spin88

I sadly think your attitude is way too common in UA management, which views passengers as numbers on a spreadsheet, and that has been passed down to line employees. Where it comes from (which I have bolded) does not give any employee in a front line position the right to strike someone, let alone to allow them to just lie on the ground hurt, while doing nothing.

While this is perhaps the last line of defense (United did nothing wrong as I'm sure something was done to justify what was done to the self loading cargo) it has nothing to do with this instance. Nothing that happened before justifies the response by about 10 UA employees at IAH, nor United not having proactively already addressed this.

chollie

No, they did nothing. The nurse who stopped to help insisted they call 911. The big guy who pushed him down then called 911 and deliberately gave them misleading information. None of the other UA employees made a move to assist in anyway or call help.

I have no idea how long he would have laid there if the nurse hadn't stopped and tried to help.

skidooman

This is what makes it worse by leap and bounds.

Pushing is already horrendous. I can understand the guy in white shirt is pushing this guy away. But why the hell the woman from United just stands there?

Hello? Someone falling on their back, I *THINK* he may need someone to at least come to him to ask whether he is alright!

That is the simple, human thing to do. Shouldn't not have to be spelled out in a SOP.

TomMM

My last connection in ORD clearly shows that people only care about themselves.

michelle227

Since I AM registered on the site, I looked at the dismissal...it specifically cites that the reason for dismissal was "Other- restitution, letter of apology, anger management."

The dismissal was entered on March 15, 2016, which was about five months after the Indictment.

The October criminal Complaint is quite damning of Anastasia, who is also alleged to have said "I'll kick your f*cking a**" when Tigner tried to go behind him towards the ticket counter. The asterisks were omitted in the original document and have been used here to avoid outright profanity. Tigner was transported to the hospital and diagnosed with a closed head injury and possible loss of consciousness. Video showed him remaining on the floor until the ambulance arrived.

For there to have been a dismissal after the restitution and apology, Tigner may have undercut claims for civil damages. I did not take the time to read the pleadings in that case. However, a dismissal in a case like this does not generally occur in Texas where the victim is not onboard with the case going away...

He was NOT criminally convicted. Criminally charged, yes. Convicted? No.

wolf72

Nothing. Which is the culture within UA.

FlyngSvyr

I highly doubt "Nothing" was done since the incident. I would not be surprised if the employee was terminated as a direct result of the incident, as well as the employees in the area interviewed internally by UA management, possibly even by outside investigators. They might have even been reprimanded. Of course, that is just my opinion. I am not trying to assert it as fact, as you have.

This whole talk of "toxic" UA culture truly has me baffled. I have flown them for the last 3 years (about 90 segments a year) and have had ZERO customer service problems. Sure, I've had a few mechanical delays & 1 lost bag that found its way home after a few days, but NEVER a negative interaction with a UA employee or contractor even when things went sideways.

I get that some people may have had a bad experience and that may color their opinion of UA, but I find the level of disdain I read on FT from time to time does not translate into the real world when I fly.

wolf72

The violin incident?

The argument with the pro tennis player about her tennis bag?

Things have not changed. Get rid of the union. Get employee's to sign contracts directly with the airline and be answerable to the airline.

This is how you solve the problems within UA.

Until you get rid of the union, nothing will change.

Loren Pechtel

Definitely seconded. [offtopic comments removed by moderator]

This, though, I can't see how United is not very much in the wrong. Looks like you need to embarrass them in the press to get a proper settlement.

spin88

You must truely be blessed, if you have been on 270 UA segments from 2015- current and never had an issue. I suggest buying a lottery ticket. Even in the good-old pre-Jeff Days as a GS, I would run into CS problems, they just got fixed. And I have had a few issues in Delta in about 400-500K miles of flying since I started to bail on United. But they were fixed.

Nothing on any airline thought compares in severity nor number to what United has tossed up at me.

