Ua1943 iah -> sna 6.21.19 -- Only one fresh choice item per customer?
Jun 22, 2019, 2:04 pm
#16
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 2,531
So I happen to be personal friends with the lady who runs the entire BOB program and had dinner with her last night. One of the major issues is that flight attendants give out so much food without charging or ringing it up in the system. Since there's no data on things that flight attendants just give away, the operations data thinks that United is throwing away tons of food from every flight, so underestimates how much fresh food needs to be boarded. It's a systemic problem. She regularly tells flight attendants even if you're giving it for free, at least put it in the system as a 'comp'. FAs regularly complain to her that there's not enough food on board, but they're preventing the airline from knowing how much is actually eaten.)
Putting on my "I'm sure I know less about this industry than the people actually running it" hat:
Seems like they could take a sampling of 1,000 flights (or whatever) and physically count the returns. That would give them a good ratio of sales : comps which would help them extrapolate for all the other flights.
Or turn it around the other way, give the flight attendants a button on their handheld that they push every time someone requests an item and it's sold out. That might have a more direct connection in FA's minds of "oh, if I consistently push this button then more meals will be boarded and I will have to say no and disappoint people less" rather than trying to understand the connection between under-reporting comps and catering loads which (while I'm sure FAs are capable of understanding) may not be top-of-mind and also there may be a fear of reprisals for inappropriately comped items and thus a disincentive to create a paper trail.
Also gives UA better data....even if FAs reported all comps perfectly, all UA would know is "we had X items left over" or "we sold out". With the "missed sale" button, UA would have some measure of demand for those sold-out flights. Did they miss one sale in row 35? Or did they miss 20 sales as everything ran out in first few rows?
