Hipplewm

You seem to think everyone in Polaris needs to volunteer. They will get 12 Y's to volunteer and pay GG FRONT CBN OVSL or you wait for the next flight.

They won't board all 12 if it is a plane swap, they will know long before people get one the plane.

FlyfromDenver

This.

I am more concerned with giving other passengers the ability to do basically anything they want. Once they are "boarded", they are almost untouchable, figuratively and literally.

Sabai

Will UA continue to use Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Black and Blue" as its signature tune?

fly18725

I'm sure there's a big of a problem as people portray. United did say, "their seat," not, "a seat," which implies that passengers who claim an unassigned seat are not immune from removal. Refusing to take your assigned seat, or an alternate seat arranged through a mutually agreeable seat swap, can become a safety issue and I'm sure United will not let it slide. Of course, I think they'll try everything possible to resolve unassigned seat claims in a non-confrontational way.

economyplusfan

All of this empowers front line UA employees to be like they were pre-merger with CO. I can't tell you how many times back then they came up with creative solutions for me when things went wrong. Once, I had flown to a men's hockey tournament and my equipment didn't arrive. Baggage claim told me it was on the next flight, arriving the next day. I told them I had two games today. They said "Go on and buy whatever equipment you need for the games today and we will reimburse you". I did, and they did!

Duke787

I doubt it. Unless the entire plane colludes (not going to happen) someone will find a number that is acceptable to them and go for it. I took two VDBs on DL earlier this week and can attest to that. They were looking for $600, I said I would do it for $1000 + hotel (since they couldn't get me to RDU until they next day) and they agreed. Sure someone else might have been able to get them to go higher (after all their max is $9950 on DL) but $1000 + hotel was sufficient for me to work from the hotel the next day and fly home 1 day late.

They key however is empowerment for the front line employees. At Delta this works because when I went up to $1000, the GA didn't have to get on the phone and call someone and spend an hour confirming if that was possible. She accepted it based on the oversell and moved on with boarding the plane. DL seems to have empowered their frontline to offer the necessary comp in a given situation without needing to get caught up in red tape and it works.

When you check-in, DL informs you the flight is oversold and then allows you input how much compensation you would be willing to accept to go on a later flight. The options are typically 200, 300, 400, 500 and then you can enter an "other" of up to 800 (at least for domestic flights).

As far as I know, It is not binding you can change your mind at the airport but presumably if you enter it, you are willing to at least be considered. Of course as noted above you can negotiate higher than the 800 maximum at the gate if the right situation presents itself.

euslaner

I have no knowledge of pmCO but gate agent discretion was the rule at pmUA and one of the first things that Smisek did was to terminate this discretion. Not only pmUA fliers but also pmUA gate agents complained bitterly about this. pmUA agents regularly accomodated me (in one case letting me fly home a day early on a nonrefundable ticket and often in NRT and FRA rebooking me so that I could clear an upgrade when no seats were available on the flights I had booked). pmUA agents told me that CO would not tolerate either of these and that SHARES made it impossible to rebook passengers even when their flights were canceled.

ijgordon

You forgot: Offer deep discounts to corporate customers.

Yup, my company just made UA one of its preferred carriers, apparently some very attractive fares on a few key routes.

klakhav

I thought they did have an automated system to request people to volunteer their seats? Is this something new.
It is really training their employees issue and please do not use law enforcement to extract people from their paid seats.

economyplusfan

They are still in trouble for disobeying crew instructions. You arrest them when they disembark at the termination of the flight, and inform them that this will happen. Problem solved.

ijgordon

Do you think the gate agents in, say Sacremento, know that Louisville is near Lexington? Or that if they fly a passenger into Lexington, who do they call to get that customer ground transportation into Louisville?

Makes total sense to have a specialized department for out-of-the-box solutions. Sure, many things should be able to be handled by the gate agents themselves, but I think it smart to have backup for those tail events.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

It doesn't work that way. There's no wall between Polaris and coach in an operational down-gauge. In most cases, displaced front cabin passengers will get a coach seat and get where they are going. They get downgrade compensation and difference in fare.

radiowell

My concern exactly. Someone who purchased Basic Economy may decide to poach an F seat and when confronted he/she will just say "make me." GA/FA may be powerless to do anything about it.

Live4Upgrade

In a nutshell, the new policies are "use commonsense" and "treat customers as you'd want to be treated" and "a happy customer is better than a pissed off customer".

Business 101.

Live4Upgrade

Surprised one of their new policies isn't "If you video anything on board the aircraft, we will lifetime ban you from flying UA in the future".

Videos only show one side of the story and are quick for items to be taken out of context.

I'd be happy if they banned pictures, too.