notquiteaff

So back in 2013 under Smisek UA wasn't perceived to be significantly worse than its major competitors. Interesting.

Wish they had measured the same scores right before DDD (Dr. Dao Day). I would bet it would have been significantly better than after that incident. And yet it was one single event with four involved parties (Dao, Republic, United, Chicago Aviation cops) that IMO all get to share in the blame to varying degrees.

In other words, I think I put as much faith in these numbers as in the Freddies results.

findark

Also add no change fees (fully refundable award tickets) and the ability to sit forward of the wing for non-exorbitant amounts of money. I jumped to UA when I started traveling more and realized F was relatively affordable, but for someone who doesn't fly enough to make bottom status, I see no reason other than price/schedule to choose a legacy over WN and I would pay a premium to fly WN over legacy Y.

I think we're biased because the worst we usually see is the view from Row 7 or Row 21 (maybe a lesser row for close in changes), with access to the Premier lines and early boarding, etc. WN still gets most of my intra-CA business in price/schedule, and every time I fly I'm reminded what a hassle-free experience it is despite having no status. There are a lot of issues with choosing WN if you want an F cabin, extensive network, and real status benefits, but for the O&D kettle it's a great airline.

bocastephen

Of course when he was announced as the new CEO, I poo-poo'd the choice, stating he did not have a clue about a customer service business, coming from the railroad business. He started off great, we were scared as goats when he was sick, but now, unfortunately, he has shown a complete lack of understanding of what United (or any airline) really is, and it's time for everyone here to be scared as goats again because having someone in charge who lacks this understanding - and can be publicly humiliated by the CEO of a competitor for their lack of this understanding, which in itself is almost unprecedented - is not a good fit for this business.

Many promises were made, a few were delivered, some were fractionally delivered, but the essence of United's toxic culture between too many front line employees and customers, remains intact, and in fact, has probably worsened considerably since the merger, finally erupting in the form of the Dr Dao incident, which has, and will continue to cost them dearly.

username

I still don't quite understand why he sent that 2nd letter to the employees knowing it most likely would be leaked. It almost seems to me someone (maybe Kirby?) is helping him to the door?

Kamalaasaa

Best headline I've seen on this:

https://qz.com/966095/united-ceo-osc...ors_picks=true

HighTechVet

A previous WSJ article which was published on the heels of the passenger debucle showed JD Power scores for major airlines.
According to those UA was consistently the lowest scoring airline in customer satisfaction for 5 yeas. Next - corporate customers complained publicly according to this WSJ article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/united-...xes-1492535023
My guess is UA board read that articles and finally realized they have a real Customer Service issue and decided to try and address this obviously systemic issue.
About time. UA destroyed the CO culture - which was more customer oriented. CO also won JD Power ratings for customer satisfaction.

blackllotus

This. It's easy to forget how awful UA is for non-status fliers. Y- is dreadful and UA simply does not have the staff to adequately handle most passengers during bad IRROPS scenarios. Some of the lines I've seen at EWR have been insane. With status, we don't have to deal with those lines.

minnyfly

You can disagree all you want, but it doesn't mean it's right.

Any rating that changes that fast is highly questionable. Any rating that says WN is the best airline by far shows how expectations determine the poll and not what the best airline is.

Fact of the matter is that we can say definitively that Munoz is infinity more customer service orientated the DL CEO. He's not a liar cheating his customers. Maybe all that matters is the perception of producing customer service. Might be tough to do at UA when your customer base is hard to please.

Yikes. That's one of the worst examples of "journalism" I've ever seen. Not worth quoting.

That would be me then. Well, UA certainly isn't awful for me. Best of the big 3 in my experiences.

John Aldeborgh

I think everyone should remember Oscar didn't screw up United he is attempting to turn things around. Smisek came from CO and his team did more to destroy the customer experience, at the merged companies, than any management team in my 30+ years of flying United. This repetitive referencing to the dragging of a customer off a flight shows how the vast majority of flyers simply don't understand the industry facts on IDB and how strangely some customers react to being inconvenienced (which is after all the reality of IDB).

Only this last Thursday I flew from Beijing to Shanghai on Air China, when I got to the gate there was a crowd standing at the gate counter a good 10 people deep, this turned out to be customers from a previous flight that had been canceled. Over the next few minutes the crowd became a mob and then an angry mob, which delayed the boarding of my flight. Finely, with all the chaos the GA called the Police. Within 15 minutes there were 10 or 15 police, which brought some order back to the gate area.

During this whole experience every time someone started screaming, which was frequently and always customers, never the GA's, smart phones came out by the dozens with everyone taking video. Once the screaming stopped, momentarily, all the cell phone were put away.

My point is simply in today's world of social media you only get the bad and it's always the companies that are demonized. Frankly I'd hate to work for any airline these days, it just seems like such a thankless job, yet 99.999% of the people who work in these companies are doing a satisfactory to excellent job; we should all be judged this harshly in our job performance and then see how we feel when we get up in the morning and head to work.

Just the humble observations of a frequent flyer.

txflyer77

iflyjetz

Kirby was brought onboard to be the next CEO/Chairman after Oscar's heart transplant. The Republic incident just moves up the succession timeline.

ermintrude

Yep and if you aren't interested in elite benefits and don't mind MP being further gutted, Kirby is your man

wolf72

I can confirm Oscar will NOT be chairman of the board in 2018. This is pretty much what the article say's. Anything else is just speculation, gossip and village drivel.

He is def not on a lot of people's good books and will have to pay a heafty sum to improve his public image which has been shot to tatters, destroyed with a flame thrower, cooked to a crisp, BBQ with hot sauce.

halls120

To be fair, Oscar was on the board watching Smisek make mistake after mistake, and apparently did little to stop it. I agree he's trying to fix United, but he is partially responsible for how the merger was bungled.

The problem with United isn't customers with high expectations, as some here believe. The problem is a deeply engrained culture that treats HVFs one way and everyone else as an annoyance to be tolerated. When I was a 1K, flying UA was glorious. Once in SIN my flight was cancelled. A cart came to the gate and collected all the GS and 1K, took us to the CSR counter, gave us new tickets and we were off. My non status colleague back at the other gate? He was eventually reaccommodated but arrived home half a day later. And to this day, he rarely flies UA.

Smisek and his acolytes came in and wrecked it for most 1Ks and didn't materially improve the situation for non-elites. In fact, he made it worse by bungling operations and "fixing" a boarding process that wasn't broken in the first place by further stigmatizing non status passengers.

I'm not leaving UA. My positive experiences greatly outweigh the negative ones. I've met countless professional and friendly employees over the last 20 years, but the small number of customer hating front line employees coupled with stupid inflexible policies during IROPS is the reason UA scores so poorly when measured against the competition - not customers with "high expectations."

InTheAirGuy

We should startup a fund to buy David Dao some shares so that he can attend the meeting as a stockholder.