Last year's announcement of United's "Customer Satisfaction Plan" had to be the biggest joke of 1999. United, perhaps you should start with more modest goals, like answering the occasional letter from your passengers!

United Airlines Begins Customer Satisfaction Plan

Wall Street Journal - December 15, 1999

MINNEAPOLIS -- UAL Corp.'s (UAL) United Airlines and Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWAC) are the first two airlines to implement new customer services plans as part of an Air Transport Association charge. In separate press releases Wednesday, the two air carriers said the plans detail what customers may expect from each company.

United Airlines said it will offer the lowest fare possible; notify customers of known delays, cancellations and diversions; provide on-time baggage delivery; support an increase in the baggage liability limit, allow reservations to be held without payment, or canceled; provide prompt refunds; accommodate special-needs passengers; meet customer "essential needs" during long on-aircraft delays; use fair and consistent handling with "bumped" passengers; disclose policies and rules for cancellations, frequent-flyer clubs, etc.; ensure service from code-share partners; and be more responsive to customer complaints.

Untied.com editorial
September 18, 1997

It's now been over a year since I first took my little complaint against United Airlines to the web. Since then, it has generated threats of legal action against me and the University of Toronto (where the complaint pages were first located), positive support from hundreds of other former United passengers as well as many employees of UAL, media attention, and, as of last month, an apology from a UAL official.

Some readers have told me that these pages helped resolve their own problems with United, and others have even suggested that my website may have influenced United's new ad campaign. Personally, I very much doubt this. However, with the ad campaign in mind, a closer look at the myths and facts concerning the "new UAL" is in order.

In their press release of May 15, 1997, United outlines the six points of its "new philosophy" to customer service. I list each of the points, below, in red, followed by pointers to selected stories from passengers that illustrate just how well United is doing in each of these areas.

1. Provide warm, genuine attention to each travelers' needs. United is working to marshal a corps of well-trained, responsive employees -- at all levels within the company -- who are skilled in cultural sensitivities and genuinely interested in providing a top-notch travel experience.
   • Staff first, then passengers at UA
   • United does "everything possible" to help
   • United's attitude toward hospitalized passengers

2. Offer comfort as the minimum experience and enjoyment as the ideal. United is working to provide more comfortable seats, more diverse entertainment options, unique and varied meals, and cleaner cabins and rest rooms.
   • Overflowing toilets for Connoisseur class
   • When will I get my United Airlines wet suit?
   • I'm not a slob, they drenched me twice

3. Recognize and reward loyalty. United is working to provide greater recognition, more preferential treatment and better rewards for its Mileage Plus members.
   • UAL pretends tickets are no good
   • United's attitude towards frequent customers
   • Give up your reserved seats

4. Be open and candid and take responsibility. United is working to provide quicker and more accurate information on delays and changes, and to take responsibility for problems.
   • More equipment failure lies
   • Seems United just isn't learning
   • Be glad they didn't empty your wallet

5. Design a simpler, more hassle-free travel experience. United is working to make the entire travel process more convenient, viewing the experience as going from door to door, not just gate to gate.
   • You're on your own
   • Yes, a new employee does need help!
   • Better bumped than boarded

6. Provide unsurpassed global access. United is working to strengthen its worldwide route network, which is already recognized as the best in the business.
   • Yes, that much is true.

United States Department of Transportation issued a mid-year list of the airlines with the fewest complaints against them. Top three with the fewest complaints: Southwest, Continental, United.

I don't have a copy of the mid-year list, but looking at the figures for January-March 1997, one finds that the Department of Transportation received only 218 complaints against United Airlines. Considering that they flew over 19 million passengers during this period, that sounds like a pretty good record, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, no. That number (218) puts United at the top of the DOT's complaints list. So what happened from April to June? How come United came out with the third fewest complaints for the first half of the year if they had the highest number during the first three months?

Well, the "Untied" website went on-line on April 25, 1997. That left just over two months during the first half of the year when passengers could send their complaints to Untied, many of them subsequently posted, instead of to the DOT, where they would simply be counted. And over 70 people did just that.

In fact, I've received approximately 670 letters from 380 readers since the site went on-line, with most of these letters falling into the "complaints against UAL" category. Needless to say, this represents a drop in the bucket of the total number of complaints UAL receives directly. I wonder if United would care to release that number?

Until very recently, I did my best to reply to those letters. (As of now, I will no longer do so, unless UAL wishes to pay me for my time.) Often, this meant providing timely explanations for possible reasons behind the situations that led to the complaints. Occasionaly, it even helped get the problem resolved. At the very least, I made the effort to read the letters in full. My point was as follows: If I could do a decent job of this in my spare time, then why couldn't United Airline's "customer relations" department do the same? I suspect that the answer is threefold. Lack of time, lack of motivation, and lack of experience.

Quoting from a letter I recently received from a former UAL employee: "The customer service agents are not unionized and are paid low and assigned mandatory overtime resulting in long hours." I imagine that United's Senior Management and Board of Directors would rather see stock prices up a few points than invest in a sufficient number of customer service agents to deal with passenger dissatisfaction.

Based on additional feedback offered by a number of UAL employees, it seems that United Airlines brings in many workers at minimum wage and offers little incentive to do good work. The training procedures leave much to be desired, and neither a reward nor discipline system is adequately in place or enforced.

A further problem is that the company has some serious internal rifts. As one employee points out, despite the "United" name, the airline is anything but united, with major conflicts across the divisions of seniority -- those who joined before the employee take-over vs. those who did not -- and unionized vs. non-unionized employees.

These factors do not spell a recipe for success. True, even under such adverse conditions, a huge company like United can remain profitable for some time, simply by inertia. However, in the long term, substantive improvement must come, or the company will sink rather than rise. As has been suggested in various posting in these web pages, such improvement is determined largely by the quality of employees, and not in the form of hollow rhetoric spooned out by the PR firms (eg. " [United developed] a new service philosophy called the Customer Satisfaction Philosophy" and "[quality food] initiatives are a direct result of United talking with and listening to its customers").

No doubt, there are many motivated and professional employees currently working at United. But, if the reports coming in from both UAL employees and customers are any indication, their number seems to be decreasing. It is up to UAL senior management to create the atmosphere that brings in more of these problem-solving individuals, rather than irresponsible and incompetent workers who contribute to and exacerbate problems. That's how a company succeeds. After all, if you provide good service, especially in response to a complaint, that is when you rise in the eyes of your customers.