Interesting experience yesterday.

Was flying SFO-EWR. The place I needed to be is supposedly 40 min from EWR, and 1.5 hrs from JFK (turned out it only took about 1hr from JFK. Had I only known). Got to the airport, and found out the flight is delayed for at least 1.5 hours because of equipment problem, and in fact, there's no plane. They've already announced 2 delays

Now, we all know what this can turn into: one 45 min delay after another until 3 hours later the flight is cancelled. So, I went up to the counter agent to see if there are any alternatives. Turns out there's a flight to JFK in about an hour, it's on time, and there's even one F seat available! Great! I asked her to switch me.

At the same time, a couple was at the next agent attempting to do the exact same thing. THAT agent told them that the JFK flight is also delayed and in fact all NY flights are delayed! So, I said to my agent, if the JFK flight is delayed, maybe I should stay with the original flight. She "shush'ed" me and whispered that everything is fine, there's no delay, but the flight is over-sold and they won't be able to switch people to it. This means the other agent actually LIED so she didn't have to deal with telling them no! I only hope they didn't overhear my conversation.

My agent said she'll keep both my itinerary just in case. So I walked to both gates. No plane at the EWR gate, and a plane at the JFK gate. So, naturally I picked the flight where there's an actual plane. There were lots of angry people at the gate trying to get seats, especially since they oversold C and 2 pax had to get down-graded. But, it took off perfectly on time. I had a great .ps flight in F, and got into NY just a few min behind the scheduled time.

I love United because they are so nice to me, but it does seem wrong to lie to other passengers. Anyone else experienced this?

I don't see why it was such a big deal for the agent to tell the other couple the flight was oversold. Seems wrong to me, but I wasn't there. I've seen GA's be completely honest with pax about the cause of a delay (i.e. weather, ATC, anything else out of UA's control) only to have a the pax tell the GA that he/she was lying to him. If agents continuously are being told by pax that they are lying, then why not make up a story to avoid confrontation to begin with.

Because maybe lying is wrong?

I'm not so sure. Ever watch the show "Airline" and see people's reactions to a flight being oversold? It's not something people who don't travel much generally understand.

That said, lying is always a bad idea in customer service. If you're caught lying, your problem just got exponentially larger.

No doubt I agree that it IS wrong, just trying to shed some light based on my experiences in an airport.

Tell that to the hundreds of pax whose BS stories the agents need to deal with every day...

Whe I flew US years ago, they were famous (at least with me) for fabricating stories. One time in PHL we were told that there was a flight delay due to a problem with "one of the lavatories". I walked around the bend of the terminal and could see the aircraft from a window a few hundred feet away; there were two US maintenance types with a wing flap under repair! Strange place for a "lavatory" repair...

Another time, we were being delayed from PHL to MHT due to a mechanical. Delays keep rolling up hour by hour; finally I start thinking about BOS as an alternative, as flights to BOS were hourly and this was the last flight to MHT of the day. I headed over to the BOS gate and just as I got to the counter the BOS flight shows "cancelled" for equipment problems. The gate agent sees my ticket, winks at me and says "just wait here". I'm confused but I wait. She directs the BOS passengers over to a customer service desk. Once they're all gone, she changes the gate sign to MHT, with my flight number, and asks me to please be quiet about what I just saw.

I understood exactly what they were doing, and it made perfect sense (get the passengers to MHT as the BOS passengers could catch a later hourly flight), but it was lying, pure and simple.

That's and equipment swap not lying, the BOS flight was cancelled technically due to a mechanical.

Anyhow, I'd be curious to get some feedback on this issue from any agents that are out there (UA or not). This is not my thread, but maybe its more appropriate to put this in another forum since this is not an issue specific to UA. All airlines' agents lie at one point or another.

"The reservation agent on the phone guaranteed me that I could have a first class seat instead of 32B if I just asked for it at the gate. Premier...what's Premier?"

Like that?

Didn't you know? That's where the lav is on US!

If an individual finds dealing with BS'ing PAX (i.e., the general public) a problem, then maybe being a GA is not a wise career choice.

Cool. I'll let them all know.

Just to clarify my earlier post. I don't have any problem with some of these fabrications that GA's have to make. They are usually done to avoid chaos among the people flying on that plane. I only meant to state that it happens, and that I have experienced it first-hand. Sometimes honesty may not be the best policy, particularly if gate panic and/or hostility needs to be avoided. But I agree, if the GA gets caught, then they have a much larger problem.

Yup. As happened to the GA at IAD last week for my repeatedly delayed UX IAD-MHT who wouldn't be truthful about the known length of the delay even when directly asked by me at the podium. He repeatedly posted estimated departure times that were way off those given by reservations. (e.g., He posted 22:00 when reservations said 23:00 and the replacement plane wasn't scheduled to land until 22:40. The flight eventually left around midnight after a few more of these incidents.)

It got so bad that eventually I was making announcements to the gate area regarding departure time, and a few times I called the flight status line, set it up for the flight, and then put my cell phone on speakerphone for the whole crowd to hear.

Needless to say the GA then had no credibility whatsoever with the pax.

I have no tolerance for not being honest with pax. I don't give a d**n it it's to prevent hostility or panic, I want the truth. I'm pretty careful not to falsely accuse of dishonesty, but once dishonesty is verified I have no qualms about making corrections even if humiliating, writing complaint letters, etc.

Truth...
Truth is not always fact. Aircraft swaps happen all the time, as well as the person who makes the call for the departure time may post an early time hopeing for an aircraft swap (it beets posting a later time, getting the swap, and having no passengers at the gate to board, and leaving with an empty plane.)

Mechanicals of a "lav" while working on a wing. Who is to say the wing may have been worked on while the lav was. Maybe the wing issue was a deferable item, and the lav was not?

Passengers who demand to know the TRUTH, even the most savvy passengers would not understand all of the complexities that goes into quoting a departure time. ATC delays are perfect example. FAA quotes a wheels up time for a 13:00 dptr at 17:35. UA anticipates (based on past ATC delay experience) that they may get a "move up" to 15:00. UA posts a 15:00 time...maybe it rolls to 17:35...maybe to 19:00, but if they are not ready for 17:35, then that slot goes to AA or another UA flight...one that is prepared. ON the other hand, it is safer for the passengers to have a delay EXTEND, then to be reduced. The easy update page that says your flight is delayed 5 hours causes you to not show up to the airport. A new crew/aircraft/slot is found earlier, and they move the time up to on time...you can't get to the airport in time, and you are furuious that the plane left earlier than was sent to you...and you have the page stored to shove in the agents face.


The "system" is broke, but it is pretty good...the obvious fixes may cause more harm then good.