Winter from Hell?
 

All here know that there are many employees not happy about their current labor agreements - itching for the chance to renegotiate.

There have been anecdotal reports of cancellations and delays in recent days seemingly related to labor actions which I'd characterize as "strictly by the book" actions.

I may have witnessed and overheard such an action yesterday . . . though I'm reluctant to say where (small station).

We were seemingly all loaded and ready to go 10 minutes prior to departure - in fact the GA had already wished us a good flight and was clearly ready to close the door. All that was needed was a fuel chit. After several minutes the FO come back to check on the hold up.

I was on a 752 in 6C just in front of door 2L. The conversation I overheard went something like this: "(FO) What's the deal with the fuel slip. (GA) I've already called down 4 times, I'll check again. (FO) We're all ready to go up here - I'm gonna head back up. (GA to Purser) I thought their slowdown was supposed to be on the weekend . . . looks like they decided to start early!"

Lo and behold the fuel chit showed up on the strike of the minute we were supposed to depart. The GA added a comment like "wow, he timed that just perfect" as she closed the door.

Anybody else here any whisperings about work slowdowns or similar - or did I just read to much into a partial conversation between perhaps largely uninformed parties?

Absolutly unreal. If they decided half-... and delay projects at work because I wanted more money, I would be promptly fired.

I haven't heard anything, but what you say does not surprise me one bit.

I'm confused, how does a fueler not doing good at his job have to do with anything? I'm pretty sure fuelers like ASIG do not have any sort of a contract or union.

2 weeks ago I was sitting next to a dead heading pilot (737 FO). She was talking about the overall mood with the employees and how it's pretty much in the dumps.

She asked me if I've had a lot of flights lately without Ch9. Ironically, 2 out of the last 4 UA flights for me did not. She smiled and shook her head and said UA pilots know that Ch9 is unique to UA and many customers love it. According to her, pilots are starting to leave it off more and more as they feel this is one way for them to "get back at management".

To me, this is an absolute pathetic attitude. I understand employees have gotten the raw end of the deal here, but don't take it out on the customers!

:mad:

-Ualisthebst

Hmm, funny you mention that, I have had CH9 turned off a lot of late. But, on the other hand I've had a run of some of the best cabin crews I've had in a long time.

Hey Yeah! I don't fly a lot, but every time I've flown UA (and listened), Channel 9 has been on (perhaps lucky?). Then this week, two flights (ICN-NRT and NRT-ICN) and it wasn't on! Verrrrry interesting! :confused:

I have. :td: :mad: :td:

Have I heard stuff? Unfortunately, yes. Have I experienced this? No, not noticeably, I would probably have a "chat" with the pilot and end up getting kicked off for telling him my view.:D Do I think they will be able to organize anything big enough and actually follow through with it? Nopers.

This kind of idiotic protest is ridiculous. The "let's show them attitude" is inconveniencing us (the passengers) the most, and we are NOT the enemy. Why can't they understand that?

Care to elaborate? :confused:

Not all employees are like this. Many have had their issues with UA for years and continue to provide good service to customers.

However, I do believe that United will never recover from the constant damage done by the "bad apple" faction of their front line employees. Until the company cycles through a generation of employees, United won't have a chance of ever getting to the service levels seen at carriers with good labor relations.

I have had CH 9 off several times the past two months. Bloody pathetic on the part of the crew. How is this getting back at management? It's a direct affront to the customer. Talk about flying the fiendly skies.

Exactly, something they just don't understand. Somehow some of them have the attitude that the customer is the enemy, and that somehow relates to management. I guess they think the more we complain and the less management can do about it the more they are showing management. Sad, sad, sad...

I confirm what others are saying.

I'm not arguing in favor or against this behavior one way or the other, but somehow the rationale seems pretty straightforward. Why does it have to be that the employees view the customers as "enemies"? The customers provide United with revenue, and if the customers aren't happy, the revenue goes elsewhere. In this case, if customers fly UA because of CH9 and the crew removes CH9, some (marginal) customers may choose not to fly, thus the crew affects UA's bottom line. I'm not saying it's a good system, but I can understand the logic on some level (and yes, it's easy to see how this could backfire).

Someone with more experience with labor relations (me = none) can probably speak to what methods are more effective than this (I'm sure they exist).