Kevin AA

The implication is that you're more important because you are willing to delay the flight (or watch it leave without you) in order to try to force the GA to see it your way. If everyone did this, it would take an hour to leave. In your mind, only you matter and everyone else should check their bag.

I was referring to future flights.

Doc Savage

Cheap tags. I've had them fall off a couple of times. EWR, of course.

wolf72

It's time for federal oversight on how UA treats passengers. There does not seem to be consistency in how they manage and also handle customer service complaints.

Time for the hammer to come down HARD on the management and middle management of the airline.

Lovethecabin

I have flown DL and AA a couple of times over the past couple of months and noticed the same thing. One trip, DL had GA patrolling around the gate area well ahead of boarding (like 90 minutes prior) constantly asking passengers to check their carry-ons. Non-stop announcements as well.

qukslvr619

Dramatic much? I've had my beef with this airline; I've been lied to, stranded, delayed, missed important events, downgraded, forced to check bags when unnecessary, wasted hours on the phone trying to fix simple issues, spent money to correct their problems.....and then I flew AA, DL, US, WN, etc......and realized its not just a UA problem its the nature of the airline industry. The problem is UA has had recent high profile events in an ever-increasing age of everyone pulling their electronic device out and presumably standing their ground in the hopes of piggy-backing off of the prior events.

And now EVERY incident, whether it is a full-fare frequent flyer forced to sit in Coach (even though it was a routine downgrade due to an equipment swap), a member of the military returning from deployment who was charged for excess baggage charges (and apparently can't figure out how to submit it for reimbursement when its official travel), or a family complaining about how UA forced them to sit in different areas of the aircraft (buying Basic Economy tickets then)........suddenly makes UA seem like a horrible airline that kills puppies, hates minorities, puts its employees in First Class before paying customers, you name it the list goes on. Yet none of these issues are unique to UA; yes there have been some blunders as of late but I can't see how a federal investigation is going to turn up an underlying internal effort at UA to mistreat customers, ignore customer service issues or beat up people.

Are there issues that need to be resolved at UA? Absolutely this airline is far from perfect and need to get its sh*t together. Purging itself of pmCO personnel within upper-level management (i.e. Greg Hart for one) still needs to happen otherwise they will continue to hold onto the Jeff Smisek "changes you'll like/rah rah we're the best" mentality and the overall mistrust by employees. Getting the employees onboard with service improvements is happening but its still a culture shift to an environment where employees and customers were promised one thing and management did another. Perhaps its not as visible or as fast as some people would like. But not every incident (i.e. forced to check a carry-on) is an indication that UA is out to get people or even a reason to hold your ground. Does it suck and inconvenience some people like the OP? yeah....but the potential for 155 people misconnecting due to a late departure because someone decided to challenge a GA and then delaying subsequent flights is far greater than 1 person griping about being selected to check a bag. It happens...nobody likes it, but then again its not like they were charged to check it. AA, DL, even WN the alleged so customer friendly airline makes people gate check bags....and might I add WN forced me to check said bag when there were 50 people on the flight.

So what will federal oversight do exactly? Show that there were incidents where UA could have done better? We know that, heck UA knows it and is trying to fix it. But load factors don't seem to indicate that people really are booking away. So either they don't care and will put up with it (sort of like the people who fly Spirit, complain about how horrible they are, and then fly them again when they are the cheapest) or the problems aren't as rampant as they are being made out to seem and they must be doing something right. Perhaps I've got my blinders on and next week when I fly UA and I'll have the worst experience ever and be back on FT griping about it. But until then I'm still of the mindset that UA is no worse than any other airline (and maybe they all need some sort of oversight to be kept in check), is actually making some strides to fix the post merger mess but keeps finding itself in the news more often because its easier to build a news story on past events than try and separate isolated incidents that are actually quite different in their actual situation.

wolf72

The nature of the problem is an american problem.

It certainly is not a global problem. You don't see the problems you see happening on american flights happening overseas; stupid arguments with passengers at the boarding gate about tennis racket cases, violins getting confiscated, bags being sent down to cargo because passengers are told there is no more space on board only to find out, there is a lot of room for the 1-2 bags a passenger is carrying on, beating up an old man because the airline demands they be given the 3-4 seats they need to get to a destination they need to get to due to bad operational planning on their part...etc etc etc...

I can go on. But you understand the point I am making I hope.

