Would FAs need to be of a certain seniority to be able to bid for working in the premium cabin and would they need to have had special training?

As a UAL employee, if you aren't happy with your experience, please send the information to Customer Care via the link below. This company is very big on using data for making decisions. The more data they have on a problem, the better the chances are that it will be fixed.

https://www.united.com/en/us/customercare/

A question was asked about F/A training. I believe that their initial training is about five weeks long at the training center then more training on flights with instructor F/As. I don't know how often they go back for recurrent training but I'd guess yearly. Us pilots go every nine months. We also have computer based training three times per month and would imagine they have something similar. There are then bulletins whenever there is new information or when clarification or reinforcement is needed on a topic.

The F/As would some very long duty days, as mentioned above. Many of their duty days would not be legal for pilots.

As far as FA training goes — it’s currently around 6 weeks, of which just three days are about service. There are 2 training round trips during the 6 weeks: a “sit here and watch the working crew” and a “try to do the service”. In person Requal is once every 18 months (ridiculous from a safety perspective, but I digress) and does not address service standards anymore. A quarterly computer based training program alleges to discuss those sorts of items, but falls comically short both in presentation and in substance.

Unlike many other airlines, UAL does not have a specially trained galley position on any flights — someone brand new out of training can and often does work these roles and it can lead to the service grinding to a halt. Likewise, the purser on domestic (including premium transcon) is not specially trained.

Only International Pursers are given extra training, along with more meetings with management to go over customer feedback about their flights. Currently the requirement is 3 years before applying and is due to be 2 should the TA pass. UAL wanted the restriction removed as they’re having a bit of a recruiting problem for IPs, despite the accompanying salary bump.

This is so far beyond unacceptable, it's almost impossible to comprehend the level of incompetence - or specifically the total lack of care - that would into these standards.

FAs can have very long days and they don't get paid for layovers. UA does not have to provide a hotel unless the connection is SCHEDULED for greater than four hours. So, if the first flight arrives on time but the second flight is delayed and the schedule is built to have a 3 hour, 45 minute connection that actually turns into a five hour connection, no hotel is provided. The FA literally has to wait in the terminal or FA "lounge." (I use the term "lounge" loosely here.) And, again, during those five hours, not one cent is earned. It can be pretty brutal...particularly in an airport like ORD that is woefully insufficient in terms of comfortable seating areas.

Pilot's duty days are not comparable to FAs duty days.

I use to write into UA everytime there was an issue like seat recline broken, wifi not working figuring they might make a note to fix it. However it started being fairly often so I stopped bothering. Same reason I don't write in every time the food is of poor quality though I did complain a few times during COVID as it had gotten ridiculously bad. I will say 99% of my messages are negative, with an occasional praise. Maybe they paint me as an especially negative person but maybe UA should look at themselves in the mirror.

Is there still a person responsible for reading it? Or is it all AI now? Compensation levels already seemed pretty random. AI can't do much worse than random. Responses are often something like "Sorry for [insert restated problem statement]. Thank you for your loyalty."

Anyways, I don't blame the FA's eventhough there are always some bad apples. It comes from the top.

Us pilots are under 14 CFR 117 for duty, rest, and flight time limitations. FAs are still under the older rules in 14 CFR 121. Their duty days can be longer and they don't have limits on the number of flight hours in a day. Sometimes, I don't know how they do it. I couldn't.

As far as airport sits, the pilots are in the same situation. We sit around the airport, too, and are only paid our per diem rate when the flight is delayed and the sit is extended. That is part of this industry. The next flight doesn't leave when it is convenient for us, it leaves when it leaves.

A customer comment/complaint is not the way to get a maintenance problem fixed. Customer service can not create a write-up in the aircraft's maintenance logbook which is always the first step in getting it fixed. Please report any such issues to a crewmember on the flight, preferable before landing. That gives us time to enter the write-up into the logbook and gives the station maintenance team time to prepare to make the repair when the airplane arrives.

For customer service problems, use the web form that I linked to above.

