United Airlines customer service

Nate, Greg and Jordan, I respect all of you, I mean that. Your contributions here that I have seen since I joined have proven you are all stand up guys. Guys this is a huge problem and you, at least Greg and Jordan, are too close to be objective in my opinion. What's happening is an uprising of sorts. What is happening to people who fly, all too often is being treated poorly, it happens a lot.

What we are seeing is people being fed up. Are they acting out? Yes. Are they doing it, as I have seen others claim, to win the lawsuit lottery, I don't think so. Are the airlines technically right? Yes they are, but the way this particular family was treated was wrong. Period. The way the doc on united got treated was wrong. Period. The industry is going to have to change. It is changing.

I respect you guys, but you are on the wrong side of this one. I would bet my retirement that history will prove it. Charge more for the tickets....fine, but don't boot me off. Charge more for the ticket....fine, but don't tell me I can't put my infant in the seat I paid for. Charge more for the ticket.....fine, but treat me with the same respect that the order taker at Chik-fil-a does for goodness sake.

People are worn down from the whole experience. Checked bags cost more, carry on is getting smaller, TSA overreach is real and people are already tense when they get to the gate. Charge more for the ticket.....fine, but take the uncertainty and humiliation out of flying. Please.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Yeah, but when is enough enough? When do you stand up to the public and tell them they are flat WRONG? If you allow public opinion to determine policy and procedures, you end up with chaos.
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It's enough when you get it right. In this instance, they didn't.

The FAs gave bad information regarding the toddler having a seat. That was completely incorrect. They also made the stupid remarks about jail and foster care. But it never had to get that far. At worst, Brian didn't know that he would have to have the seat reassigned officially to the toddler -- and even that we don't know for sure. It's not something most people would think about. If whomever he spoke to at Delta said something like, "Yeah, you can do that," he very well could have taken that as an approval.

So what was the easiest solution? Have Reservations re-assign the seat to the toddler and print a new ticket. Problem solved. All the rest would have been unnecessary. And it should have been done by the GA before they were allowed to board. All of this would have been avoided then.

Rich
 
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Mike Smith said:
Nate, Greg and Jordan, I respect all of you, I mean that. Your contributions here that I have seen since I joined have proven you are all stand up guys. Guys this is a huge problem and you, at least Greg and Jordan, are too close to be objective in my opinion. What's happening is an uprising of sorts. What is happening to people who fly, all too often is being treated poorly, it happens a lot.

What we are seeing is people being fed up. Are they acting out? Yes. Are they doing it, as I have seen others claim, to win the lawsuit lottery, I don't think so. Are the airlines technically right? Yes they are, but the way this particular family was treated was wrong. Period. The way the doc on united got treated was wrong. Period. The industry is going to have to change. It is changing.

I respect you guys, but you are on the wrong side of this one. I would bet my retirement that history will prove it. Charge more for the tickets....fine, but don't boot me off. Charge more for the ticket....fine, but don't tell me I can't put my infant in the seat I paid for. Charge more for the ticket.....fine, but treat me with the same respect that the order taker at Chik-fil-a does for goodness sake.

People are worn down from the whole experience. Checked bags cost more, carry on is getting smaller, TSA overreach is real and people are already tense when they get to the gate. Charge more for the ticket.....fine, but take the uncertainty and humiliation out of flying. Please.
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There needs to be change on both sides. Management needs to stick up for their employees. Management needs to stick up for passengers. There needs to be a balance. Everytime a story comes up, it's just outrage outrage, outrage, evil airlines. Some of which is justified, some of which isn't. I do enjoy the debate and I don't think anyone is offended. That's why we have the forum. Open discussion is a great thing.
 
How much dumber can an airline get?!

A United Airlines passenger boarded a plane in Newark believing that she was headed to Paris. Hours later, the plane touched down at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

Lucie Bahetoukilae, a French woman who does not speak English, carried a boarding pass that read, "Newark to Charles de Gaulle," reports ABC 7. She approached the gate listed on the pass, where a flight attendant scanned her ticket before she boarded the plane.
 
Mike Smith said:
Nate, Greg and Jordan, I respect all of you, I mean that. Your contributions here that I have seen since I joined have proven you are all stand up guys. Guys this is a huge problem and you, at least Greg and Jordan, are too close to be objective in my opinion. What's happening is an uprising of sorts. What is happening to people who fly, all too often is being treated poorly, it happens a lot.