It's the culture within the airline operators in the US. They are not very good at customer service. And it's not a new problem. It's an old problem.

Sure, flights do get cancelled due to technical problems, cancelled due to terrible weather conditions or are delayed...bags do get lost/misplaced on airliners outside of the world...and from time to time, the odd GA or FA gets raprimanded for failing to due their duty within reason or using sensible actions....but why are all these problems almost exclusively american problems but not with airliners overseas.

I have worked out in Asia and Europe for the past 20 years and I have yet to see any problems on the flights I travel on except for 1 incident between two passengers which led to one punching the other....sure, I have complaints from time to time with the budget airliners we use to travel and the full fledged 5 star airliners we use for work/travel/meetings but....you don't get the same sort of attitude or .... you get when you step into an american airport and stand infront of a GA or a FA in the States.

There are some fantastic GA's and FA's for sure. Some are extremely polite, professional and are excellent problem solvers but...the minority who spoil it for passengers really makes you wonder....who is causing this? The people hiring these morons? Or do they undergo character transformations before/during/after job interviews and suddenly become ugly ogre's who should NOT be front line staff dealing with passengers in stressful situations?

qukslvr619

I understand your point, and I agree to some extent, however I think its the nature of the airline industry overall and while it may not be as obvious, frequent, or widely reported, these sort of problems/issues do happen at airlines around the world. That being said I think the problems within the US are more rampant on account of airlines instituting policies that are designed to maximize ancillary revenue which in turn piss off passengers which in turn lead to many confrontational situations. Airline employees have to deal with enforcing policies, that they personally might disagree with, and can face repercussions for not doing so. So its an endless battle....people want to avoid paying bag fees so stuff everything in a carry-on, GA's try and get the flight out on time so they start enforcing carry-on rules, people get upset and confront the GA's and then chaos ensues.

But part of why I think the experience with foreign carriers tends to appear more customer friendly is that with heavy subsidies there is less of a constant push to cater to shareholders. I'm not saying that the airline isn't interested in turning a profit (unless were talking about AZ), but I think the carriers seem more focused on the passenger experience and with less competition in their home markets there isn't such rampant competition. Sure they have to compete with Ryanair and EasyJet within Europe, but the internal EU markets are much different, and typically much shorter segments, than a good portion of US markets; I've also yet to fly on a intra-EU flight that has been 100% full. And let's face it, Europeans are much different culturally when it comes to traveling. They get it...punctuality is important, and they also seem to travel a lot lighter not to mention luggage/carry-on restrictions are much stricter. There also seems to be a balance of power in that the authority of say a GA tends to be taken seriously so while I'm sure that there are definitely outliers, there also seems to be less instances of a supposed "frequent flier" screaming at a GA over a lost upgrade.

So while I'm not excusing American carriers for poor service, I look at other regions around the world much differently. we have only ourselves to blame because despite the decline, we keep flying, we keep demanding "low" fares, and are seemingly willing to accept it all because we keep buying tickets.

alchemista

update: after writing a well-described online case w/ photographs, they denied any request for a voucher and only gave an "exception" credit of 2500 miles (woop-de-doo)

The rationale was that United does not compensate for any delays under 4 hours. So they want to stick to the strict CoC, instead of recognizing this was an unusual circumstance where the GA *CAUSED* the delay, which was under United's control.

They also said they'd forward it to their Madison teams to continually improve United customer service - which I take to mean nothing will happen and it will be ignored.

I'm not satisfied with the response. Again, I'm not out to squeeze money out of them (though won't refuse compensation as part of righting the wrong), but rather to get agreement at the injustice here for the GA. Their response did neither for me.

Maybe a physical letter and photo prints will have a larger impact.

JVPhoto

It seems like you never will be.

MY-OTHER-BROTHER-"TED"

... and 1 of 3 things will occur if this matter keeps getting pushed---

#1 . A few more miles or a voucher will come his way.

#2 . He will receive a letter telling him that obviously UA cannot satisfy his needs and he will have his MP cancelled and told to take his business elsewhere.

#3 . He can let this trivial matter go and move on!

Taking a stance that a g/a doesn't know what they are doing, or doesn't care, and then escalating the issue via e-mails telling c/s that they don't care either, because they won't side with him is one way to get the boot, especially if they spend too much time responding to him, over & over.

