on what must be paid to passengers, VOL (VDB in US parlance) from economy get 250 EU - none of this voucher crap - for a short flight, then 400 or 600 for longer flights, PLUS a seat in the next flight, drinks and/or meal vouchers and an overnight stay where necessary

IVOL is very rare, because of this generous compensation, but can be up to three times the VOL compensation

BRAISKI

Well if his wife was also asked then, that's two people aka 50% and others could be a black and a white person.

kmersh

Slow morning at the ER, so decided to weigh in. To be clear and upfront, I have had a dislike for UNITED for over ten years since I had an episode with them that I felt was completely caused by the piss poor attitude of the front line people I came in contact with, including a "supervisor" and a manager and it took a Police Officer who took my side to end the incident. Granted, I still do fly UNITED from time to time and it is mostly benign, though the few issues that I have with UNITED since that incident I referenced earlier has all been with rude employees, both at the airport and in-flight.

My Wife asked what would I have done has I been in the man's shoes and realistically, I would have complied with the UNITED employee and surely I would have complied with the Police Officers request, but I would not have been happy about it.

As to being a Physician, I am an ER DOC and while my schedule is different than a Physician in private practice, I am fairly confident that if the man did not make it home that night, his patients would have been taken care of by the Physician covering him. It is standard community practice for a Physician to have coverage when he/she is not able to personally care for the patient. Many times a patient will come into the ER and say so and so is my doctor and I will call Dr. So and So, only to find out that Dr. So and So is on vacation or not on-call that night and to speak with Dr. Covering So and So, happens all the time.

How can UNITED win back customers? Tough question honestly, I know what I would like, but I can also almost bet it won't happen. I would love to see the reward charts revert to the old levels, that would really make me personally happy, but as I said a pipe dream.

Maybe UNITED could make a big stink how they have looked at their bump system and with customer input have reworked it and have some sort of promise that if the system does not work as promised the customer gets XYZ. Also, re-train the staff and ensure that they follow procedure to a T and that before violence is resorted to, every other avenue is explored.

Having said all of that, I do feel that the Police have some culpability here too, it was a Police Officer who dragged the man off the plane, not UNITED, though it was at UNITED's behest I would imagine. Clearly, the Police Officer should have tried to verbally work with the man and not treat him like a criminal as clearly he was not a criminal nor was endangering the plane or the passengers on it.

halls120

First thing Oscar needs to do is have a senior experienced manager do a quick but thorough internal investigation of what really happened at the gate and on the airplane. Someone who isn't in the operations chain of command. Someone who is allowed to speak truth to power.

Separate from that, he needs to have a senior experienced manager (not in the PR shop) do a quick but thorough internal investigation of why, in less than 30 days, United's public relations enterprise responded poorly not once, but twice in response to adverse public reaction to an event involving United. As part of this exercise he needs to figure out why he's getting such horribly tone deaf press statements to sign off on.

At the same time, he needs to charter a team to look at the policies that are blowing up in United's face, and do something about them. This will be difficult, because it is probably going to result in taking decisions that cost $$ and give line employees more autonomy to solve problems as they are happening.

Do that, and it will produce a better environment all around.

travelgeek1197

So rare for someone to "get it" and use any level of common sense around here.

I applaud you for pointing out what so many fail to understand around here: that they have been brainwashed into thinking the airlines are right and can do whatever they want and it's ok.

No no one has even addressed that most of the offer for pax who are bumped initially FALL BELOW FEDERAL REQUIREMENTS but get away with it because the "volunteers" don't know any better.

~TG