Glenn Tilton "Bloggers (flyertalkers) have too much time on their hands"
 

Was just watching Richard Quest on CNN Europe right now, showing a clip of an interview between him Tilton and Smisek about the merger.

The last question Quest has was: "On the internet bloggers are all over this merger. Flyertalkers are having a hard time determining if one airline is destroying the best or if the other is making the worst decision in its history."

Glenn Tilton immediately replied "I'd reply that these online bloggers have way too much time on their hands."

Whilst I don't fly UA since a few years, I have to say if I did fly them right now, that'd be enough for me to never set foot on a UA aircraft in the future.

Does Tilton not realize that flyertalkers make up a large part of his most lucrative customer base and may legitimately have worries after seeing how the Delta/NW merger went down.

If he cared what we thought UA would be a better company.

Thank goodness Smisek will run the merged airline.

Folks you can't have it both ways. Tilton cannot be both an idiot and be aware of FlyerTalk.

While I think Tilton is smart, I suspect he is at best vaguely aware of FT.

Well, how is that not true?

What a putz. We are just better at multi-tasking than he is. Right now, I'm on a conference call, putting together a ppt and typing this. What's he doing?

We have too much time on our hands because we have to be at the airport so darned early in case the security lines are too long. Not our fault. I'm sitting in the SEA RCC right now for that reason. But I can't complain too loudly, I got an Op Up to Business for my flight to NRT when I checked in at the RCC. Thank you, RCC.

So Richard Quest referred specifically to flyertalkers? I don't really watch his show, but I'm surprised. A lot of his audience wouldn't get the reference and in any case I wouldn't expect mainstream media to give credit to online authorities. Plus the whole idea of him reading FT makes me smile :)

Incredible. Of all the possible ways to respond to that question, he finds the least politic, most insulting, and unproductive way.

Just goes to show... :td:

hahaha thats what i'm doing right now too! but I'm actually doing a data analysis and on a conference call, not a PPT.

In fairness, you should thank the GA who Op Up'd you, since the odds that it was done by the RCC is remote.

Dave

I think there are a lot of legitimate concerns being discussed; of course there is also 25 pages of discussion mostly on the font on the side of the planes. :D

Large part? I don't think I agree. I'd bet there are 100's of GS and 1000's of 1K's that have never heard of FT. I'd say certainly "representative" of the larger "lucrative customer base".

Still, as I said, many legitimate concerns have been raised and I know I have my own.

Hopefully someone at both CO and UA are watching/reading.

The real question is when will AA announce DEQM to poach disenfranchised CO/UA elites :p

Now would be a good time, right? :p

Every business should be so fortunate to have a bunch of loyal customers sitting around nitpicking them. It shows that we're committed to the airline and want to make it better. There aren't many businesses I care enough about to visit online forums to gripe about. Anyway, while there's a lot of whining on FT, most of the discussion is helping each other out with various aspects of flying on UA. Isn't that a good thing from their point of view?

And if you're listening, Mr. Tilton and Mr. Smisek, please please please keep Economy Plus on your new merged airline -- you know, the one with the ugly livery ;).

Paging UnitedPR, care to put a spin on your boss's comments? ;)

Pesonally, I think he's spot on and I'm not offended in the least. But clearly some are.