A Blog – In My Personal
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Time’s Up
I do quite a bit of flying on United
Airlines. Not as much as some but more than most. It's bad.
If you also fly them a lot you know
that to be true. If you don't, you may not be aware of just how bad it
is.
I can (and will) list some specific
examples, but the key point is that it's not getting any better...and it won't.
Getting better is not on United’s current agenda - not in the top ten,
not even in the top hundred. Figuring out how to squeeze more dollars out
of the product regardless of the pain it causes is their current management’s
only goal. Blinded by the greed of top executives the pain is extended
everywhere - to passengers of course, to employees, to retirees, to
communities - as I said, everywhere.
In just the last week, we've read
stories about:
·
A Newark
– TelAviv flight whose passengers were subject to
unnecessary torture and indifference. United is being sued in Israeli
court where they are expected to lose.
·
A holiday
meltdown In Denver where newly outsourced ramp jobs can’t be filled by
qualified people at the wages being offered - so bags are delayed and
misrouted. United’s ridiculous claim here was that they didn't expect the
extraordinary demand of a holiday season travel period - despite years and
years of experiencing one.
·
News that United intends
to further outsource jobs at many of its locations, releasing workers that
dedicated years to an airline and have been supportive in good times and bad -
thus again proving their pre-merger testimony to the US congress about not
outsourcing was just another airline lie.
·
Continuous commentary about how
off-the-track current United management is like this
and this
and this
Those are the big hits - the ones
with severe impact, but for the everyday customer, it's usually not a case of a
big hit, but rather a series of little ones as every part of the flying
experience is worse than it was. Death by a thousand pinpricks - just a
series of unnecessary indignities that make passengers dread getting on
airplanes.
In my last week of flying I had to
check a bag in San Francisco - which admittedly has been a self-service
process on a kiosk for years - but this time I was asked to put the paper tags
on the bag myself as a machine spit them out. Not a big deal, but not the
first class travel I paid for. Then, on that first class transcon there was zero in-flight service. No meal or
beverage service – not even a hot towel upon landing. I paid extra for
what I knew would be an uncomfortable flight at the end of a long day, and other
than a slightly bigger seat got nothing for it - ZERO.
Then, on my next flight, the gate
agent stopped me during boarding and said my carry-on wouldn't fit in their sizer. I explained that I’m well over a million-miler
and that the bag had been around the world multiple times – it fits on every
plane and in the sizer. She didn't care, she made me
put it into the sizer. I had to drop my things,
lose my spot in the boarding line, and push on the bag a bit to get it in (as
it is at the very top end of acceptable) but it of course fit like I said it
would. She issued no apology for the hassle - and in fact was
belligerent, saying that it is her duty to ensure that the bags fit.
Now if one really stops to think
about it, it’s hard to understand the point of these sizer
episodes. The United bag sizer at all airports is actually a bit smaller than the
space available in the overhead bin. Even if my bag barely didn't fit it
would still fit on the plane. But clearly, to any human being with a
brain, the bag was very close to fitting - it obviously wasn't oversize.
What is the reasonable rationale to force me to test it? The only
possible answers are either that United management wants to make everyone's
carry-on experience so miserable so that they'll check bags more often and in
theory make more money in fees, or that United mistreats these gate employees
so much that they are trying to provide them with opportunities to exert any
authority possible as a valve to let off steam. I'd love to tell you this
is the exception, but overzealous (and wrong) agents often ask me to put it in.
It’s just another part of the wrong-headed approach to customers that
make flying on United miserable.
Then, when we get on board, we have
to watch a video with United’s CEO telling us about how customer service is
their priority. It's bad enough that the customer experience obviously is
terrible, do they have be on a video shown just before the flight and lie to us
as if we're idiots?
Were my experiences this week as bad
as stranded passengers or lost luggage? Of course not, they were just
this week’s version of continuous annoyances.
But the point is my experiences weren't ever good. They haven’t
been since this management team took over and destroyed two good airlines.
Whether it's new seats too small and thin to be comfortable, aircraft in
horrible shape inside and out, surly and overzealous agents and flight
attendants agitated and encouraged by management to mix-it-up with customers
over the smallest things- it doesn't matter - with United there's always
something worse just around the next bend.