What we are seeing is people being fed up. Are they acting out? Yes. Are they doing it, as I have seen others claim, to win the lawsuit lottery, I don't think so. Are the airlines technically right? Yes they are, but the way this particular family was treated was wrong. Period. The way the doc on united got treated was wrong. Period. The industry is going to have to change. It is changing.

I respect you guys, but you are on the wrong side of this one. I would bet my retirement that history will prove it. Charge more for the tickets....fine, but don't boot me off. Charge more for the ticket....fine, but don't tell me I can't put my infant in the seat I paid for. Charge more for the ticket.....fine, but treat me with the same respect that the order taker at Chik-fil-a does for goodness sake.

People are worn down from the whole experience. Checked bags cost more, carry on is getting smaller, TSA overreach is real and people are already tense when they get to the gate. Charge more for the ticket.....fine, but take the uncertainty and humiliation out of flying. Please.
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I'm not defending either side here. People wanted deregulation - and they got it.

It's kinda like wanting more government and getting it.

If you want $700-$1200 seats, we can go back to that, pretty easily.

I'm going to guess the whole "pilot shortage" would be over in the sea of bankruptcies and mergers pretty quick like, too.

My commentary was more to point out to folks that the masses (including a LOT of total idiots who NEVER fly) want "something" from the airlines now, that they never wanted before.

And...

They're probably going to get it. And it probably won't be good for them. Not economically anyway.

We hit the point where the public said "Nah, we don't actually want our experience on airplanes to be what we asked for, we know what riding the Trailways bus is like."
 
Goofy said:
How much dumber can an airline get?!.
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It's probably only limited by how much dumber passengers can get.

"Welcome aboard flight XXXX with service to _____."

But she probably had her Beats on by then and was ignoring the cabin crew and announcements.

I mean, you know... why pay attention? Who does that? LOL.
 
Goofy said:
How much dumber can an airline get?!

A United Airlines passenger boarded a plane in Newark believing that she was headed to Paris. Hours later, the plane touched down at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

Lucie Bahetoukilae, a French woman who does not speak English, carried a boarding pass that read, "Newark to Charles de Gaulle," reports ABC 7. She approached the gate listed on the pass, where a flight attendant scanned her ticket before she boarded the plane.
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Good grief...

And no one picked up on this. I imagine someone's head will roll. I mean, seriously, no one noticed she was on the wrong airplane? Didn't that throw off the manifest?

Rich
 
Unless, of course, someone also wound up in France who was headed for SFO... Then the head count would be right.

Rich
 
I would have thought that the boarding pass scanner would reject someone getting on the wrong flight. But I don't know what's on those bar codes.
 
Goofy said:
How much dumber can an airline get?!

A United Airlines passenger boarded a plane in Newark believing that she was headed to Paris. Hours later, the plane touched down at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

Lucie Bahetoukilae, a French woman who does not speak English, carried a boarding pass that read, "Newark to Charles de Gaulle," reports ABC 7. She approached the gate listed on the pass, where a flight attendant scanned her ticket before she boarded the plane.
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Guess we've learned that the scanners aren't really plugged in, it's all for show..
 
RJM62 said:
Good grief...

And no one picked up on this. I imagine someone's head will roll. I mean, seriously, no one noticed she was on the wrong airplane? Didn't that throw off the manifest?

Rich
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Good thing her name was on the ticket.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Oh, come on. There are very few absolutes in life. And that certainly isn't one of them.
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I'm absolutely sure that you are wrong. I haven't seen a single airline pilot stand up for the abused customer on this or another very active board. Frankly, I'm shocked at the level of disdain you guys have for your customers.
 
Mike Smith said:
I respect you guys, but you are on the wrong side of this one. I would bet my retirement that history will prove it.
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The problem, Mike, is that we are only getting one side of the argument from the media, and that is the one that sells advertising. I have been around this long enough to know that in this day and age, the reporting is anything BUT fair and balanced. It is designed to sell ads. Is it sensationalized? In my opinion, you bet it is.