Additionally, it's my understanding that these issues (e.g., broken seat recline) are supposed to be addressed on-board from a customer care perspective as well, with the FAs empowered to award a specified range of miles as compensation. If you complain to customer care after the fact, you are likely going to be told that it should have been addressed to the crew on-board.

Most of my Polaris crew experiences recently are with "bad apples". Wish I could say there are some few bad ones out there and the rest are good.

Maybe I have been very unlucky on my flights. only once in a blue moon a get a United Polaris flight attendant who is willing to do their job properly. Most of the times - they do the absolutely minimum - and with bad attitude. Interestingly I have had mostly good experiences domestic, econ class. So my hypothesis is that bad service experiences are tightly related to senior cabin crew because there are no consequences to not doing their job.

And yes - It comes from the top. If United wanted to fix this behavior, retrain and incentivize their crew to offer great customer service in their premium cabins they would have done it.

It does indeed. And when one of your advertising slogans is "Good leads the Way," that tells us exactly how management feels. Clearly for UA management, "good enough" is where they have set their performance benchmark.

I've had some absolutely amazing flight attendants in Polaris or its predecessor, the United First Suite - but they were always flight attendants whom dated back to the Pan Am days. A few I asked told me they'd been working 40+ years. (I enjoyed the excellent service on routes like TLV-EWR, LAX-SYD, SFO-SYD...)

Another one that comes to mind was just a domestic flight on an internationally equipped aircraft, and the flight attendant who whilst seeming young (looks can be deceiving) had been flying for 10+ years with "Continental Airlines". Yep, we were on a 777-200. That was the same flight I greeted and congratulated the captain as it was his last flight before retirement.

So the F/As trained in the Continental days, pre-merger United days, or (my word) the Pan Am days are excellent F/As and have provided the most memorable above-and-beyond service. Perhaps United should dust off its old training manuals.

That explains a lot - the training for F/As is, apparently, "figure it out as you go along".

This also explains why the service is markedly better on some of the regional carriers, such as GoJet.

Not to minimize the less-than-glamourous working conditions (though the CLE inflight lounge is pretty hospitable at least last time I was down there) but FAs do get paid for layovers -- from the most recent contract either a base of $2.20 (domestic/Canada/Mexico/Carribean) or $2.70 (international) per hour "prorated from the time she/he is scheduled to report for duty or actually reports for duty, whichever is later and shall continue until termination of duty or flight assignment upon return to her/his home Domicile" and "These per diem rates shall be increased by five cents ($0.05) every two years after Date of Signing." (Section 5, Article A, Paragraph 1)

I've overheard some (particularly young) FAs trying to game things to maximize their per diem and minimize actual flying / "real work" -- a couple bucks an hour isn't remotely worth it to me but I guess if you're young and unburdened.

Also hotels are provided either in excess of 4 hours scheduled or if a delay is 4 hours or more from the time the delay is known (Section 5 Article B, Paragraph (1)(b)) -- acknowledging that the number of times that later provision is actually useful, particularly when rolling delays, is probably "few"

I wouldn't say it quite like this. Instead of making it personal by talking directly about the purser, I would instead complain that the service provided on that flight was not representative of what United sells and portrays as premium service. Let United determine if the purser needs retraining or if there was some other factor involved. Bottom line for OC is that the service received was NOT what United promises or wants perceived for premium class fares.

EDIT: In response to some of the other comments about bad service, I can only say that I have generally had great service in Polaris including from some very junior FAs. Flying back from LIS several years ago, we had an FA who must have been very new; she was attentive and helpful, indeed, the best FA on the flight in my opinion and I emailed United to compliment her performance.

Agree on highlighting the service failure rather than the personality issue.

Re the edit... You really can't stereotype one way or the other. I've had fantastic (borderline obsequious) service at both ends of the spectrum -- two of the more memorably positive experiences (EWR-JNB and ZRH-IAD) were with relatively senior FAs (though both of them turned out to actually live in the greater Cleveland area and commute to their respective bases) while hands down the worst J service I've ever had was also a fairly senior FA -- god knows where he was based, let alone lived but I don't think actually serving the meal is much to ask on an international flight). Actually I'd say the younger/junior FAs, as a group, tend to be more enthusiastic on average.