UA Premium Service agents (GS, Polaris & UC agents) to wear gold banadana or ties

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Jul 21, 2022, 12:37 pm

#46

fumje

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Join Date: Aug 2015

Posts: 11,461

Quote:

Originally Posted by milepig

Is any of this related to the "red coat" crew that seems to appear when an airport is experiencing meltdown? I tend to see them when, for example, the rebooking line is massive and they walk down it with ipads, looking you up and saying things like "you've already been rebooked on fight xxx and gate yyy you should just head down there." It tends to make the lines much smaller. Another case was trying to depart Tahiti when the service was just new. The arrival of our bird was massively delayed. A red coat person appeared and looked us up to see that we had to connect to ORD in SFO and told us our connection had been changed - information that hadn't yet made it to the app- and almost as importantly as it was very hot and crowded that they'd arranged to have the air conditioned Air Tahiti Nui stay open late until our departure.

Are you using 'red coat' figuratively in the DL sense, or do you mean they actually wear red coats? I have never seen UA staff with red as part of the uniform.

The staff I have seen handling arriving pax for flights with many misconnects do not wear gold scarves; usually they look like part of the general customer service pool.

edit add: at an outstation such as PPT, I don't believe UA have any employees; that would have been contract staff.

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Jul 21, 2022, 1:20 pm

#47

kirkwoodj

Join Date: Apr 2009

Location: Houston

Programs: UA GS 2.6MM & Lifetime UC, Qantas Platinum, Hilton Lifetime Diamond, Bonvoy Platinum, HawaiianMiles

Posts: 8,695

Quote:

Originally Posted by fumje

I seem to recall that CO had redcoats waiting at the gate for connection issues. They wore red coats.

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Jul 21, 2022, 1:23 pm

#48

milepig

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Join Date: Nov 2004

Location: ORD

Programs: UA 1K

Posts: 16,901

Quote:

Originally Posted by fumje

Actual red coats.

At PPT, i think this may well have been someone who was a UA employee as part of the start up crew - they must have had some actually UA employees there at the beginning?

Last edited by milepig; Jul 21, 2022 at 1:43 pm

Jul 21, 2022, 1:33 pm

#49

Kacee

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Join Date: Apr 2013

Location: PHX

Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by kirkwoodj

I seem to recall that CO had redcoats waiting at the gate for connection issues. They wore red coats.

There were (are?) also the redcoats at EWR (attempting) to police the security lines.

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Jul 21, 2022, 2:44 pm

#50

FlyingHoustonian

Join Date: Oct 2007

Location: Catania, Sicily/South Jersey (PHL)/Houston, Texas/Red Stick/airborne in-between

Programs: United Global Svs, AA PlatPro, WN RR, AZ/ITA Freccia, Hilton Diam, Bonvoy Gold, Hertz Prez, IHG

Posts: 3,548

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kacee

There were (are?) also the redcoats at EWR (attempting) to police the security lines.

Were they marching on Trenton? LOL thanks I'll be here all week.

I actually mentioned coats when talking to the rep on my flight to KCMO last Friday and she said no coats for United just the yellow for the GS reps (or as others here noted premium pax etc). She specifically said GS but regardless was very nice. I used to get the great reps in Philly to meet me for every single flight (I took on average 75-80 flights a year from PHL-IAH and then the same back for a few years) but that was all pre-COVID. The few times there were irrops they would come just hand me a ticket on AA. It was great. I never noticed the yellow hanky LOL

We then talked about the Hawai'ian style floral shirt the gate agent wore and how awesome those shirts area and how it is not just HNL etc. that gets to wear them but the yellow bandana staff must dress up.

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Aug 10, 2022, 8:19 pm

#51

limey1K

Join Date: May 2011

Programs: UA GS, UA 2MM, HH LT Diamond, Bonvoy Titanium

Posts: 1,803

I spoke to my fav GS agent in person this week and she told me that the yellow scarf now means that the agent is GS and Club trained and they are now supposed to rotate between a pure GS function and staffing the Club . She also told me that they are trying to spin up new GS agents but that calls roll to non-GS agents at times and they know that's not optimal for GS trying to get help. Other tidbit was that if you see an employee with a yellow lanyard (instead of blue) that indicates they're a new hire and currently in training..

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Last edited by limey1K; Aug 10, 2022 at 10:01 pm