There are too many unanswered questions about this incident to say for sure whether or not these people were justified in their actions. That is the problem with hanging an opinion on one 30 second video that may or may not have been cut down to support the view of the reporter.

Am I too close to the situation? In the opinion of a lot of people that may be true. But of all the thousands of flights I have made, I have never witnessed anything like the things that have been happening recently. By and large, people don't want to make trouble, and contrary to popular opinion, the staff doesn't want to be adversarial or confrontational. They just want to do their job as efficiently and safely as possible.
 
denverpilot said:
It's probably only limited by how much dumber passengers can get.

"Welcome aboard flight XXXX with service to _____."

But she probably had her Beats on by then and was ignoring the cabin crew and announcements.

I mean, you know... why pay attention? Who does that? LOL.
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Well... in her defense (and not as a ding at UAL), she claims not to speak any English. Everywhere I've ever traveled outside of the U.S., they seem to grasp that not everyone speaks the national tongue. At a minimum, they usually print and announce things in English, French, and whatever the local language is, plus the carrier's language if they're flagged to yet another country. I imagine UAL does, too, on international flights.

Then again, I never met anyone in Europe who didn't speak English. They just pretend not to until you show them some respect by at least attempting to speak their language. Then when you order the dish washer's rubber gloves smothered in onions and laundry soap with a side of deodorant and a glass of their finest shoe polish, the waiter cuts you some slack and switches to English.

Still, it's kind of amazing that neither the computer nor any of the humans she interfaced with noticed she was on the wrong plane nor that the pax count was wrong. It had to be a case of someone else making the same mistake in reverse. I can't think of any other way the count could have been right.

Rich
 
paflyer said:
I'm absolutely sure that you are wrong. I haven't seen a single airline pilot stand up for the abused customer on this or another very active board. Frankly, I'm shocked at the level of disdain you guys have for your customers.
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Most of the recent stories haven't been of "abused" customers. This one maybe, but the majority of these being "discussed" aren't customer abuse. They're "customers behaving badly aboard private vessels".

Having met Greg in person, I can't imagine him abusing anyone with anything but funny jokes. Like side splittingly funny commentary that makes my sides hurt.

But if his passengers can't behave like adults, I suspect he knows how to play babysitter and bouncer.

Crews have to do way too much babysitting as it is. This ain't the 30s, nobody's marketing to people scared to get on airliners trying to sway them not to drive, and people want commodity level prices.

They got it. Get on the bus... hope the guy next to you decides to put a shirt on somewhere before Detroit. He's kinda hairy.
 
RJM62 said:
It's enough when you get it right. In this instance, they didn't.

The FAs gave bad information regarding the toddler having a seat. That was completely incorrect. They also made the stupid remarks about jail and foster care. But it never had to get that far. At worst, Brian didn't know that he would have to have the seat reassigned officially to the toddler -- and even that we don't know for sure. It's not something most people would think about. If whomever he spoke to at Delta said something like, "Yeah, you can do that," he very well could have taken that as an approval.

So what was the easiest solution? Have Reservations re-assign the seat to the toddler and print a new ticket. Problem solved. All the rest would have been unnecessary. And it should have been done by the GA before they were allowed to board. All of this would have been avoided then.

Rich
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I don't disagree with any of that. Thing is, we don't know what was said between the customer and gate agent. All we know is what the video showed between the customer and the flight attendant, and I have said here and elsewhere that the flight attendant was wrong.
 
Everskyward said:
I would have thought that the boarding pass scanner would reject someone getting on the wrong flight. But I don't know what's on those bar codes.
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I had this happen once in South America. The problem showed up when two of us had the same seat ticketed. The gate changed but the airline didn't bother to change any of the displays. It was sorta weird to say the least. I'm okay with Spanish but it does take me a little while to get back into the swing of the language. Public address announcements in spanish just didn't work for me. I had an inkling that something was wrong on the boarding announcement but the signs hadn't changed...

Anyway, I can understand how the woman boarded the wrong flight. But and it is a big but the gate assignment displays usually get updated in the US.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
I don't disagree with any of that. Thing is, we don't know what was said between the customer and gate agent. All we know is what the video showed between the customer and the flight attendant, and I have said here and elsewhere that the flight attendant was wrong.
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I know, Greg. And for what it's worth, I have no specific issues with DAL, UAL, nor any other airline in particular. I have issues with how the whole industry has gone downhill. I also get that the caliber of pax has gone down, too. I remember when getting on an airliner without a tie would attract disapproving glares. Now you're lucky if the person next to you has pants on.

