united airlines-customer service with a smile

Parent Cafe
1

this is going to civil trial now and the video has just been released. nobody caught it on their smart phone so the airport/united slow walked the security camera video release.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/investigates/video-shows-confrontation-between-united-employees-houston-man-at-airport

Alejandro Nestor Anstasia was charged with the felony crime of injury to an elderly individual, ordered to pay a fine, write a letter of apology and attend anger-management classes. he was given restorative justice no real punishment.
the employee who called it in lied or bent the truth perhaps…

"911: “What is the emergency?”
Worker: “There’s a 70-year-old male that had fallen down.”
911: “OK, is he awake?”
Worker: “I don’t know.”
911: “You know what the cause of the fall?”
Worker: “No.”

while united has 10x thousands of employees(probably about 85,000) and they are each individuals united really needs to fix the culture of the company and perhaps purge a few folks proactively .(IMO)

2

The scene on that video is unbelievable. I am surprised that the guilty party didn’t totally leave the scene. They all just stood there! They didn’t even check to see if he needed cpr.

3

Hmmm. This video is from 2015, makes it sound like it was last week.

4

^Ugh, I hate that about the internet. One of my FB friends posted an Amber Alert the other night. It was in our area, so I clicked on it immediately. Uh, yeah, it was from over 3 months ago. It would help for people to look at dates before posting.

5

No the case is going to civil trial and the video has been kept away from the public eye. They tried to keep it hush hush.

6

It would still be helpful to know in the OP that this happened two years ago, so people don’t assume United blew it again after the recent incidents.

7

The one thing this does is tell you that the recent incidents were not recent, isolated events, but something that has been going on for a while. United took another hit recently when an employee got into a scuffle with a violinist wanting to stow her instrument on board in the overhead bin , putting an instrument like that into the baggage hold itself damages and possibly hurt her. The violin in question dates to the 1700’s and an old instrument like that is especially fragile, and if what the woman claims is true the person in question also snatched the instrument out of their hands.

Me, personally, I doubt this negative publicity will change anything, the airlines basically have us over a barrelhead, they are all pretty bad, so they know they can get away with this, unless for example people started a massive boycott of United or any airline that treats people badly, and the CEO ends up fired over it, nothing will change (the CEO of United has to be one of the most clueless morons out there,btw, he doesn’t seem to realize if any more negative incidents happen he will have nowhere to hide). I was sorry the doctor didn’t take this into court, and refused to settle, United did not take enough a hit apparently to make the CEO realize he is running a horror show (though to be fair, I haven’t flown on any carrier in recent years I would give high marks to).

8

I have my own United incident from 2 years ago and am still angry about it and would love to share if you all are interested because the culture HAS to change.

My issue is that I had requested a wheelchair at my layover in Houston because I had injured my ankle and was wearing a boot and was concerned about walking around that airport because of its size.

My bad experience started when they separated me from my 14 year old because there was no room on the electric cart and they wouldn’t wait for her. She had never been to this airport before, but she was pretty mature so she said she didn’t mind and I had confidence in her. I was annoyed though because this was the same kid for whom I was required to pay $300 round trip on American and Delta for mandated unaccompanied minor traveling. Also, I really didn’t want to be separated from her.

The bigger issue is that they abandoned me!

At one point they had to make a decision whether to drop me off at my terminal or drop the other passenger off at hers. There wasn’t time for both. I was told that since I had a walking boot, I should get off, take an elevator up to the tram and someone would meet me at the end of the tram. I wasn’t thrilled, but no other cart was around and everyone had to make their flights so I said OK. Well, no one met me.

After waiting 5 mins (no phone on wall, and when I called customer service, I had automated voice telling me my wait time was 1 hour which was well after my flight was scheduled to leave). So, I had to walk.

Eventually I saw a worker so I flagged her down. She had an empty wheelchair but she refused to take me to my gate because she wasn’t authorized to work in that terminal! So I was forced to basically create a scene and badger her until she agreed to take me. She did it but tried to dump me off twice at “stations” (there were no markings and no workers around) where someone would supposedly come pick me up. She also tried to flag down 2 other workers to take me but they were full and told her she had to take me. She did dump me at my gate but refused to take me to the restroom and wait or to stop so I could buy something to eat/drink on the plane (I was flying cross country at dinner time).

When I got to the gate, I asked the gate agent for help. He pointed me to the bathroom and the food place (at the end of the hall) and said that the wheelchair people weren’t United’s responsiblity because they were the airport’s responsibility, and all he could do was order me another wheelchair but he didn’t think it would get there before my boarding. So, I hobbled (in pain) to the bathroom and didn’t buy any food. Luckily I was able to buy food on the flight. BTW, United’s point that it wasn’t responsible for helping me is BS - the carrier law holds them responsible for their passengers, and if they want to subcontract out their responsibility for wheelchair services, they are still responsible if there is a problem.

I went to the Drs when I got home, because I was still in pain days later. Orthopod said I damaged additional tendons and I was set back by an additional 6 to 8 weeks.

I definitely feel that the 2 wheelchair people and the gate agent made the decision that since I was in a walking boot, I didn’t “need” a wheelchair.

