Good day all. I find it amusing that a company that deals with air traffic seems to be stuck in the horse age. United Airlines is forever locking the hanger doors after the horse has booked a ticket on Delta and flown away.
United Airlines has a long and storied history of “Not getting it” when it comes to customer relations. The latest incident occurred about a week ago when they literally had a passenger beaten into submission and dragged from the plane because they needed to transport a flight crew to another airport.
The bad press over the incident has only gotten worse and has done some serious damage to the company’s bottom line as well as it’s stock price. Now, United Airlines has made a policy change. Here are the details from Fox News:
United Airlines is changing a company policy and will no longer allow crew members to displace customers already onboard an airplane.
So, now they will club them before they get on the plane?
The change comes after a passenger, Dr. David Dao, was dragged from a fully-booked United Express flight in Chicago because he refused to give up his seat to make room for crew members. Cellphone video of the incident sparked widespread outrage and created a public-relations nightmare for United.
Nightmare? No, it isn’t a nightmare. If it were only a nightmare, Freddy Kruger would show up and put them out of their corporate misery.
Under the change outlined in an internal April 14 email, a crew member must make must-ride bookings at least 60 minutes prior to departure. Crews could previously be booked until the time of departure.
One of the things I haven’t been able to learn is why this flight crew needed to go to another airport on such short notice. There might be legitimate reasons. Perhaps there really weren’t any decent reasons and the crew was simply deadheading home and didn’t want to wait. If that was the case, then I can see why United Airlines wouldn’t tell anyone the reason. Of course, my information could be out of date.
United spokeswoman Maggie Schmerin said in an email Sunday that the change is an initial step in a review of policies and it’s meant to ensure that situations like Dao’s never happen again.
Is that a horse I hear whinnying as it heads off into the distance? This situation should never have occurred in the first place. Now it looks like United is going to be sued into oblivion…again. And to top it off? It looks like they might have done it AGAIN!!
There are stories that a couple on their way to get married were kicked off a United Airlines flight for an even dumber reason. According to KHOU:
Michael Hohl, the groom, said he and his fiancé, Amber Maxwell, were the last to board the plane. According to Hohl, they noticed a man was spread across their row napping when they approached their seats, 24 B and C. Not wanting to wake the man, Hohl said they decided to sit a three rows up in seats 21 B and C. He said they didn’t think it would matter because the flight was half full with multiple empty rows.
Ok, I can see why they did this. It certainly wasn’t as if the plane were overbooked or anything.
“We thought not a big deal, it’s not like we are trying to jump up into a first-class seat,” said Hohl.“We were simply in an economy row a few rows above our economy seat.”
And here is where the problems began.
In a Boeing 737-800 like the one the couple was on, United considers Row 21 “economy plus,” an upgrade.
Which I’m sure are seats that are well marked as such, right?
After sitting, Hohl said a flight attendant approached and asked if they were in their ticketed seats. The couple explained they weren’t and asked if they could get an upgrade, but instead they were told they needed to return to their assigned seats.
Hohl said after complying with the flight attendant’s demand, a U.S. Marshall came onto the plane and asked them to get off. The couple cooperated and got off the plane without incident, but they still don’t understand why.
“They said that we were being disorderly and a hazard to the rest of the flight, to the safety of the other customers,” said Hohl.
The bride and groom were rebooked for another flight the next morning, but Hohl said they won’t be flying United again and described the whole situation as “quite strange.”
“I think customer service and the airlines has gone real downhill,” said Hohl. “The way United Airlines handled this was really absurb.”
Something that makes me believe Mr. Hohl over United is the complete lack of videos online. When Doctor Dao was beaten and dragged off the plane, the videos were online within minutes and going viral shortly thereafter. There are no videos of the Hohl’s doing anything disruptive. Since there are no videos, and lets be honest, people will film anything that could be interesting, I think the flight crew on this plane lied to the marshals.
United Airlines “Changing their policies” isn’t going to help. This is a management issues and, as they say, the fish rots from the head. United Airlines needs a major management shakeup before they do something that gets them sued out of existence.
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
[yasr_visitor_votes size=”large”]