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I know, Greg. And for what it's worth, I have no specific issues with DAL, UAL, nor any other airline in particular. I have issues with how the whole industry has gone downhill. I also get that the caliber of pax has gone down, too. I remember when getting on an airliner without a tie would attract disapproving glares. Now you're lucky if the person next to you has pants on.

Rich
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And those are USUALLY the ones that cause the most problems. I heard it said once that what the low fares did was to clear out the bus stations.
 
Multi-faceted problem without a doubt. On one level I understand why the airlines offer such cheap fares, to drive butts in the seats. But like @Greg Bockelman said, that empties the bus station. There are people who treat an airliner like a cab, those are bad for everyone, they bought the lowest price ticket they could find and don't give a rats ass about anyone else. Now what has happened is that the airlines have resorted to treating ALL their passengers like the lowest denominator. I don't shop for the lowest fare when I fly, I shop for the least invasive fare, non stop if possible, shortest/fewest layovers if not. The problem is, I am still sitting next to the guy who bought a 99 dollar seat and I get treated just like him. I am already ****ed because of some TSA goon who is on a power trip. Now when the FA comes and says I've been bumped, (has never happened to me) I would lose my already fragile cool. FA has had a bad day and says stupid stuff and off we go. The system is starting to break, it needs to be fixed. I'll gladly pay more, just take me back to the days when everyone at least acted like they were glad I was their customer. With that, this horse is dead. Greg, Jordan, Larry and any others I missed, thank you for hauling my ass all over the world safely, I appreciate it. I'm out.
 
RJM62 said:
Now you're lucky if the person next to you has pants on.
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Pants are highly overrated.

Plus if you're not in the mood for a TSA love fondle, what better way to travel than Walter White style in the tighty whities.
 
RJM62 said:
Unless, of course, someone also wound up in France who was headed for SFO... Then the head count would be right.
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Headcounts are not routinely accomplished on mainline flights. They are used on regional flights, for balance computations, and when a discrepancy is noted.

Everskyward said:
I would have thought that the boarding pass scanner would reject someone getting on the wrong flight. But I don't know what's on those bar codes.
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It does. It also rejects for other reasons as well. It also alerts for wrong boarding group, exit row seating, and possibly other reasons. It is up to the agent to read the screen and resolve the alert. In this case, the agent obviously missed it.

When the boarding pass is handed to an F/A on board they're likely only going to look at the seat assignment. A passenger boarding the wrong flight is rare enough that you just don't think to check that.

RJM62 said:
Well... in her defense (and not as a ding at UAL), she claims not to speak any English. Everywhere I've ever traveled outside of the U.S., they seem to grasp that not everyone speaks the national tongue. At a minimum, they usually print and announce things in English, French, and whatever the local language is, plus the carrier's language if they're flagged to yet another country. I imagine UAL does, too, on international flights.
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Yes, unfortunately, she boarded a domestic flight so there wouldn't have been any non-English announcements. The (wrong) city would have been displayed at the gate and in announcements (in English) on the airplane. The best chance she had to notice the mistake was the LACK of French announcements in the gate area and on the airplane.
 
Clark1961 said:
Which sorta leads us to the question: how can you be in two places at once when you are nowhere at all? And that leads to the statement: don't crush that dwarf hand me the pliers.

If anyone thinks I'm drunk or tripping I assure you that I'm only caffeinated. The Friday quiz is: where did the statement and question come from?
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I don't know but you can sit here in the waiting room, or wait here in the sitting room while I think about it.
 
jordane93 said:
Again, the CSR was wrong for giving them wrong information and handling it the way they did. I've said that many times.
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I read in the original story (original I'm the first story I read about it) they said the two year old could not sit alone in a seat with a car or baby seat and seat belt. The it was against policy. The article pointed out that the airline had policy that it was SAFER as sitting on a parents lap, the parent could not hold the child safely in the event of extreme turbulence. That a seat was the safer alternative.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Video unavailable. Cliff Notes, please.
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The comments overwhelmingly bashed Delta and supported Brian and his family, many promising never to fly DAL (or adding DAL to UAL as airlines they would never fly on).

