The friendly skies?

[Benz]

Re: The friendly skies?

United released this new app yesterday.

The 'drag and drop' feature is a winner.

That must be a typo. It's more like "drop and drag".....

[Fern]

Re: The friendly skies?

One I saw this morning:
"United, putting the hospital back in hospitality"

I once was asked by Air Canada if I'd like to volunteer to get bumped and fly the next day. Since it didn't bothered my schedule I accepted. They paid hotel and meals and gave me a voucher good for any of their long-haul flights to be used within one year.

[SingleWalking]

Re: The friendly skies?

$800 was the last offer from the airline, but they could have gone up to $1,300 but did not..

$800 USD in cash, most of us Canadians will take it if they guarantee just few hrs of delay.

The airline 100%.
From what I know from those that work on the airlines in security once they are called in to remove someone it's all the force necessary. They might not have even knew what was the reason only that someone refused to leave.
For sure they'll likely in this sue happy USA they'll be blamed but I see in this situation united as completely wrong.

If your 4 employees are so important and direly needed in another city don't overbook... And try to be greedy maximizing profit and hoping later on that in future there will be room.
Or greatly increase your offer. How bout a flight to Hawaii. Or Australia.
I'd love to hear what they actually offered and chose not to increase when you can remove them by force.

Those so call "security" are probably just mall cops in the US system. Everyone of those security in US looks like police of sorts anyway.

Can't they split up the employees?

A short haul United flight (no more than 2 hrs in unfavorable weather) from Chicago has 3 flight attendants!!!! All they serve is drinks, 1 serving. Even then the staff can probably use a spare jump seat.

United longer haul flight usually block off some seats for rest area. I suppose they can use those as extra seats.

[hackerhare]

Re: The friendly skies?

Oscar should have let his employees use his private jet if its "life and death" that they get to their destination.

[guitarman]

Re: The friendly skies?

Love the mock ad at the end. "United Airlines, **** You".

[Jeffc]

Re: The friendly skies?

United stock down 2% or $450M today.

[petvan]

Re: The friendly skies?

Anyone concerned for the patients of this doctor? While treated poorly no doubt, he appears a complete loon.

[Sportyluis]

Re: The friendly skies?

Interesting read today that you can ask for a check instead of a travel voucher if flying within the US. Also read that about 65,000 people annually get bumped involuntarily. In the grand scheme of things that's not very much although obviously more than we'd all wish.

[guitarman]

Re: The friendly skies?

Anyone concerned for the patients of this doctor? While treated poorly no doubt, he appears a complete loon.

He could be a loon or just emotionally not able to handle being roughed up, beat up and have his rights violated.

[bogey5]

Re: The friendly skies?

United CEO Oscar Munoz was recently named 'Communicator of the Year' by PR Week

can we have the trophy back?

[Benz]

Re: The friendly skies?

United Airlines is mostly, but not exclusively, at fault in this situation.

I don't blame the passenger at all for being upset at being 'randomly' selected for de-boarding. However, once the decision has been made by the airline, all the complaining and screaming won't reverse the decision. In fact, the passenger's decision to resist the Aviation Police (?) only undermined his own position and credibility. He would have been better served by being very vocal in his objections while being removed, all in the hopes that the situation would be captured on one or more cellphones. The passenger's actions were not unlike arguing with a cop on the side of the road. It's just not the place to make your case.

That said, United really screwed up in a number of ways:
1) They went cheap on the incentives to get people to voluntarily give up their seats. Apparently, United only offered $1000 (even though they could have gone as high as $1350) before invoking the 'voluntary de-boarding' option.
2) They needed seats for United employees who were supposed to work a flight out of Louisville the next day. Louisville is a four hour drive from Chicago. Why couldn't the employees rent a car and drive?
3) The CEO referred to the physical abuse of a passenger as 're-accommodating', thus injecting corporate-speak into the conversation.
4) The CEO then doubled-down and commended the staff for going 'above and beyond' in the way that they handled the situation, notwithstanding the video evidence that the entire world has now seen.

Ultimately, this incident will not change much, if anything. Airlines will continue to overbook flights as a means to maximize revenues for each flight and passengers will continue to be bumped.

