sfoeuroflyer

All the pledges to change overbooking procedures miss the big issue. The overbooking response was a symptom not the disease. The disease is the UA has almost no customer focus. Top to bottom the employees don't care. Some are downright nasty on the job. A friend flying long haul from South American had a FA who was beyond insolent when she dared ask about the wine selection. In some ways, that says more about UA than dragging Dr. Dao off the plane. The airline is delusional if it believes changing overbooking rules will solve the problem. It won't. I for one refuse to fly UA based on this pervasive bad attitude that dates back to the union ownership.

dw

Funny article on Marketwatch this morning:

"Tribeca Film Festival audience erupted with laughter at this United business class commercial"
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rad...of2&yptr=yahoo

I wouldn't read too much into this... but certainly laughter is not the reaction the airline would hope for in response to a commercial.

Lurker1999

I received a boilerplate email response to the letter I mailed to the UA corporate headquarters. It repeated what they had stated previously that they would announce findings/changes by April 30th. It did not address any of the specific concerns I had raised. As far as I'm concerned UA will stay in the mix of carriers but they're now just one of many options here in BOS.

spin88

The massive damage to UA's reputation over the last 4 years is shown in a new PPP poll, which people may find of interest: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/p...onal_42017.pdf

findings:

-In 2013 United had a +20 net favorability rating (33/13). It's dropped a net 44 points to -24 at 23/47 as of today.

- When we asked who people thought the worst airline in the country was in 2013 UA was closely bunched with American getting 10%, Delta 9%, United 8%, and Southwest 6%. Today, United 'wins' by a wide margin with 40% saying it's the worst airline to 10% for
American, 8% for Southwest, and 6% for Delta.

- Currently 35% say SWA is the best airline, 20% for Delta, 14% for American, and just 4% for United.

- 58% of voters seeing SWA positively, 9% have a negative opinion.

- Delta has seen an improvement in its image since 2013- it went from a +22
favorability at 35/13 to a +31 one at 45/14.

- American's gone in the wrong direction- it was at +21 (36/15) in 2013 and has dropped now to +4 at 31/27.

Paul510

Let's but this in context with other industry's. Recently VW had a huge world wide scandal that has resulted in huge settlements with both European and US regulators. I've recently heard that their market share has grown in spite of this. Back in the 80's Tylenol had to overcome people being poisoned to death when some kept tapering their product.

UA Brand was not that strong going into the crisis and they obviously have not handled it well, in the long run if they do change their overbooking/bumping customers for crew rules it will result in a better more customer friendly airline.

What a lot of people are chiming in on in this thread is the UA corporate culture in regards to Customer Service. Or specifically individual instances where they have received poor customer service from UA employees. This is a deeper problem that dates back to the bankruptcy, the effect that had on the workforce, the Simsek era, and the most likely worst managed merger in airline history. Which again affected the new combined labor force drastically. These deeper systemic problems which Munoz was trying to address will take longer to address.

-Paul

aacharya

Consider the polling dates before making any long-term assessments.

The queries (read the whole document and the polling mechanism) were directly related to the events of last week.

spin88

Agreed, poll was BTB taken April 17-18, and its a quality (phone) poll. Obviously United's score is effected by the last month's news, but then so was Delta's score impacted by a horrible ATL WX melt down, and their numbers were great.

My guess is that had this poll been done before April 10, United would have been below AA, but not by this much.

bearkatt

just back from a rt from iah-lhr using points. coach going over and business first back. going over the meal choices were pasta or chicken. I took the chicken. turned out to be an indian meal. since when did UA start serving indian food on iah-lhr? worst meal ever on UA. food coming back wasn't that great either.

schley

They don't have to win me back, i'm staying with them as one instance is an outlier...... As many have stated as long as my GPU's clear I'll stay loyal and my percentage is 90% roughly over my 9 years with UA.

Manospeed

When flying international I do my best to book with a European carrier as their level of service is simply on another level compared to most (if not all US carriers).

1K

Win me back? Where would I start... #MunozFail

warrenw

The last time that happened to me, I came in from an international flight (which was delayed) and ran to the gate and made it with minutes to spare - only to have the door closed on me. I pleaded with the GA to open the door but to no avail, no pity either, and she said something like "it will cost me my job if I even call the captain" or something like that. Anyway, I go to the customer service desk and that lady has zero sympathy. I was trying to get home for a good friend's wedding which at this point I will have missed - I say that the plane is literally still there but the GA won't open the door for me - she didn't care. This is 2pm and the next flight is 8pm, she starts booking me on the 8pm and I told her to just cancel it and I walked away. I got a rental car and drove instead since it was a 4 hour drive and I got home faster that way anyway. I called 1K desk the next day because they canceled the rest of my itinerary and they gave me a voucher for the cost of the rental car...

They usually will give you vouchers or something similar for situations like that. But their employees they have as GA's and service employees? They just.... NO SYMPATHY. At all.

FoxFlyer

Funny - same situation with me... and at IAH.

And I did complain - quite emphatically - but when the GA simply stared at me and then walked away, there's not much to be done. And yes, you can complain, but that gets you maybe a few miles or an e-cert, but does nothing to fix the underlying problem.

Say Vandelay

To win me back UA would have to:
1. Stop selling F seats at check-in for tens of dollars to kettles instead of CPU-ing Premiers
2. Bring back gate pass for UC members
3. Bring back ch9 to aircraft it was removed from and add to CO planes as promised
4. Bring back drink chits for Golds
5. Stop charging copay for EWR-SFO mileage upgrades, which never clear anyways
6. Stop giving away F and E+ seats to non-revs in leggings

MahiMahi524

Apparently United ads were pulled completely out of the Tribeca Film Festival after audience laughter was causing disruptions in multiple screenings.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ram...estival-997070