Most of the comments were dumb and uninformed, but that doesn't really matter very much in terms of public relations. Perception matters more than reasonableness when it comes to the public. The frustration they expressed about the modern flying experience, not just Brian's experience, has passed the tipping point.

This is something that really needs to be addressed. It's been more than two years since I've had to pick up a house guest at SWF or ALB. They've all chosen to drive, many of them over very long distances, just to "avoid the bull ****" that sums up the commercial flying experience for them. Most recently, a friend of mine from Ohio has decided to drive rather than fly. It's about an eight-hour trip. The distances people are willing to drive just to avoid flying are getting longer and longer.

For what it's worth, two specific factors most commonly cited as reasons why my friends choose to drive are beyond the control of flight crews: Increasingly crowded airplanes due to shrinking seat pitch, and TSA. I don't foresee either of those things changing any time soon except for the worse.

Rich
 
Crowding sets people on edge. Good customer service skills become even more essential, and the airlines are terrible it. They could take some tips from Disney about handling tired, frustrated crowds.
 
Half Fast said:
Crowding sets people on edge. Good customer service skills become even more essential, and the airlines are terrible it. They could take some tips from Disney about handling tired, frustrated crowds.
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Looks like the Chinese beat us to it.

Happy-flight-attendants-jump-by-Disney-plane-567504.jpg


Rich
 
Clark1961 said:
Which sorta leads us to the question: how can you be in two places at once when you are nowhere at all? And that leads to the statement: don't crush that dwarf hand me the pliers.

If anyone thinks I'm drunk or tripping I assure you that I'm only caffeinated. The Friday quiz is: where did the statement and question come from?
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I remember it as "not anywhere," not "nowhere."
 
Isn't the common denominator in these ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGEOUS impositions on people's lives the fact that the aggrieved person keeps their ass in the seat and spouts "chicken head" **** about how they have rights? Those cell phones aren't taping me when I sit quietly and wait to get home, but when these *******s get all mouthy we get to see it, without benefit of the precursor discussion.

If you're never going to fly American Airlines again, GREAT! Keep your word. Else your just a blathering 'moving to Canada' celeb.

Oh, and in case it isn't clear. Throw them off the plane and make our departure time. The customer isn't always right, and most of these pricks prove it.
 
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Here is a sort of funny experience that might be relevant--was at a NASCAR race with two of my sons, it was rained out before they had the minimum number of laps to call it a race so they told everybody to come back the next day, well #2 son decided he had had enough fun in the rain and elected not to come back, so I brought son #3 (helps to have spares) and we watched the race with the 3 tickets. No fuss at all, but the lady sitting next to us kept looking at son #3 until she finally asked if he was the same fellow. I am not a lawyer and understand that they can write all kinds of clauses into contracts, but from a common sense, NASCAR watching perspective this doesn't seem to me to be a bad way to treat people.
 
hankrausch said:
I am not a lawyer and understand that they can write all kinds of clauses into contracts, but from a common sense, NASCAR watching perspective this doesn't seem to me to be a bad way to treat people.
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So I can buy early fares on aircraft seats and scalp them to the day of flight people and make profit because the airline would charge more? <- That equals NO

And the only reason the Delta Puke got through security is because the kid as a 2-yr old. TSA didn't say "where is the teenager you bought the seat for?"

I've bought sporting and concert event tickets via the "secondary market" many times, but your analogy doesn't hold up in air transport.
 
Matthew said:
How did the airline catch on that the kid didn't match the ticket?
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Good question... did the concerned father give the plucker all the boarding cards on the way in? (Plucker is an industry term)

IF he had given boarding cards for each seat, there may have been no issue. IF he held one back (for his future refund) then the airline was correct to consider it a no-show and use the seat for another passenger.

Also, the interwebs have already made it clear that the person for whom he "paid for that seat" was not actually on that flight. The teenager went on an earlier flight.
 
Ravioli said:
IF he held one back (for his future refund) then the airline was correct to consider it a no-show and use the seat for another passenger.
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While I realize it's just 100% pure speculation on your part that the father intended to defraud the airlines, how exactly would that work?
 
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