It’s not just my personal
experiences and the big-hit incidents above that show United to be at an
all-time low. The Wall
Street Journal’s ranking of the best and worst airlines has United dead last…again….for a fourth year in a row. (Here’s
a link to the results for those that don’t subscribe to the WSJ.)
Of course, the irony is that despite
the incompetence of the current management team, as you read this they are
about to or have just announced terrific earnings. This has nothing to do with their customer
and/or employee unfriendly policies.
This is because the price of jet fuel (and all oil products) has
plummeted in recent months. This is not
just greed but corruption, with airline executives pocketing “fuel surcharges”
they added to tickets when prices soared.
Now that fuel is near its all-time lows these fees should be abolished
and/or refunded. But of course, that
would involve “doing the right thing” which never would occur to them.
When Continental
bought United and took the worst of both there were a series of meltdowns that
had their management apologizing because of how difficult the transition was.
It’s years later and they’re still apologizing
and not delivering anything but misery. It's time for a change - for new
leadership at the airline. It’s time to
stop the lies and greed and again put the customer experience above all else.
When businesses do that - making their service desirable and their
employees happy - the profits come as a result – heck even Gordon Bethune knew
that. There’s no need for this continued
misguided squeeze trying to get blood out of a stone. There’s no need to use sub-par outsourced firms
to deliver sub-par service to increase executive bonuses and lose dedicated,
skilled employees in the process.
There’s no need to continue to
stoke angst between sUA and sCO
employees. There’s no need to continue creating policies to provoke anger and rage
between employees and customers. There’s
no need for any of those things – unless they are there just to distract
people from the current misguided lack of leadership and vision amongst an
ineffective management team.
United needs a
new leadership team that gets just how bad it is to use their services and/or
be one of their employees – and begins the journey back to decent service. The current one has proven they don’t get it,
they lie about it, and they are not willing to change.
~~~~~~
UPDATE: Since I originally
posted this blog I’ve heard from literally dozens of sUA
and sCO employees who had lots to say. Many led their note to me with apologies for
what frequent flyers have been going through – showing an amazing dedication to
customer service even under the duress from a management team that threatens
their future. Some pointed out to me how
the culture of United is as toxic as they’ve ever seen – suffering their tasks
under threat of penalty instead of the promise of reward that existed at
various times at both carriers.
(Remember when Continental would give away cars to outstanding employees?) These workers have no idea why their
management would be abandoning their promises and outsourcing their jobs –
other than because they are simply clueless and greedy. One said “the kind of workers the outsourcing
firms will bring in will work for a few months, then leave and go
somewhere else for better working conditions. The company will have to hire more security
and cameras to “oversee” the contractors to prevent theft and fraud.
These contractors will not be concerned with how many bags were mis-handled last month or what they can do to improve.
They will not be concerned with an elite flyer if his or her luggage is
late and needs a rush delivery.” Still
another said, “How can a profitable company say they have to outsource to
vendors to remain competitive? Competitive with who, I ask.
Wal-Mart? We’ve cheapened our product to the point that it no
longer has value or appeal.” And then,
some employees have done more than comment:
·
They’ve started a change.org
petition drive to have their CEO removed that already has nearly 5K
signatures. They would really appreciate
support for this from United’s frequent flyers.
·
They’ve begun a funding
drive to take out a full page advertisement to publicize these issues.
·
Newspapers like the Denver
Post have begun reporting about these issues and the petition drive.
I don’t often find myself on the
same side of service employees at an organization where the service isn’t good,
but the beleaguered employees of United certainly deserve our support. The current management team has created a
“them against us” culture between employees and customers to distract from
their own incompetence. That’s just one
more thing we shouldn’t let them get away with.
If someone will let me know where to buy one of those “all Jeff’ed up” t-shirts I’ll wear it proudly in support of
these good people.
UPDATE,
UPDATE:
A bunch of people have written that I was wrong when I stated “Continental
bought United.” Technically I’m sure
they’re correct and the legal documents point to a merger or even that United
bought Continental. Ever since it
happened though it’s been all about the CEO putting a United costume on an
airline that is neither United nor Continental.
We can debate which airline was better or worse and why, but what exists
today is neither the regional carrier that excelled because
of its limited scope (even if it failed once in a while) or the global
carrier that prided itself on customer service (even if it failed once in a
while.) It’s a global carrier with the
infrastructure of a regional one and a management that doesn’t deserve to lead
people or be in a service industry.
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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.