David J. Danto
Principal Consultant,
Collaboration/ AV / Multimedia / Video / UC
Dimension Data
Director of Emerging
Technology
Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance
eMail:
David.Danto@DimensionData.com Follow Video &
Technology Industry News: @NJDavidD
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You Don’t Get An Award For This
I’ve been
reading a number of articles lately about how United Airlines has been doing
better. As a Newark Airport “hub captive” and long-suffering Continental destroyed United flyer, I
was happy to see the hopefulness. We
United frequent travelers know how Jeff Smisek took
the worst of both airlines, combined it with unabashed greed, pitted employees
against passengers and made the airline a total nightmare across the board –
lousy service, lousy attitudes, lousy revenue – just lousy. We’ve been waiting for improvements for a
long time.
When obvious
corruption forced the pitiful United board to
replace Smisek with a new CEO, Oscar Munoz, in
September 2015, everyone was hopeful that things might get better. Munoz at least acknowledged his employees
were people and began to treat them with respect – before he was sidelined with
a serious health issue. Now that he’s
back in the office everybody was hoping that he’d really begin the turn-around.
I hate to throw a bucket of reality on
the spin, but from my perspective, we’re still waiting.
Yes, some articles and trip reports have
begun to document how employees – no longer being treated poorly by management
– now exhibit better attitudes. As a
business traveler I don’t think we should give praise for seeing the reduction
of an attitude and posture that never should have been there in the first
place. That’s not really deserving of
praise in my book. What we need to ask
is “are the planes now being better maintained?” and “are the flights now
on-time more often” and “are the very frequent customers now being treated
better” and “are passengers receiving better benefits and better value than
before?” and “is the flying experience improved?” From my perspective, the
answer to all those questions is still a resounding NO.
My recent trip to LAS highlighted every
single one of the issues above. As a
million miler I used to have the second highest status on United as a reward
for my lifetime of flying. That – along
with its confirmed upgrade certificates – was removed by Smisek,
and has not been returned by Munoz. So
million milers now have only the same benefits as any poor schlep that opens a
United/Chase credit card. What an
honor. As it happens I did fly enough
last year to get that tier anyway, so I did have two regional upgrades in my
account – which are supposed to allow a confirmed upgrade to first class when
used. Yeah, good luck using them on any transcon flight.
United is still holding the first class seats open to sell them at steep
discounted prices before they’ll reward their best customers. My “confirmable” request was waitlisted for
three months, and never cleared. Just
yesterday I again tried to use it on another transcon
trip I have planned for January and – guess what – despite there being plenty
of seats available, the request is again “waitlisted.” Keep in mind that United claims to offer free
upgrades to their best customers, but when you can’t even get one with a
confirmable certificate you can imagine how infrequently upgrades actually
happen on flights where they are worth having.
My flight west boarded on-time but was
delayed due to a maintenance issue. More
than half the flights I’ve taken this year had some sort of delay that was
entirely preventable if maintenance or processes had been better. There is still no noticeable improvement
there. My flight back east was nothing
short of a nightmare. Firstly, as I
mentioned, my confirmable upgrade never cleared. The thinking at the highest levels of United
management is still why give passengers a
promised benefit when United can sell it to someone else and make a few extra bucks. Then, as I board the flight, I notice we have
the United Slimline Seats Of Death. If you’re not familiar with United, even if
you book the same model aircraft you may get two or more completely different
experiences. The 737-900 I took west had
slimline seats that were relatively comfortable and
useable (despite the DirecTV headset jack being intermittent at my seat.) The 737-900 flight I took home had the
plastic slimline seats that sport a totally useless
mesh seatback pocket.
With three normal sized people sitting
in this row and each putting a carry-on bag under the seat, no one has any room
to breathe much less move. In the other
slim seats United uses one can at least put a water bottle, tablet and a few
personal items in the seatback pocket.
With this seat you might be able to partially jam a bottle into the
mesh, but then that’s it. No personal
convenience space at all. United should
have these seats removed – at least in their claimed “economy plus” additional
comfort sections. That would be a real,
tangible sign that the new CEO cared about improving passengers’
experiences. The fact that the FA didn’t
growl at me when she spilled water on me is frankly not enough of a sign for me
that things are getting better.
So while other analysts and reporters
may be fawning over United’s improvements simply because they’ve stopped being
nasty to passengers, I believe you shouldn’t heap praise on them just for
removing an attitude that should never have been there in the first place. I’ll hold any praise until we see actual
turn-arounds - like reversal of customer unfriendly changes in fees and
benefits, and improvements in service and comfort. Until then, in my book, Munoz still
represents only an improvement in the rhetoric.
This article was written by David Danto and
contains solely his own, personal opinions.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.