Two Bee

UAL ain't gonna touch this one --- "Since this was not any fault of mine, the way the individual continued to act appeared to be, upon reflection, because I was an African American woman, seemingly an easy target along with the African American flight attendant who was very, very nice," Jackson Lee said in the statement.

However, the ol' ace in the hole, interfering with a flight crew was attempted to shut Ms. Simon up --- About five minutes after Simon took the photo on the plane, Simon said, another flight attendant sat next her and asked if she "was going to be a problem."

dilanesp

Without commenting specifically on this case, a hypothetical member of Congress who puts these sorts of demands on an airline puts the airline in an impossible situation.

If the airline downgrades a passenger, it will take a publicity hit and may lose a customer or customers. If the airline refuses to accede to the demands of a member of Congress, it could find itself at a disadvantage when issues that it cares about come up before Congress.

For this reason, it is really important that members of Congress not pull such shenanigans. I express no opinion on whether SJL did so, but if any member of Congress ever does, it is a gross abuse of power.

Miles Ahead

United has a history of...um..accommodating government officials. The "Chairman's Flight" is a famous example.

jackexu

Frankly speaking, pax will never mention anything (any truth) about their fault when they are making a complaint.

Yes, Gate Agents or FAs may did something under the table. However, this pax did not mention anything about what she did exactly. She had a paper BP didn't mean she really had that BP.

We all know we could get a paper BP after check-in, regardless what we did (SDC/CANCEL) on that itinerary after we have that paper BP. Maybe she changed flight and then changed back, which caused the seat lost, and she still use the previous paper BP to board since she thought she could use this way to get the original seat back. or maybe her friends/kids/someone hates her intentionally/unintentionally messed up her itinerary. who knows...

Centurion

Any of you who think this is the her fault have no idea how United deals with elected officials.

zombietooth

Truth!

I was once downgraded, not for the politician, but for one of their security detail. I was told something like, "We have to downgrade you to accomodate a VIP." My wife got to remain in F and saw who the offending politician was, and later told me what a complete jerk they were to the FAs and surrounding pax.

I received appropriate downgrade comp, but continue to hold a very low opinion of our "public servants".

docbert

Exactly - they downgraded you.

They didn't bump you off the flight entirely (despite there being numerous seats free at the back), and then fabricate screenshots showing that you canceled via the app - as apparently happened here.

spin88

I agree that you can inadvertently move to another flight while looking at options in IRROPs. But that is not what is being reported, including by UA. Here is what is in the IBT piece linked to above:"Simon was told by a gate attendant that her ticket was not in the system. Simon said the gate agent not only could not find her seat, but also could not find her ticket or name."The gate agent called over a second United agent who informed that I had no seat, not just the first class seat I had purchased, but no seat, period," Simon wrote. "I didn't even have a reservation any more."Simon was first told she may have cancelled her own reservation, before being told that united.com had changed her reservation about an hour earlier and that another passenger had been upgraded to her seat."

Passanger was told she had no reservation. I don't see how that is possible on the App. It gives options, it is not easy to cancel the entire trip in the middle. But that fishy story then became "oh you switched flights" well if the later story was true, the first agent would have been able to quickly pull up her reservation and she would have been told she switched flight.

Given the shifting stories, and ending up with one "she cancelled her own flight on the APP" that is inconsistent with what I think we all would expect, I'm going with the theory that some UA agent tinkered with her reservation, and cancelled it by mistake while upgrading a VIP. United = Untruths + Incompetence.

inlanikai

One question, one statement.

Q: Did the pax's BP showing 1A get scanned and accepted by the GA when boarding and then discovered someone in her seat when she got to 1A?

S: Regardless of the reason for the downgrade, or who is at fault, there is no reason IMO for SJL to claim racism on the part of the pax. That just stinks.

JNelson113

I live in Houston and am familiar with this particular politician. Unfortunately Representative Sheila Jackson Lee has a very very bad reputation for entitlement and throwing fits to get her way and then trying to pull rank or play the race card when she does not. Just google her name and "abusive" and you'll find out all you need to know. Here's one article: http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/02/co...a-jackson-lee/

I find the passenger's account highly believable, far more so than United's. I suspect that they were trying to placate SJL to avoid her legendary temper and ended up messing with the wrong passenger. I'm glad that the wronged passenger is pursuing this.

bhunt

LOL not just Politicians.... back when there was TED. ORD-LAS were all TED flights except one United flight on friday evenings that was a 757. Flight attendant told me it was because United's CEO had a vacation home in Vegas and would not fly economy on a TED plane.

Baze

cerealmarketer

The passenger's original Facebook post fills in a lot of the timing questions.


From what I gather, one way the nefarious act could have been executed:

A United agent going onto the the site / app via a personal cell phone and changing the reservation, so the act of cancellation couldn't be traced to the agent. All you need is a record locator and last name.

The pax was told her res was cancelled 1 hour 20 minutes before the flight by "United.com" - which fits with the official PR explanation that it was cancelled by the web interface.

It's also possible she was playing with the app during her time in the lounge waiting out the delay and cancelled the whole thing. But if a nefarious agent wanted to be 'clean' not hard to take a record locator and cell phone and play with things.

I give it 60% chance of shenanigans, 40% chance she made some wrong clicks.

-------------------------------------------------

"Not to belabor this, but here's my story with my TSA/Global Entry/Gold Elite boarding pass status and "X's" name in the text:

I am not given to publishing epistles on Facebook, and especially at Christmas, but now I have my very own United Airlines story to share:

Not feeling sufficiently cowed by the media debacle following its forcible and well-documented removal of a ticketed passenger from a Kentucky bound flight in April, the friendly skies of United continues to treat passengers badly, and to lie. This time, it involved United flight #788 from Houston’s Bush International Airport to Reagan National in Washington DC on December 18, 2017. And Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas). And me.

