ezefllying

This summer, I worked as an intern at United in both corporate and frontline environments. Having lurked on FT for a while, I've finally created an account, and at the urging of jhayes_1780 and Downunder girl, I'm starting a thread to discuss my experience, including the workplace observations, travels, and memorable on-the-job events that went along with it. This thread will thus be a mix of perspectives from a fresh pan-company employee and trip reports from a mildly reckless travel-loving college student who enjoyed, for three short months, United's non-rev benefits.

As a college-student intern in a small corporate division but loaned to a major UA hub for half of my employment, I had a virtually unique opportunity to see all facets of the airline's operation. At the office, I worked closely with several senior executives, sometimes having more substantive tasks than those time-honored intern traditions of forwarding mail, making coffee, and telling callers that this was not Reservations. At the airport, I worked side-by-side with check-in and gate agents in Customer Service and with Operations staffers and supervisors on and near the tarmac, taking the opportunity to talk with as many UA employees from as many departments, and of as many pay grades, as possible. I also worked directly with customers. The diversity of passenger needs and expectations concerning commercial air travel was genuinely surprising, and I gained a better appreciation for those various interests.

In effect, I was non-affiliated: a student with no union affiliation and no apparent agenda other than to gain experience, I was invited to many sensitive corporate discussions, and was even allowed, at least as a courtesy, to draft my own thoughts; a fresh face with no oversight capacity, no management authority, and a clear aversion to taking sides in management-labor disputes, I was generally welcomed by frontline employees so long as I avoided union tasks; with an uncanny knowledge of mileage runs, aircraft-specific exit-row seating, and the likelihood of getting an E+ op-up at the gate, I think I was a net benefit to passengers.

I will be expressly careful to protect the privacy and confidential information of United Airlines, its executives, its employees and its customers. Many of my conversations with United’s management and employees were implicitly in confidence, and I respect the right of the airline, its employees, and, of course, its customers to have their private information and interactions with me remain private, and I recognize that I have both a moral and legal obligation to keep them so. At least initially, I will not mention which airport I worked at. Based on context, it shouldn’t be very hard to guess, but I’d like to make myself somewhat less identifiable to those finding the thread in passing. (If any UA employees would be interested in reviewing my posts to ensure they protect the privacy and information of United and its employees and customers, please PM me.)

Finally, for those with a pre-existing resentment of employee travel privileges, this thread may not be good for your blood pressure. In 100 days, I used my non-revenue standby benefits to the fullest possible extent.

For an avid traveler on a college-student's budget, mine was the internship of a lifetime. My information will be anecdotal and is not to be misconstrued as representing the policies or opinions of United Airlines, its management, or its employees. However, a lot here may be valuable to you; even as a frequent traveler and even-more-frequent FT reader, I was stunned by what I didn't know. And, even if you do have all the knowledge, my (minor) shenanigans and major diversions -- I had never before made a weekend roundtrip to Europe or forgotten to tell my parents that I'd made a day trip to Argentina -- may be worth the read.

And, of course, I'll be happy to answer any questions I can while respecting the private nature of any proprietary information to which I may have had access.

You can find:

Part I: Giving the Finger on page 3 of the thread
Part II: The Office on page 5
Part III: The Road Warrior on page 7
Part IV: Pass & I.D., or The Pizza Run on page 9
Part V: Customer Day One on page 10

FriendlySkies

Welcome to FlyerTalk, ezefllying! It's always nice to have somebody that has worked for UA at some point. I'm sure I'll have a question or two, and it's nice knowing that somebody can answer them.

kcvt750

x 2. And a very well-written first post!

gomike

Ok tell us what hub you were at Also were you one of the people in the sky blue polos chasing down tall people trying to pimp E+ ?

sinoflyer

ezefllying, let me start off by saying how impressed I am with your style of writing. Much good luck to you as you continue to develop toward your career goals. And as a former airline employee myself, who between undergraduate and graduate schools experienced similar recklessness with pass travel, I am anxious to hear your non-rev tales. Cheers!

mahasamatman

I don't suppose you have an "in" with Inventory Management...

Welcome to the forum.

FriendlySkies

That could come in very handy..

By the way, I've got an ORD-LHR in two weeks that is still waitlisted. Any chance you can call your IM friends to clear me

ezefllying

I'll leave it to y'all to guess the hub.

Clothing-wise, after wearing my slightly delicate graduation-gift steel blue suit to the first day of work at the airport, I managed to put a good two-foot-long tear straight down the back after jumping under a rope line. After an emergency trip home to grab a pair of slacks, I resolved never again to show up wearing anything other than a tie, an oxford, and a pair of loose-fitting khakis.

So I spent the next month looking like a supervisor. Not that I ever suggested I was one, but I sure got a lot of deference from the cleaning crews whenever I'd walk up the jetbridge and tour a laying-over aircraft.

aluminumdriver

Hope you enjoyed your internship and learned some things at the same time. I think the United internship program is one of the best programs we have. Good luck with your future endeavors.

AD

karung99

ezefllying Welcome to FT,

Looking forward to read your posts, start with some info on "Inventory Mgnt"

karenkay

welcome to ft. ^ look forward to reading more about your experiences!

Pryde987

Can you comment on the digital contractors/developers United uses and why it always seems they use the cheapest contractor they could find?

karung99

Hope we are not scare ezefllying away with all these questions

Jimgotkp

Do you mind me asking if this internship of yours was an undergrad intern or grad intern? If it was an undergrad intern, when did you apply? I tried to look on United's Intern site various times throughout the year even last year but never saw any openings

ezefllying

Thanks for your kind notes.

Other than conveying a request for Detroit Res (DTWRR) to turn an AAA-BBB itinerary into a CCC-DDD routing for a soldier on emergency leave and once accidently opening row 12 of an A320 to anyone – you’re welcome, ye status-less – for seat selection for an hour at the office while handling one of our consultant’s reservations, I didn’t have anything to do with rule exemption, and I never got in touch with Revenue Management.

A coordinator at the office was constantly on the phone with them, but it was pretty much understood that the intern was not going to be getting yield-policy authority. I think they thought I had too many “big ideas” as it was.