Bedbugs on United:
Unless you enjoy being eaten alive by bedbugs, you might have second thoughts about "flying the friendly skies" with UAL.

More small victories for passenger rights:
Following his earlier success against United's partner, Air Canada regarding their policies on delayed or damaged baggage, a colleague helps secure another ruling against Westjet with respect to the latter's attempt to evade responsibility (and liability) for damaged luggage (full legal text here). These rulings could well have important implications for US airlines as well. In a similar vein, the maintainer of this website recently had occasion to sue an American airline in Small Claims Court over a minor issue of customer disservice, also related to luggage. In this case, the airline settled rather than risk a negative judgement. Lesson learned: if you believe that you're entitled to compensation and a polite letter doesn't meet with a satisfactory response, the courts or the relevant transportation agencies may provide to be the most effective remedy. Here's a related case study on how Samsung follows the airline's route of treating its customers with contempt.

Ever feel powerless?
Here's an (unfortunately) highly typical conversation between a passenger trying to straighten out some issues with the airline, ever so patiently, and a completely unhelpful UAL help agent, who has obviously been given zero authority to help resolve such problems. You can just see the frustration level climbing higher and higher.

How to get the satisfaction of a response from UAL:
There are a few options: The first, as demonstrated by Dave Carroll's well-known Broken Guitar Song (listen to it here) is to use your talent to get some media attention. This also worked for James Daniel, who tried to heed widespread calls for those who are sick with the flu not to fly, was given the usual United treatment until media exposure compelled the world's most unfriendly airline to do the right thing. Another way is to use plastic: if you purchased your ticket with a credit card and feel that United didn't deliver the contractually agreed upon service, dispute the charge with your credit card company. Although the airline may prevail in the end, they will be forced to send a formal reply to your charge dispute, and you can usually counter this with further documentation if you disagree. The other option, long advocated by Untied.com is small claims action, which has been successful for many former passengers, such as this one.

Legal advice and employee information requested:
More terminated employees are soliciting legal advice or information from other fellow employees regarding their respective plights. One former employee is even writing a book and is seeking stories from other former UALers. Some correspondence relates to employees terminated under suspicious "medical-related" reasons, with one former UAL medical doctor stepping forward to respond to questions. In similar incidents, one employee was terminated while under medical care, another was terminated after the airline fabricated the claim that he resigned, and a potential whistleblower was terminated and refused his retirement pay. If anyone has advice or can offer legal representation for these employees, please contact our site.

Know your rights:
A former UAL employee provides several important pointers regarding the Workers Compensation Act and the unsavory "scorecard" used by UAL's pet bulldog, Gallagher Basset, when investigating employee claims.

Other resources for UAL employees:
Employees should be aware of the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association, headed by former United captain Dan Hanley, a grassroots advocacy site, which documents systemic suppression of whistleblowing activities (such as those we've described, below) within the airline industry. A frightening example can be found in the recent Washington Examiner article. This describes how Hanley was prevented from informing the members of a Senate subcommittee investigating factors behind recent deadly airline crashes how United retaliated against him for speaking out about pilot fatigue! Also, the Ex-United on-line blog, touches on a variety of topics of relevance to United's employees, past and present.

How UAL treats its own:
UAL is not known for rewarding its best, but rather, for punishing them, in particular, anyone who dares speak out, especially whistleblowers. Some of the many examples contained in our employee feedback section include current employee who suffered on-the-job injury, harrassment from UAL medical, and numerous efforts by UAL management to evade the law. Another letter we recently received from the wife of a former UAL pilot instructor, describes how the airline -- from union and employee representatives, medical advisors, and fleet captain -- ignored the trainer's health condition, fought against his Workman's Compensation filing, and ultimately, contributed to his early death. Another former employee describes her struggle to get back on her feet. The advice of former employees is useful reading: UAL does not care about you!