On December 3, 2017, I purchased a round trip, first class ticket to Guatemala. I selected four first class seats at time of purchase. United provided an email confirmation with a receipt and the four seat designations. Everything was fine until I returned to Houston yesterday.

After flying up from Guatemala to Houston, the last segment was flight #788 from Bush International to DC. Because the flight departure time was delayed for a late incoming aircraft from Guadalajara, I spent two hours in the United lounge in Terminal E. I was at Gate E4 an hour before departure. About 30 minutes before takeoff, a uniformed United flight attendant pulled Ms. Jackson Lee from priority boarding Line 1. They were a couple feet from me, and I heard the United flight attendant tell Jackson Lee, “Let’s get on.”

The United attendant and Jackson Lee boarded the plane first, including before the pre-boarding of uniformed military, toddlers, people with disabilities and Global Services passengers, and even a group of fellow Texas congressmen whom Jackson Lee had been talking to before she was escorted onto the plane. Line 1 boarded, but when they scanned my ticket, my seat and my reservation had been removed from the system. The gate agent could not find my seat; she could not even find my ticket or my name. She tried for several minutes to pull up my reservation, but I had been wiped from the system. The gate agent called over a second United agent who confirmed that I had no seat, not just the first class seat I had purchased, but no seat, period. I didn’t even have a reservation anymore.

The second agent asked the other agent if I was late coming in from another flight or another airline. The first agent told him no, that I had been on United, that my first segment had arrived three hours earlier, and that I had been at the gate. Then the second agent told me that perhaps I had cancelled my own reservation. I said that was impossible: I had a boarding ticket in hand and I just wanted to get home. Then he told me that “united.com has changed your reservation” and there was nothing United could do about it.

I said I wanted my seat, that I had paid a lot of miles for that seat, and that it was United’s responsibility to undo the seat assignment and return it to me, the person who had paid for it. He said no, because I had “unreserved” my seat and it had been given to another passenger, that s/he had been “upgraded.” He said I could “stand here and argue” and miss the flight or book another flight with another airline, meaning that I would lose my first class ticket and pay for a second one. I said I wanted my seat, 1A, that I had paid for and selected in early December and one that the upgraded passenger in 1A was now freeloading, literally at my expense. He said that couldn’t happen because they couldn’t “disrupt” what was already done. He offered me a $300 voucher. I said I wanted $500 and a free meal. He said, “And I want a Mercedes Benz, but that’s not going to happen.” Then he invited me to complete a United online survey when the flight was over.

The first agent went into the United reservations system and told me that one hour and twenty minutes earlier, my seat had been re-assigned. That means that at about 11:20am, a United employee went into the system, eliminated my 1A seat designation, and re-assigned it to Jackson Lee.

I was the last passenger on the plane. A Texas congressman, a nice guy, sat down next to me. He said was glad I had made it on the flight. I showed him my boarding pass with my seat, 1A, printed on it. He said, “You know what happened, right? Do you know who’s in your seat?” I said no. He told me that it was Jackson Lee, a fellow U.S. congresswoman who regularly does this, that this was the third time he personally had watched her bump a passenger. Then he asked me if I knew whom Jackson Lee represents in Congress: Bush International Airport in Houston. He apologized, saying, “Jackson Lee gives us all a bad name; it’s shameful.”

The hydraulic pump on the flight wasn’t working, so after 50 minutes stalled at the gate, passengers were invited to consult with a gate agent at the front of the plane about alternative flights. I went to the front, where Jackson Lee was in my seat. I took a picture. I told a flight attendant, the one who had pre-boarded Jackson Lee that I knew why I had been bumped.

Five minutes later, a flight attendant sat down next to me and asked if I was going to be a “problem” on the flight. I asked if she heard me shouting or complaining. She said no, but I had taken a photo. (Taking photos is not illegal: if I had been a happy constituent of Jackson Lee and had asked to take a photo with Jackson Lee, she would happily have complied.) The flight attendant said that security would remove me from the plane if I “created problems.” I said I just wanted to get home. I said to her, to paraphrase, “Why should someone get a seat I paid for?” She responded that the person had Global Services status. In fact, Jackson Lee boarded even before Global Services was invited to board, not to mention that the first class seat was mine regardless of Jackson Lee’s priority status.

The flight attendant went back to the front of the cabin and I spent the next five minutes wondering if I was going to be escorted off the plane by an armed security guard. The flight took off and landed late at Reagan National in DC.

United lied to me, repeatedly. They put Jackson Lee on the plane and then tried to blame it on a late incoming flight, another airline, my cell phone, united.com, Global Services, and on everybody but the United employee who deliberately erased my seat, my ticket, and my name from the system in order to accommodate a member of Congress who repeatedly bullies his/her way into favored status.

United has some wonderful employees, like the gate agents at Reagan National and some flight attendants who, if there’s a war, I want on my side. But unfortunately, what one most remembers is the humiliation and expense wrought by United, who apparently believes that we all should be lucky to be flying the friendly skies with an airline that treats the paying public like dirt.

"

docbert

Right, now read that same claim with the context being a gate agent who is looking at a single flight that they are responsible for. Ticket not in the system *for this flight*. Don't have a reservation *for this flight*.

Again, I have no idea what really happened - nobody except United does (and you can guarantee they know exactly what happened!). I'm just saying that the idea of her changing flights via the app (which is what UA initially claimed occurred, and apparently someone from UA provided a screenshot of their systems showing) still fits everything that has been claimed. I can very much see a UA agent downgrading someone in a situation like this (they shouldn't, but I can see it happening). I can't see them pulling the ticket entirely - that just makes zero sense on so many levels.

jsloan