BearX220

My UA experience with conflict resolution 2011-16 was that their opening bid was to offer nothing, deny everything, flat stonewall me, even when I was legally entitled to certain things. They could only be shamed into coughing up the minimum under constant pressure or (I found) with a DOT complaint.

(I had a UA rep email me cheerily that rejecting reimbursement claims arising from their own policies and mistakes was "simply good business!" A few weeks after I filed with DOT, I had a sheepish phone call from another UA rep asking where to send the check. What kind of company insists on you literally making a federal case out of things before it will even consider doing the right thing?)

At its very core, UA considers its customers adversaries. That view starts at the top and ends up with passengers lying prone on the terminal floor while United people stand around chuckling.

apodo77

The person who got pushed down is an attorney himself in the Houston area.

FlyngSvyr

I am being serious. Maybe its because I am very proactive & take care of myself & anticipate any problems that may arise. I guess in that sense I am self loading freight. Flyertalk (the one before this UA bashing craze) taught me how to take care of myself within the UA system & I have done well.

The few minor issues I have had, I just roll with it and end up on the other side OK. Maybe there will be a day when I am seeing RED & am truly wronged by someone working for UA. If it happens, I will be sure to post on FT so someone can learn from it and others can offer feedback on how to avoid in the future. I just won't come on here to "pile on" with stories about quitting UA 5 years ago for some real or perceived indignation. I don't see how that is productive to the FT mission.

All this being said, I am not defending UA for this incident. The video evidence it pretty clear & this the employee needed to be charged (he was) & fired (probably was).

Many of the other comments on these type of threads are just people projecting their own anti UA biases onto the incident. I am pretty sure that UA does not promote physically assaulting their passengers. Insisting that they do and it is "cultural" is a reach.

tuolumne

[deleted off-topic discussion removed]
Like I said, this [terminated] United employee displayed disgusting actions and negligence.

I couldn't add to my post above b/c of today's sporadic FT outages, but my point was to point to a potential mindset of the passengers and other staff around, they may have heard an argument, which we haven't read a full transcript of, then just saw him in the ground (without necessarily seeing the pushing). For all we know this loser employee then lied to those around him, said this guy was faking, just like he lied on the 911 call.

Even if we didn't have video evidence, it's highly unlikely the union would have chosen to pursue representation for this man, based on the noted medical concerns, and then criminal complaint. Tying this situation directly to union representation is a huge stretch, in my opinion. It's a convinient piece in a narrative that ALPA, IAM, AFA, etc. are the sins to all of our collective flying woes, but the reality is you have miscreants everywhere.

Ultimately UA looks bad again here and there's no way around it. This will not reach Dao levels of hysteria since it happened in 2015 (which gives Munoz an out he didn't have with Dao), but make no mistake they will make another "amicable arrangement" with the victim!

notquiteaff

Well, as I told you yesterday in another thread, United (and UX) have 4,496 Daily Departures and transported 143 million passengers in 2016.

It should thus not come as a surprise that many don't experience any such extreme problems. I have in a million+ miles not been dragged off a plane, haven't had my violin or tennis racket (or anything else) wrestled away from me, nor have I been knocked out by a violent ticket agent. It should also not come as a surprise that incidents that do happen make popular social and mainstream media stories.

On my most recent UA mainline flight, my inbound regional flight into SFO was delayed and we arrived at the gate for our connecting flight when the door had already been closed. The plane was still there. If you go by conventional FT wisdom, that would have been a guaranteed misconnect, and with holidays travel a major pain in the rear. In reality, though, the GA came back from the plane, saw us standing there, and let us board. No begging or pleading required.

There are other airlines that have unions (say, Southwest) who are generally held in high esteem as far as customer friendliness is concerned. How do you explain that inconsistency?

UA may very well have statistically more bad apples. That does not mean, in my experience (how much do you fly UA?), that I am likely going to be beaten, have my guitar broken, or otherwise mistreated. My expected worst case scenario is a grumpy FA... and that has happened on many other airlines I have flown as well.

(none of this should be construed as defending UA or its employees in the case discussed in this thread. I am not and never have been a union member)