24left

Thread title is:

So how does UA win back the flying public?

Answer: Depends who you ask.

If you ask FFs, FTers you might get an answer than involves a seat sale and maybe throw in some additional EQMs, AQMs etc,

If you ask the general public, it will be a wide range of suggestions that might involve discipline and or "coaching" for all employees and mall cops involved.

If you ask the other pax who were on that flight, the answer might involve $$$ for the trauma they suffered watching all of this unfold.

Some might suggest that Oscar stop tweeting.

If you ask Wall Street, there will a different answer.

And if you ask the unfortunate man who was the recipient of all of this nastiness, I am quite sure there will be a different answer.

All of the above will look nice on a Venn Diagram.


Is there really just one answer to "So how does UA win back the flying public?"

muishkin

I don't think Oscar should resign but yes I think it's time for the board to re-accommodate him.

KCalla

The young couple who were removed (but complied) from the flight were also treated unfairly. And reports are that United needed Four seats for the crew. Was a fourth passenger removed from the flight after the battery of the passenger appropriately appalled the public? Or did UA decide to only fly three of the crew they needed to reposition? Perhaps UA did the logical thing and used their inter airline crew courtesy discount to inexpensively fly that 4th crew member on another flight (from either Chicago airport).

Explorer789

I understand that IDB is just the nature of the business. There is a sensible way to handling this without screwing over the customer. I highly doubt anyone will ever have an incident like this on AS or SW as they are trained to handle the situations better, while UA seems to do the bare minimum. Even DL showed how far they were willing to go to make customers happy after their recent storm meltdown.

I was more referring to how UA can improve overall service consistency across the board, not just IDB procedures, which probably were not followed to the fullest extent in this case as this flight was technically not overbooked. I have suggested in another thread that IDB should be disallowed once the pax have started boarding. Either sort out the issue before boarding starts, otherwise use VDB only, increasing the offer until someone takes it.

In general, it is always a tossup when you on what type of service you get with UA from the GAs/FAs. Most are good, but there's still a lot that are subpar that should either be let go or be retrained.

Buster CT1K

This is just symptomatic of United. There are good front-line employees but the vast majority of UA culture is one in which UA doesn't care about its customers. It doesn't care about keeping promises to its customers, it doesn't care about being polite to customers, and it doesn't care about how its customers are treated.

One recent example is carrying limited quantities of mattress pads, gel pillows, and slippers in United Polaris -- imagine that! For your flagship product, you carry limited quantities so that you run out instead of offering them proactively to every guest! It is clear that this is an airline focused on itself and its bottom line -- corporate narcissism -- instead of aiming to get its customers to where they want to go on time and in comfort. This entire culture seeps into the organization so that in the end, a customer is literally left bleeding in the aisle because crew scheduling doesn't have its act together.

It is absolutely shameful.

DrPSB

Agreed. Folks new to Flyertalk may be a bit put off by economy passengers being referred to as 'kettles' or 'gate lice'. That's because many folks who post here are on elite status and are not subject to the same poor treatment as the general public. For them, there will be little sympathy for the folks in cattle class who bear the brunt of situations like this.

After obsessing on this story the last day or so, I still have a lot of questions. First, what was this passenger entitled to, and was it explained to him? Is the compensation cash, flight vouchers, or something else? Munoz said he was offered "$1000 compensation" which I assume to be a flight voucher he may not have wanted and a hotel room he definitely did not want.

You folks who say it doesn't matter if he was a doctor or not, I think that's fair. But you are also going to expect him to stand up and assist the airline if a passenger falls sick. I'm a doc, I've done this twice now, and in neither case did I ask for or get any consideration from the airline for assisting and preventing a diversion. Nor would I ever use my profession to say I should get preferential treatment, although Lufthansa actually does have a program for docs to register in consideration for this issue.

I hope lawmakers get involved in this to develop rules that provide for the same level of cash compensation for all passengers regardless of class of ticket to dissuade airlines from playing overbook roulette because they know they can bump passengers easily and profit by doing so, such as in the case of folks flying on award tickets.

Every passenger on that plane is just as important as every other passenger.

s0ssos

Yup, it is one thing to talk about starving children. Another thing completely to bring them to life. Maybe have someone meet one.
That's why Malala's story is so powerful. She speaks English and can verbalize. Because there are thousands like her, who are shot and killed, and nobody cares.

But it isn't just that people get de-sensitized, but I think it is because people simply cannot love masses. It isn't in our psychology. We can only love individuals.

hpark21

But the issue here is that the "selection process" is NOT applied equally for everyone. Airline chooses to implement however they wishes which would maximize THEIR profit. Not everyone on board was subject to removal for SURE. There is NO WAY their computer chose people in random. The computer SPECIFICALLY targeted a GROUP of people.

Should that selection process be published by the airline, there will be more people who would be unhappy with the selection and quite possibly more refusal since it seem so unfair considering possibly only 20-25% of passengers may be subject to the so called "random lottery".

kavok

The law today is that United can remove a paying customer in Y from their seat if United Crew happen to show up.

The law (at the time) was that Rosa Parks (a black person) had to give up her seat if white people show up.

Both are/were completely legal, but in the eyes of most people today, morally wrong.

ScousePete

The sad answer is that UA doesn't have to do anything. The stock price will go back up, something shiny will distract people's attention and PAX will buy cheap tickets on whichever airline.

However, UA should do the right thing. Empathy training would be a good place to start - beginning at the top.

rankourabu

Triple EQMs and EQDs on all fares.

There.

Solved.

bigboy

Why do lawmakers need to get involved? The market is responding appropriately - just look at the news, the threads in FT, etc..

The last thing we need is more "help" from DC.

FlagrantViola

I can't deny that I love reading the responses from people who defend UA on this.
After all, this site is filled with people who whine about
-not getting a PDB
-not getting an upgrade
-sitting next to an animal
-not getting their first choice meal
-having a rude GA/FA
-being treated rudely by a lounge attendant
-having to deal with people standing in their way while boarding
-yada yada yada

All of those things are catastrophes.
Being physically dragged out of a seat? UA was right. As long as it wasn't me, UA did the right thing.

Kacee

Is this serious? Accelerating status earnings is not going to do anything to mollify frequent flyers who are considering ditching their UA status.

I personally would find it rather crass.

ccbythebay

They can start by NOT telling me to stow my Surface Pro 3 on takeoff because the keyboard magically turns it into a laptop.