There have been many "Push-The-Enveloper's" on FT that are on the outside looking in with nothing else to do with their time except to flame UA while flying on another carrier. I can assure you of one thing --- COMPLAIN TOO MUCH AND YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE FLAGGED, which probably already has occurred!

notquiteaff

Was there injustice, or was it a mistake? Or is it simply expected that the gate agent doesn't try to fill every single overhead space if it comes at the expense of a delayed departure (which would require checking and rechecking with the FAs)?

On yesterday's AS flight my GA proactively (before boarding started) asked for 25 carry-ons to be checked prior to departure. That GA certainly doesn't have enough information to know that this is the exact number needed to ensure everything else fits with no wasted space. In fact, there was still space above my seat when we departed.

Life isn't always fair. You lost 20 minutes of your life because of the unnecessarily checked bag, and now have probably spent a lot more time arguing about it here and with UA. Maybe evaluate if that really is the right priority for you

alchemista

It most definitely was not a mistake, nor was it even a close call when there was 50% of the plane bins empty. That's why the FA said I could come back up the gate to let her know there was plenty of space - she had the chance to correct it if it was really a "mistake".

I lost 30 minutes of my life & a missed meet-up.

Had I not been trying to meet up, I would be much less ornery. Being one about fairness, it's more important to me to hear acknowledgement from UA that this was an issue, apology, and at least seem like they would look into it / correct the issue.

Instead, I got an "it's not our problem" email, but we'll give you a little bone with 2500 miles. As a comparison, DL gives out 2500 miles if your bag isn't at the carousel in 20 minutes, putting some commitment behind baggage service.

For those saying just let it go, I paid UA almost $600 for this flight. I think I have a right to be a little demanding for getting fair service on a flight I paid for, regardless of the cost. If they were transporting me out of courtesy, of course I would have no problem with it.

When dealing with people who feel wronged like this, I've found it's most effective to acknowledge their concern, apologize for perceived wrongdoing, and take their opinions/suggestions on improving. That's what people who are strong on fairness/justice are usually looking for. There will still be people looking to monetize it, but in my experience that isn't the majority.

From this thread, it seems this is fairly common with UA - though I have not seem a case so flagrant as this one in dozens of flights with them (or any airline). I will definitely be considering it next time I have a choice in flights.

osxanalyst

Welcome to United, where customers are just a number. Customer Service - what's that?

JVPhoto

The OP got a few miles or the inconvenience. Pretty standard generic CS...what more should UA do? Admit total wrong doing and that GA was in the wrong and this is not the way things would be? Find me a company in the age of social media that is going to do that. All it will take is for some travel "blog" to post a screenshot of the email and soon you'll have every person who gate checks a bag coming to UA for a handout.

emcampbe

If you absolutely had to be at a place by a certain time, and 30 minutes was going to throw your schedule off too much (and I believe you started at 20 minutes initially, but we'll skip the semantics) then sorry, while I understand you are upset at what happened, but it was you who erred by not giving yourself any room for error. Most of us, as frequent travellers understand that travel is often not as smooth as it should be, and stuff happens.

So suppose you had your bag in the bin, but the flight was 30 minutes late because of ATC, weather, MX, or a tire needed to be changed before departure, etc. By the way, all of these have been the causes of delays for me in the past few months. Who would be to blame then?

Look, just his weekend, my dad came home from Europe (not on UA, this was an EU-based carrier), landed, and right after the plane gated, there was lightning in the area, so bags didn't come out for two hours since rampers couldn't go out. Airport he landed at isn't known for its quick bag delivery in the first place, but that is still a long time. File these under the 'stuff happens' boat, and probably time to move on.

I agree with others here that any response you get at this point seems like it will be unsatisfactory, and doubt you will get confirmation that the specific employee has been coached, given a slap on the wrist, etc. so you'll have to deal with the fact that you were able to inform them, and hopefully things will change. You got some miles, too. I doubt your account will be audited/shut down, even if you insist on taking it farther, but if they see a pattern of fairly minor complaints, very possible that there will be some sort of consequence in the future. It doesn't seem like something with pursuing to me, but if it really is that bothersome to you, then by all means, continue. Seems like a minor issue in the scheme of life, and if it really bothers you that much still, then try another carrier, though it should be noted that these kinds of minor issues will likely happen with whoever that is, too, so you may not have any others to go to in the not too distant future.