The only things I expect may change are as follows:
1) Airlines will publish clear criteria for selecting passengers for 'bumping';
2) Regulations will be changed to increase or eliminate the maximum amount that an airline may offer a passenger to voluntarily give up his seat.

[Ignatius Reilly]

Re: The friendly skies?

Some lateral thinking, and all problems are solved!

[Sportyluis]

Re: The friendly skies?

United Airlines is mostly, but not exclusively, at fault in this situation.

I don't blame the passenger at all for being upset at being 'randomly' selected for de-boarding. However, once the decision has been made by the airline, all the complaining and screaming won't reverse the decision. In fact, the passenger's decision to resist the Aviation Police (?) only undermined his own position and credibility. He would have been better served by being very vocal in his objections while being removed, all in the hopes that the situation would be captured on one or more cellphones. The passenger's actions were not unlike arguing with a cop on the side of the road. It's just not the place to make your case.

That said, United really screwed up in a number of ways:
1) They went cheap on the incentives to get people to voluntarily give up their seats. Apparently, United only offered $1000 (even though they could have gone as high as $1350) before invoking the 'voluntary de-boarding' option.
2) They needed seats for United employees who were supposed to work a flight out of Louisville the next day. Louisville is a four hour drive from Chicago. Why couldn't the employees rent a car and drive?
3) The CEO referred to the physical abuse of a passenger as 're-accommodating', thus injecting corporate-speak into the conversation.
4) The CEO then doubled-down and commended the staff for going 'above and beyond' in the way that they handled the situation, notwithstanding the video evidence that the entire world has now seen.

Ultimately, this incident will not change much, if anything. Airlines will continue to overbook flights as a means to maximize revenues for each flight and passengers will continue to be bumped.

The only things I expect may change are as follows:
1) Airlines will publish clear criteria for selecting passengers for 'bumping';
2) Regulations will be changed to increase or eliminate the maximum amount that an airline may offer a passenger to voluntarily give up his seat.

Don't take this the wrong way as I'm not defending the airline, but I'm sure there is a lot behind the scenes here. For example, as far as I know airline employees are unionized so there are rules with regards to transporting staff from one airport to another. Making the airline employees drive likely would've contravened their negotiated contract and created a mess. Are there viable alternatives? Of course but we should keep that in mind.

Also, in the internal communication you need to defend your employees for following your policy. You may not necessarily agree with it but if you don't defend your employees for following a policy / procedure then you risk losing a lot of staff as no one likes being blamed for "doing their job". It sucks to be forced off a plane but the flight staff followed their policy. Is it a bad policy? Yes but that's what they were asked to do.

Again, I'm not defending United here but it's worth noting the context and background on why the note was written as it was

[Benz]

Re: The friendly skies?

Don't take this the wrong way as I'm not defending the airline, but I'm sure there is a lot behind the scenes here. For example, as far as I know airline employees are unionized so there are rules with regards to transporting staff from one airport to another. Making the airline employees drive likely would've contravened their negotiated contract and created a mess. Are there viable alternatives? Of course but we should keep that in mind.

Also, in the internal communication you need to defend your employees for following your policy. You may not necessarily agree with it but if you don't defend your employees for following a policy / procedure then you risk losing a lot of staff as no one likes being blamed for "doing their job". It sucks to be forced off a plane but the flight staff followed their policy. Is it a bad policy? Yes but that's what they were asked to do.

Again, I'm not defending United here but it's worth noting the context and background on why the note was written as it was

IMO, the ground staff either did not recognized that they were going to have a big problem because of overbooking, or they didn't escalate the situation to management on a timely basis. I simply do not buy the 'I am just following orders' defence because these events could and should have been anticipated as a potential consequence to removing a paying customer from an airplane (as opposed to denying him boarding), only made worse when it was revealed that it was to make room for United employees.

Creating a mess? What do they have now? If he could do it again, would Munoz prefer to deal with this situation or with a simple unionized employee grievance?

The CEO is just digging a deeper hole. It was just stupidly myopic to commend the ground staff so soon after this incident. Doing so simply escalated a sense of 'us versus them' between United staff and the general public, with predictable results.

[LongLefty]

Re: The friendly skies?

This is getting interesting!

https://www.google.ca/amp/amp.tmz.com/2017/04/11/united-airlines-doctor-convicted-drugs-sex