I wrote a letter to United (they gave me a voucher for $400 for each of me and my daughter for future travel), but never any real apology and I had no sense that they’d change anything. I also wrote a letter to the US agency regulating this. Who knows if that ever helped. I definitely considered suing, but really didn’t want the hassle and took the voucher instead.

9

@melvin123, that’s awful! I’m sorry you were treated so badly and must admit I have seen the folks handling the wheelchairs pretty overwhelmed at times with the volume of folks they are needing to help vs the few staff they have to do it. No idea what it will take for there to be any changes–maybe an airline that really makes customer service a priority which does well financially would be good competition. I’d pay a bit extra for an airline with better customer service.

10

@Hlmom, thanks for your empathy, but you’re too nice!

11

Wow, that’s weird, I had a whole other bunch of stuff written, that didn’t show up on my post. All I was saying is that I reserved my wheelchair in advance as do most others, so the airline knew. They are just making business decisions that it’s cheaper to have a periodic irate customer than hire the extra workers needed to provide the mandated service. Personally I think a lot of bad customer service issues came about when the government allowed a bunch of big mergers, and now there is little choice in where you spend your flying dollars.

12

I’m surprised anyone assumed this was a new incident. @zobroward clearly said it’s going to trial now, and that the video was just released. I understood that to mean it was not recent, and the point was how long this kind of stuff has been going on.

13

I saved a post I’d written yesterday, @melvin123, and when I came back to it, half of it was gone and I had to retype it.

14

@melvin123:
The mergers definitely had a role to play, back in the day you had the lowball airlines (like People’s express) that you knew were the dirty cheap/few frills airlines, but what happened was those airlines folded into bigger ones, and the bigger airlines basically adopted the few frills/bare bones approach of the airlines they took over while charging larger fares then the bare bones ones did, and over time the service has gotten poorer and poorer but the flights have not gotten all that cheap (my son just flew to New Mexico, a flight he booked in advance, and it was ridiculously expensive, and it was the cheapest flight, involved a layover).

And it is telling that things like compensation for being overbooked, for being stuck on the tarmac for a long time, all came about because of government rules, because the airlines frankly don’t give a rat’s tail about customer service, if they could they would put people in cargo sacks and chuck us on cargo planes.

The lack of competition is part of the problem, but the other part is we the consumers with our obsession with saving money. People say they would be willing to pay more for better customer service, but in the end they go on the web, search sites like Kayak and the like, and book the cheapest flight that matches their needs (ie non stop, time of day, etc). I know few people who say “Oh, if X is the cheapest I won’t book them”, people go for the low price. It is much like automobiles were with safety, back in the ‘good old days’ other than a very small group of auto purchasers, safety wasn’t an issue, other than maybe volvo and meredes, you never saw safety mentioned in ads, the same way you never saw anything about quality, either, because back then people didn’t care about it, or claimed they did but then bought cars based on having the X engine, color scheme, etc, etc. I see this all the time with people complaining about the death of local stores, how online stores and superstores wiped out the local stores they ‘loved’…yet these same people time and again will go to the big box store or online to get the dirt cheapest price they can (what they really want is a local store where they can look at the products, ask questions, get help, then go home and order it from some low cost place on the internet or whatnot). Not to mention that as much as we grumble, we the people elect politicians who support airline travel as survival of the fittest, let the market decide, etc shrug. If people put their money where their mouth is, if they traveled based on the quality of service, then airlines would make customer service a priority, but it is kind of like Walmart or other low price stores these days, customer service is meaningless to them, because they know it is all about the price.

15

Yeah, United bought me off, too, when I and other folks on my flight were treated very badly a while back. But when I used the voucher the next year there was an equipment problem, so I ended up with a free trip on the next flight and another significant value voucher. I promised myself I would not fly them again after that and I haven’t.

16

I mostly have had better treatment on United than Delta or American or Hawaiian. They have better routing as well, so I’ve stuck with them. I’m not sure how to change or fix these ongoing culture issues and think it’s beyond my personal power.

17

You want more recent? How about this, downright scary:
https://consumerist.com/2017/06/15/united-airlines-flight-grounded-after-passengers-watched-jet-fuel-pour-out-of-wing/

18

Wow–that’s really bad that the couple was treated so shabbily. So good it was discovered and the flight aborted.

19

That’s terrible how the couple was treated. You’d think they’d get the royal treatment after preventing what could have been (at worst) a terrible disaster, and at best, an expensive loss of money for the airline. It is heartening, though, how appreciative and supportive the other passengers were.

In complete contrast to this situation, we were recently on a long planned trip to Europe, and had to return unexpectedly to the US because of a family emergency, after just a few days. The Delta agent could tell how upset I was, I think, and she rescheduled me for the flight I wanted the next day. She said there was no charge for the change (even though we had highly discounted super saver tickets), and she put us in business class. It was one of those situations that I was supposed to show proof from a doctor, but she said, “I believe you, don’t worry about it. Do you need any help?” I was so stressed, and thought I’d have to pay thousands of dollars for a last minute ticket return, and she was so kind.

20

Delta was kind to us, too! We had just gotten to Florida when we learned our daughter had been admitted to the ER. The agent booked us a flight back home the next day at no extra charge. But then the doctor said D was fine and we should go on our trip (he thought it would make her feel worse if she knew we came home because of her). So I called Delta back and they charged a little, but only $50 or so. I was really impressed.