jamesteroh

+1 Great post.

In college, one of my favorite professors told me something you should always remember when dealing with people is to treat your customers right, because without them your company wouldn't exist and no matter how difficult a customer is always remember that a customer is not an interruption of your business but the sole reason it exists.

ORD-LIH

I'm (thankfully) not an HR rep. Nor am I a labor attorney. But my family is full of them. If I'm an at-will employee and I am fired without cause I would sue the employer alleging wrongful termination (i.e. sue for one of the aforementioned discriminatory reasons). I work for an affiliate of a financial firm that employs ~40,000 people, 99% of them "at will" they would never dare let someone go without cause or without a severance agreement to negate cause. The odds of that ending in a wrongful termination suit are as close to 100% as you're going to get. Why do you think companies conduct lay-offs of at will employees? Out of the goodness of their heart? It's to discharge massive potential liability.

That might not be true with a wal-mart cashier, but if you're going to put things in relief to private union contracts (that exist in skilled industries) you can't set up a straw-man like that.

post-script: I should note that in civil litigation over wrongful termination, courts are heavily skewed to the benefit of the employee. These cases almost always end up being settled for that exact reason.

pinniped

Let's be honest: none of this has to do with union contracts. It's about one pilot who decided to play prima donna and throw a temper tantrum until he got his way.

If the copilot offered food, then we know it's not about nutrition, hunger, etc.
If a bunch of pax offered food, then we know the pilot fully realized he was now inconveniencing a planeload of people.
Because he had multiple offers for food of his choice - from the terminal or probably even people willing to forgo their FC meals - we know it's not about the pilot failing to receive the contractually-stipulated amount of food.

People were stepping in with win-win solutions, but the pilot insisted on throwing his tantrum. I'm embarrassed when my four-year-old does it. I'd hate to see a grown *ss man do it.

I agree with the other posters who are effectively making a single generic point: the ultimate goal is client service, not legalese in a contract. I do things all the time to serve clients that technically I should not have to do, by the legalese buried deep within contracts. Yet I do it, because that makes long-term business sense AND it's the right, human thing to do.

What a shameful incident.

SteveDCA

I've been on flights that left without the meals --or parts of the meals--for F class. Because the pilot says we can't take a delay.

malgudi

That's not what the gospel (according to aluminumdriver) says ...

djs

After a pattern of this flight taking off with 1 passenger the airline is going to cancel the flight. When that happens, surely none of us will be paying your salary.

rjque

I don't think the odds of a wrongful terminations suit are anywhere close to what you have described. After all, in order to bring that suit, the plaintiff is going to have to lie and say that he or she thinks that the termination was for a prohibited reason. Not everyone is that dishonest, and employees are regularly fired without cause all over California, with no lawsuits.

And many layoffs do not require any severance package. They often come with them, but I do not think there is any rule requiring them.

(I am a lawyer, but in a completely different practice area.)

Daniel-SYD

.. and that applies to the internal divisions/organizations within UA, including their business with caterers too. Treat not just your customers well, but your fellow colleagues, business partners and associates right, and you'll end up creating a much better company.

As lhrsfo pointed out, this is all messed up because the attitude really isn't one of partnership but of conflict.

The pilot was right to raise the issue. The way he dealt with the situation was disappointing - to be treated right, you shouldn't mistreat someone else. Hopefully his approach was effective in raising the issue to be dealt with constructively by management. Does UA have ways of dealing with these situations (where was the station manager)?

jamesteroh

Yes it was a problem with catering, but I don't think the pilot acted appropriately.

Most employees would be thrilled to have their meal provided. If I was having lunch catered in for some customers and employees for a meeting and the place doing the catering forgot dessert, I wouldn't tolerate my employee delaying the lunch meeting until the dessert arrived.

I have flown in First several times this year (delta not united) when my meal choice ended up not being available by the time the FA got to my order. I didn't expect Delta to compensate me for it and one of the times that happened i was on a PAID first class ticket, not an upgrade.

The FO and several passengers offered to buy him a meal in the concourse so they could leave on time (and the food would have probably been better). The pilot was trying to be difficult.

BadgerBoi

Not to mention the fact that union bosses will eat your first-born.

Hachiko

I wasn't there, I don't know this pilot. I don't work for United (but I do fly for them).

I'm 99% sure this has everything to do with labor contracts. The UniCal operation is, as a whole, grossly understaffed. At least three of their major express carriers are understaffed, Continental is understaffed, and I'm banking United isn't optimally staffed either.

