Artpen100

Glad it worked for you. But my experiences were an IRROPs on an interline ticket where neither airline seemed to be able to put me on any of the reasonable other itineraries because of some glitch in the way their systems communicated or the way the ticket was issued by the well-known OTA, and the more recent and last time was for an international, interline (Star Alliance) part business, part economy ticket when I just wanted a 1 day change, same itinerary, which online on all three websites was available in the same fare codes, and I was happy to pay the change fee, but both airlines were unable to process it without forcing me into a fully refundable fare codes at a price of at least several thousand dollars more.And yet none of them could explain why, they just said the other airline's system was not allowing it.And the OTA was unable to help in either case.I just think the OTA was selling tickets that the airlines' systems did not fully support like regular tickets issued by the airline, so if anything went wrong, it was not easy to fix.Interline tickets and different fare classes probably made it worse.On the IRROPs, I eventually was able to get a supervisor to force a change, and on the latter situation, after a claim to the DOT showing this violated the COCs and the OTAs ticket change policy (and a false statement by one of the airlines), I got a full refund.But if I had not been a pretty savvy and persistent frequent flyer, I don't think those would have gotten resolved.Did I expect either of those issues? Not at the time.Like the person in the article, though, I learned the hard way that there are issues can arise with OTA purchased tickets that no one warns you about (unless you read a lot of FT).And once you learn that, you may not wish to purchase from one again.

narvik

We are getting our information from rather sloppy journalism, so I wouldn't want to assume that those words ("Nobody flies for free") were the FIRST thing the GA uttered. We have no way of telling what words were exchanged, and seem to automatically sympathize with the passenger. I'm not so sure that is appropriate, but alas, we simply don't know.

I've only read three articles on this case, and here's my scoring:
NYT: terrible journalism, seems to be original source. D-
NBCnews: decent. No overly emotional bias and negativity toward UA either: B+
Flyertalk (Jeff Edwards): even worse than NYT article, wow! Just regurgitating NYT article with no effort whatsoever: F (added: apparently the quote "Nobody flies for free" above the headline of this article has been removed since posting)

Wise-Broccoli8301

^ I find the NYT article fine. The problem is the kneejerk reaction your average non-regular flyer will have.

With that said I think more of the focus should be about how sketch this TA seems to be. This isn't your Orbitz or Expedia which are pretty much Tier 1 OTAs or even tier 2. This TA just looks sketch as heck.

twb3

Does UA give its Gate Agents the authority to allow a passenger with an invalid ticket to be transported? Seems unfair to blame the GA for not doing something they probably can't do anyway.

Finkface

This. I highly doubt it. You are asking someone to risk their job for a total stranger and for a sob story that they have no way of knowing is even true. Is that woman going to supoort the GA if (when) s/he gets fired for this? Yeah, I doubt it.

Plus, someone suggested...
I am sure UA would totally reward that GA for not only letting someone fly for free but also paying another customer $600 to take a different flight.

All because one woman needs to get to her dying mother. I am not diminishing her grief but she is one of thousands who are flying for equally tragic and important emergencies every day. Or not, because they simply can’t afford it. UA should give them free flights too and pay someone $600 to get off because of the urgency? Airlines would be bankrupt.

And if they did, then the next news story would be from someone in the same situation saying ‘but UA did it for her and not for me’. And we would get the same ‘cruel, heartless airline’ story again.

rufflesinc

But she couldn't afford it, hence why her landlord paid, and appears to have chosen the lowest bidder.

Finkface

Exactly. And yet there are those saying that UA should have let her fly anyway and even pay another pax to deplane. As I said, I am not diminishing her grief but her story is by far not unique and to expect an airline or indeed any business to do this is delusional. If they did this, we know there are a lot of people who have even sadder stories and would expect the same treatment. Every person in similar circumstances wanting to fly to see a sick friend/relative who couldn’t afford a ticket would be crying foul when the same thing wasn’t done for them. Where do you draw the line?

But my point was that some are saying the GA should have just let her fly and even pay someone else to get off. I am sure the GA likely wouldn’t still have a job if she did that.

Mountain Explorer

She did pay for her ticket. The passenger here had ZERO intention of flying for free. The ticket was paid, the passenger never requested that it be voided. The passenger even offered to pay for it a SECOND time, in a desperate attempt to stay on the plane. Your post is nonsense. Also, there was no oversell situation here. No other passenger needed to be paid to deplane.

