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Jeff spoke at a Houston conference today. An energy related audience so a lot of broad brush strokes but a few nuances....

- Working very hard personally to make sure the culture is elevated - noted there was a lot of mistrust as a result of the events earlier in decade - making it work takes up a lot of his time
- Believes all the lie flats and AVODs will do no good if service is "surly" and goal is to be a customer service company first
- Reiterated the "make employees happy to come to work" philosophy
- Fuel, fuel, fuel
- Noted ANA JV will have reciprocal elite recognition; he seemed to imply something more than Star Alliance level but don't remember announcement detailing
- Working through UA legacy fleet complexity will take time
- Doing the work to make the technology best in industry to enhance delivery
- Highlighted he believes loyalty program is best and in good shape (implying not a lot will be changed)

A group of us had a chance to talk beforehand...GS's were assured their attention would continue, some were frustrated with cross CO/UA elite inconsistencies -- to which the new online tool was his quick response -- they loved it.

I probed on bringing the UA Business standard closer to BizFirst and eventually Asian competition -- he was quite emphatic the way they deliver the product will change for the better.

Hard product will be in great shape but wants to avoid things like getting a tray plopped down when you're in a premium intl cabin -- really going to focus on service delivery. But said it will take time.

He referred to the UA intl premium product as IPTE or some similar acronym -- anyone knows what that is?

Separately a biz first concierge I spoke with said they plan to expand the program -- take that with a grain of front line salt.

No I did not ask about meal order taking -- though sense he is deep enough in the weeds he'd have a view. And avoided the cabin mix discussion as that's non public info you don't want to put him on the spot about.

But overall he was very thoughtful-- not flippant -- and very much has service delivery at the top of his day to day, fuel aside.

IPTE = International Premium Travel Experience

Interesting! Thanks for the report ^

All good. And I know it will take some time.
But as I'm typing this I'm sitting here at SFO watching a UA GA berate an older pax for handing her the wrong BP. (Sigh.)
I hope the culture elevation happens sooner rather than later.

-Those 1st 3 were re-iterated in the (I think February) Hemispheres interview w/the twins pilot/FO article; all the tweaking/ improvement in hard/soft product is great, but you have to have people feeling good about their work/future before their effects impress the customers. That's a plus for Him to note it.

So this was the "meeting" with Jeff....

Any developments on the meal-taking front? :)

No I did not ask about meal order taking -- though sense he is deep enough in the weeds he'd have a view. And avoided the cabin mix discussion as that's non public info you don't want to put him on the spot about.

I thought the OP had answered that Q on his post, why would anyone ask again? :confused:

This is very good to hear. It is so important for UA to stand for something in the marketplace and, at the moment, it stands for poor service (whether justified or not). From reading the OP, it does appear that senior management recognizes that UA cannot compete in WN's market and that they have identified a market where UA can compete - one of a good, solid product with good service delivery.

Who knows? If he delivers on these matters, FT may be reduced to posts from people outraged that their pre-take off drink was only half full and that they demand their money for the whole flight back to recompense.;)

Maybe you missed the :) at the end of my post?

OP, thanks for sharing information!
Hope the bad apples would be changed to good ones or thrown away soon!;)

Unfortunately, I think the only solution to the international service problem is to get rid of 90% of the senior FA's. In F recently on a SFO-LHR-SFO trip, they knew all the tricks to avoid work and provide sloppy service. Didn't even bother to pass through the tiny cabin with water refills once meal service was done.

The menu said I could pace the meal to my preference. In one direction I tried to do just that and got the meal at exactly the same time and at exactly the same rate as everyone else. The passengers were there for the FA's convenience, clearly.

I don't think you'd actually need to do it, as much as convince them that they're at risk of it being done.

If they had no protection from being fired -- no protection conveyed by seniority nor union membership -- they'd work harder just knowing that.

It's just human nature to relax when you can, and work hard when you must. Nothing specific to FAs.


edit: I'd like to add that with 700000 BIS miles on UA metal, I've had only 1 complaint/issue with one of the UA FAs, and it was minor, and I think that's pretty impressive on their behalf. Their service is sometimes great, sometimes good, sometimes acceptable, but never have I thought it was unacceptable.

Perhaps we will see the practice of delivering meals to F & C pax on trays, disappear. ^


FWIW, on my last intl C trip (ORD-FRA-ORD), service from all of the FAs, especially the purser was excellent. The purser also shook my hand as I left the aircraft, thanking me for flying so much on UA ^

I was on PVG-SFO once and had a 747 upper deck C seat. When I got there I found that there were only about 6 of us there. The FAs also commented on the light load up top and semi-joked that on the bus on the way in they were thinking about how to close the upper deck so they wouldn't have to work!

On a flight out from SFO-PVG I had my seat changed unbenknownst to me at the gate to lower deck (saw the GA reprinting a lot of BPs). When I boarded and noticed the change, I complained and they said that there was a lot of water leaking in the upper deck and they needed to move everyone down. I insisted on the upper deck anyway and they gave it back. When I got up there I saw no water leaking, mentioned it to the FAs and they knew nothing about such a thing.

The old "elevator is broken" trick to close down upper deck I have also seen :(

I agree with RichardInSF. My most recent SFOLHR trip in F was extremely disappointing and I keep feeling that the overall service in international F has certainly gone downhill over the past 12 months.

On this particular flight the meal was rushed, no drink/water refills, and although I had told the purser not to wake me for breakfast, I was given a dirty look when I asked for a cup of coffee an hour before landing.

I realize that the new hard product in F is only marginally better than the new C, however there is such a great opportunity to make the smaller F cabin (on the B763 and B77Q) feel special. Come on, UA...