{"id":7958,"date":"2015-05-25T08:34:40","date_gmt":"2015-05-24T23:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/?p=7958"},"modified":"2015-05-25T08:36:56","modified_gmt":"2015-05-24T23:36:56","slug":"united-airlines-or-the-art-of-losing-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2015\/05\/25\/united-airlines-or-the-art-of-losing-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"Rant: United Airlines, or the Art of Losing Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> Airlines tend to be like banks: name any one of them in large-enough company and there is\u00a0bound to be at least a few people with personal horror stories and imprecations never to use their service. Hard to tell apart the inevitable statistical occurence from true patterns of bad customer service.<\/p>\n

Last week, however, I finally understood why all my US friends heaped so much scorn on United Airlines. And why I’ll be joining in on the chorus of \u201cnever again\u201d, next time their name comes up in discussions:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Narita airport, last week, 10 minutes before end of check-in for my NRT-SFO flight:<\/p>\n

Dave:<\/strong>\u00a0Good afternoon! I wish to check in this suitcase for my San Francisco flight, which I successfully confirmed online a few hours ago.<\/p>\n

United Check-in Employee<\/strong>: But most certainly sir. Let me get right on that\u2026<\/p>\n

United Manager Lady<\/strong>: Hold on a moment! (Leans toward\u00a0<\/em>check-in employee and whispers something)<\/i><\/p>\n

United\u00a0Check-in Employee<\/strong>: Just a second sir.<\/p>\n

Dave:<\/strong>\u00a0By all means take your time.<\/p>\n

More whispers, coming and going and looking at computer screens<\/em><\/p>\n

United Manager Lady<\/strong>: Sir, it appears that your flight is being delayed due to servicing and most likely cancelled. We are going to put you on another flight.<\/p>\n

Dave:<\/strong>\u00a0Really? That’s odd. It still shows as \u2018on time\u2019 everywhere. You are sure this has nothing to do with the flight being booked solid and my being the last person to check in? You wouldn’t have already sold my seat to someone else, by any chance?<\/p>\n

United Manager Lady:<\/strong>\u00a0Take our word for it. You’re much better off getting on another flight. But we need to move fast! Time is of the essence.<\/p>\n

Dave:<\/strong>\u00a0Well I suppose then. What alternative do you suggest?<\/p>\n

United\u00a0Check-in Employee<\/strong>:\u00a0We will put you on the flight to LAX, with a connection to San Francisco in the afternoon. You’ll land at SFO around 4pm.<\/p>\n

Dave:<\/strong>\u00a0Wait a minute, that’s a whole extra day spent in transit. I’d really prefer to arrive in the morning, as I was supposed to.<\/p>\n

United Manager Lady:<\/strong>\u00a0That’s all we have. But we have to hurry: that flight leaves in 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

Dave:<\/strong>\u00a0Could you give me a minute: I’d like to look at my options\u2026<\/p>\n

United Manager Lady:<\/strong>\u00a0No time! We need to change your booking now!<\/p>\n

Dave:<\/strong>\u00a0Err, well\u2026 I suppose you know best. I do need to get to San Francisco after all. Go ahead and put me on that flight to LA.<\/p>\n

United Manager Lady:\u00a0<\/strong>Attaboy.<\/p>\n

United\u00a0Check-in Employee<\/strong>:\u00a0Oh, by the way, no more\u00a0window seat on that flight: hope you don’t mind sitting in the middle seat for 10 hours.<\/p>\n

Dave <\/strong>(walking to his newly-assigned gate, past the gate to his previously purchased flight)<\/em>:<\/strong>\u00a0Strange, I could swear that these people are boarding their flight and that no delay is being announced\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A week later in Haneda:<\/p>\n

Airport Employee:<\/strong>We are extremely sorry, Mr. Dave, but your suitcase appears to have been left in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Dave:\u00a0<\/strong>Really? How is that even possible. I was on a direct flight here\u2026 and all other people checking in just before and after me seem to have got their\u00a0luggage without any\u00a0problem.<\/p>\n

Airport Employee:<\/strong>\u00a0Err.\u00a0Absolutely no idea\u2026 [You must have seriously pissed off some people somewhere.] \u00a0United will do their best to get it to you in the briefest of time. In about 2-3 days. Hope there wasn’t anything too important in that suitcase of yours.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But it’s OK. Let it not be said that United Airlines doesn’t care about the well-being of the passengers it casually tosses off its flight:\u00a0I did receive a very apologetic and personal robo-mail, leading me to an online form, where after 20 minutes of laboriously filling in flight details and personal information, I was elated to know that I was eligible for a $150 voucher, to be used on the next United Airlines flight I am of course\u00a0dying to book with them.<\/p>\n

Never mind that $150 barely covers\u00a0the price difference between the direct flight I had initially paid for\u00a0and the much less convenient indirect one I was tossed onto. Or the fact that their\u00a0\u201ccompensation\u201d is a transparent marketing move\u00a0that even the most shameless business wouldn’t think of pulling elsewhere (\u201cThere was\u00a0a cigarette butt in your pastry? We’re very sorry. Please have this 10% discount voucher on your next pastry purchase\u2026\u201d).<\/p>\n

If United spent a fraction of the\u00a0resources\u00a0it spends\u00a0on monitoring social networks<\/a>, actually<\/em> trying to make it up to the passengers it screws over, it might have retained me as a passenger. Me and every single member of my lab. Who will most definitely never book a United flight again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Airlines tend to be like banks: name any one of them in large-enough company and there is\u00a0bound to be at least a few people with personal horror stories and imprecations never to use their service. Hard to tell apart the inevitable statistical occurence from true patterns of bad customer service. Last week, however, I finally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[59,33,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging-for-google","category-travels","category-le-sigh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7958"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7974,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7958\/revisions\/7974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}