I don’t mean to pile on United Airlines, but they do bring it on themselves sometimes. The latest TravelCommons podcast talks about how the “friendly skies” of United Airlines have become a bit thread worn — duct tape holding together armrests, seat backs that can’t stay up (which was my experience again on my Monday flight from ORD to SFO). Not surprising since United is the only major US airline without any current orders placed for new aircraft.
Two new news stories illustrate United’s slide. Scanning the front page of yesterday’s Chicago Tribune while sitting forward in my auto-recline seat, I saw an article about a women whose luggage was burned by United.
As Shannon Tadel waited in the Syracuse, N.Y., airport for her flight back to Chicago on Dec. 1, a United Airlines employee approached her and asked if he could speak to her privately.
“He said, ‘Your luggage has been set on fire,'” Tadel recounted later. “I kind of chuckled at him because it was so unbelievable. I was like, ‘Um, OK.'”The employee explained that her bag, containing most of her wardrobe, had been placed too close to the exhaust of a belt loader used to deliver bags to the cargo hold. Someone turned on the equipment and, voila, luggage flambe.
A dumbfounded Tadel boarded the plane, not quite sure what to do. Moments later, the pilot summoned her to the cockpit.
“He said, ‘Do you see that over there? That’s your luggage,'” Tadel recalled.
She looked out the plane’s window and saw a man with a hose and a big plume of smoke.
Tadel says she filed a claim on December 4 and didn’t receive a check from United until last week — after she got the Tribune’s What’s Your Problem columnist involved.
And then comes the story of United’s announcement yesterday that they are closing their complaints call center, telling customers to send a letter or an e-mail instead. United said the reason for this move is to improve customer satisfaction — “We did a lot of research, we looked into it, and people who email or write us are more satisfied with our responses,” said United spokesperson Robin Urbanski. But this is also a cost-cutting move — managing written inquiries is easier and costs less than taking phone calls.
It’s also another push toward self-service — putting the burden of writing up the issue/complaint on the customer rather than having an United employee take if from a phone conversation. In TravelCommons #71, I said “The duct tape holding together the tatty skies are the employees,” that in spite of all the management mistakes, most of the United employees are doing a good job in serving their customers. Yet this latest move by United continues a trend of separating customers from employees — book your tickets on-line, use a kiosk to check in, and now send an e-mail if you have a problem. I can’t wait until they try to replace flight attendants with vending machines.
3 comments on “Don’t Call When The Tatty Skies Catch On Fire”
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Hi Mark
This former sophomore road warrior is well tested after 9 months. Reporting back to you that I’m flying every single week now; unfortunately to the exact same place – Baton Rouge. While I’m now intimately familiar with the entire Atlanta airport, (and I love the fact that there is maybe one person in line at Baton Rouge security every week) I had to tell you about when I flew out of my home airport RIC this week. I was not only the winner of the “random selection” for the full body scan machine, my purse went through the scanner machine twice, my laptop was then “randomly” selected to be swabbed AND I was pulled out of the elite boarding line for random screening. All of this because – my theory entirely – I was on the 6AM flight and the TSA people were ramping up for a day. Somehow I managed to be the one person that consistently got “randomly” selected. I can only hope that everyone on the Richmond to Atlanta flight felt safe. I’ve been on the same flight for over 8 months in a row.
All this serves to remind me that it’s so hard to give any respect to the whole process.
So, I achieved Elite status on Northwest just in time for the merger, and recently discovered that when I “linked” my miles on Delta and transferred my miles that despite the fact that I would normally be “gold”, I’m back to… nothing. That is, unless I book on Northwest, then apparently call Delta to tell them my SkyMiles number – every single week. This is according to the person on the phone – I think if I continue to book through Northwest, even though Delta will be the carrier, I’ll be okay, but it’s very frustrating to finally hit elite status and yet – not be elite. I managed a few upgrades before this happened.
I always enjoy living vicariously through your travels – keep on podcasting!!
I think it was only recently that UAL had the youngest fleet in the skies, correct? Taking deliveries on all of those new 772s and 744s in the nineties… Too bad it is getting a bit long in the tooth…
Lori: RIC/ATL/BTR – brutal. I was on SFO/LAX or SFO/BUR route each week for two years (but a few years ago now…) That was not bad, and easy hour in the air, typically an out and back the same day.
Brutal is right – it is impossible for me to be productive for the 6-9 hours it takes to get from airport to home. The RJs are too small and not-too-private for doing work, then its the dash-and-wait in ATL, then it’s the tarmac wait in ATL, and by the time we are at 10K, we are heading down. I feel like I invest a lot of energy in figuring out exactly what work to keep readily accessible so that I can pull it out quickly and get a few things done. It’s a mind-numbing experience, no question. And there are people on my project who are doing this – from Toronto. Ouch.
Mark – with all your dashing about, do you feel work productive while in the actual act of traveling?