Finkface

For goodness’ sake. Go back and READ my post: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/29354153-post95.html
Nowhere did I suggest an oversell. I was responding to another poster who said the GA should have gone around offering other pax $600 to get off so this woman could fly. Which I said was ridiculous. Sheesh, get your facts straight on what I said, please, if we are speaking of nonsense.

And no, the passenger did not offer to pay after the ticket was voided (and therefore UA did NOT get paid as the ticket was voided).The landlord tried to do so over the phone but the flight had already left by that point.

“Back in the airport, Ms. Amrich called Ms. Prelas, sobbing. Ms. Prelas got on the phone with the gate agent and offered to pay for another ticket. I said: ‘Take my credit card. We’ll straighten this out later, but get her on that plane,’” Ms. Prelas said. The agent, she said, responded that Ms. Amrich could not get back on the plane. Ms. Prelas said she was given no explanation at the time, but United told The Times that the plane had already left by the time Ms. Prelas made that offer.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/b...?smid=tw-share

Reading is fundamental.

cjermain

I may be misreading the posts, but I don't think anyone has suggested that the GA just unilaterally let her fly.

This situation was quite unique in that they were asking someone who boarded with a valid ticket to deplane. Without the passenger's knowledge, the ticket was cancelled. This is a fantastic set of circumstances. I don't think any precedent would have been set.

I think the point is that a front line employee, upon encountering an extraordinary situation might consider various options to make things come out right. This could include a call to management to see what could be done. And if nothing could be done, or if the plane simply had to push back right away, some sympathy would have gone a long way. A good rule is: don't say things to a customer that won't look good printed in the paper tomorrow.

That said, I get the point that none of us were there, and some have suggested that the reporting is quite biased against UA. Plus almost everyone agrees that the real fault for the whole situation is with the agent. So I wouldn't judge UA too harshly.

luv2ctheworld

I don't believe the majority here is blaming the GA for doing their job. What is unfortunate is that the GA did not take this as an opportunity to help assist the traveler in distress.

The examples I cited previously all required employee(s) to go above and beyond what is considered their normal job requirements.

While none of us were there to witness the encounter, many of us feel that the perfunctory effort made by the GA was a missed opportunity by the GA (and United) to show compassion and out of the box thinking that would have at least given a more positive spin to this.

docbert

No, you're missing a few... There were close to 50 parties there at the moment of truth. The two you've listed, the (potentially) 40+ other passengers on the flight, many of whom likely had short connections in DEN. (Plus the pilots, flight attendants, etc).

If the problem had have occurred earlier then I agree with your comments, but delaying the flight whilst you sort it out isn't the answer.

Plus based on at least one of the articles, by the time someone offered to buy a new ticket the flight had already departed.

Mountain Explorer

What?? When you have a passenger that MUST be on the flight for, quite literally, a life or death situation, delaying the plane (the LAST flight of the night) by 5 or 10 minutes to sort this out is absolutely the right thing to do. Airlines delay last flights of the night VERY commonly for all sorts of reasons that are WAY less important than this one (like saving a few bucks on a hotel room)

And btw, you state that the problem occured at the last minute. Fact is, we don't actually know when the problem occured. It's entirely possible that the ticket was voided hours before departure time, allowing ample time to sort things out, but the gate agent only noticed 5 minutes before pushback, putting the passenger into an impossible situation. We simply don't know.

flyerbaby19

So now, 40 people are delayed 10 minutes. 10 of those misconnect, 2 miss seeing their dying relative because they are stuck overnight.

GrayAnderson

Honestly, I'd like to see United sue the OTA in addition to barring them from selling tickets. Won't happen, I know, but I'm sure that a sufficiently talented lawyer could come up with grounds to hit the OTA with.

The real issue here, at least on UA's end, seems to be that the ticket would have read as valid when she held it up to the reader (and thus was allowed to board) but it then somehow came back as voided afterwards resulting in her being de-boarded. That is an issue on UA's end, regardless of the OTA situation (as would the ticket being zapped if, for example, the ticket had been printed off in the previous hour or two, which seems to have been the case due to the change).

As to the question of the GA's authority, I guess the question that hits me is how they were notified post-boarding (e.g. did the headcount come back bad?), though at least in theory the voided ticket should have tripped at the gate. I have to wonder what would have happened if the plane had already backed up from the gate (since the timeline here is pretty tight). Would the plane have returned to the gate? How about once they were in the air?