With understaffing comes contract violations. Dozens of them. Most of which our union says "well go ahead and do it, and we'll file a grievance". I personally have two grievances on file, one from December and one from January. Both of them were "rejected" by the company, and are in the next step -- who knows what that is. Our unions are so bogged down with defending contracts with regards to the mergers (UniCal, ASA/XJT, Colgan/Mesaba/Pinnacle) that day-to-day contract violations take the back burner.

So you know what we have to do? We have to defend ourselves where we can. Yes, it may inconvenience passengers but you know what? If the company doesn't want the delays to exist than they damn well should stop creating situations where they become necessary. To passengers it may just be a meal, but to employees it's our contractual right. You don't know what that pilots day looked like -- how much he flew before, how much he was flying after. He might have been screwed the last time he was in a hub trying to get a meal. It may have been something completely unrelated and violating his right to a meal was the only violation he had control over. Like it or not, we have to defend what is our right in the little ways that we can.

Two weeks ago they extended my duty day to 15.5 hours citing "weather". It wasn't weather, it was mechanical, but they coded it as weather and were thus legally able to extend us beyond normal duty periods. At hour 13.5 (two hours after I should have been in my hotel) I had gone the entire day without a true meal of any sort because we don't get stuff like that on the Express side. I can ask for a snack box from catering, but 9 out 10 times I won't get one. Yes, I bring a bag full of snacks and instant meals with me, but depending on the length of the flights I'm working I won't always get a chance to eat anything because I'm too busy taking care of my passengers. The result? 13.5 hours into my duty day, I am shaking from low blood sugar and dizzy. I have two choices: I can continue to be a great employee and get my last flight out as close to on time as possible. Or I can say .... it, you violated my contract and I don't feel well so I'm getting food, we're going out 20 minutes later than we should.

You can bet we went out 20 minutes later than scheduled. I challenge my passengers and my managers to do my job without eating for 15.5 hours and feel as if I am safely, physically capable of doing my job. Situational awareness declines when I'm so hungry I'm shaking and dizzy.

It's called Flying Safe with the labor groups. No more will we bend over backwards to help an airline that repeatedly screws us. No more will we look the other way and say you know what, maybe i can get through this. No. It's not about bread, or cookies, or silly petty arguments. It's about the fact that I am a human being and I deserve to be treated like one. So this flight is going out late so that I can actually eat. Or this flight is going out late because there is a mechanical issue I'm not going to overlook this time. This flight isn't going out at all because I am due rest.

I'm sorry traveling public, but the company is creating situations in which we cannot perform our duties to the best of our abilities because we are overworked and given minimal rest periods. We have to take what we can get.

Fly safe.

ORD-LIH

I appreciate the counter-point and the at least law-school-informed opinion. With that said I've seen people win civial awards in the 10x their annual salary range for claiming that they were fired because they were fat, or unattractive. That isn't a single anecdote. I don't know many seperations of skilled professionals (like say, an airline pilot) that don't involve either cause or severance.

I'll drop it there as I have no idea how to source data on that. I suppose I just wanted to point out that the differences between those employed under a union contract and those employed "at will" aren't as hysterical as some people always claim. There are meaningful impedements to firing problem/incompotent employees. There is also recourse with a material success rate. I haven't worked for a union since I was bagging groceries at Jewel Osco at 15... but they don't deserve universal ire as though they exist solely to protect the weak while the non-union world exists for the "strong". Darwin didn't mean his theory to apply to social systems. The private sector has HR departments, consultants and ultimately a civil system, to protect the weak.

@Hachiko, very well said and much appreciated. I always wish more people understood the real nature of these labor tensions. These things become systematic/culture within companies and industries. People should understand more how the historically difficult labor relations in the airline industry impact their experience when flying (and continues to do so today).

maracuja

+++1^

PanHam

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

@Hachiko - Thanks for your insight. Nice to have a viewpoint from someone here who is actually informed. Remember - The people denouncing the pilot are the same people who tantrum incessantly here if a snack basket isn't passed during a flight that only lasts two hours past the main meal!

Are people overly obsessed with making sure they are fed on this forum? Absolutely. There exists almost a rabid "need" for food every few hours from UA flyers (hence the snack basket fretting). Think about all the petty complaints that have surfaced over this board over catering issues - often, the OP defending their dramatic posts with the same rationale that people are perhaps attributing to the pilot - not having eaten all day, or had time to eat, and relying on a meal on the airplane. Why is it any different for this pilot? Sure, you're "paying" the United employees' salaries to fly you (ostensibly) expediently and safely, but does that really make you any better or more correct when you complain about catering issues on this forum?

Have a little empathy for the pilot.

nevansm

I wish I could walk off the plane every time I was disappointed with the "meal" I got.