Even though I've spent much of the past two weeks skiing in the Rockies I've read about the stumbling that the CEO of United has been doing following his staff getting some thugs to beat up and drag a passenger from one of their planes. Naturally these days this kind of thing was recorded on video and spread all over the internet so very quickly the whole world new about it. Every business makes mistakes. It's how they deal with it that really matters and that was what amazed me.
I've done a lot of business and vacation air travel on many different airlines through out the world and naturally have encountered many different business cultures, some excellent at customer service and others the opposite, but United has stood out as being one of the worst examples of how not to treat people. I recall a hilarious experience in Denver when I'd bought a discounted coach class ticket from Calgary to Denver, return. The two meetings went very well so instead of driving back to Denver from Casper Wyo. and staying over night like I had planned, I drove directly to the airport to see if there were an evening flight I could catch. The woman at the counter said that there was plenty of room on it and then looked at my ticket, telling me I couldn't use that ticket since it was "restricted" and couldn't be changed from the flight I had booked the following morning. I asked to speak to her supervisor and she said "why, he knows the rules and won't change the flight", even though she had checked and found that the flight I was booked on was oversold. The young fellow who was her supervisor checked the flights and when I told him I wished to give up my seat on the oversold flight in exchange for one on the flight that was half full, he made the change. As I walked away from the counter I could hear her ranting that "you can't do that, his ticket was restricted". My hunch is that she's still with United and he found a better airline.
I've done a lot of business and vacation air travel on many different airlines through out the world and naturally have encountered many different business cultures, some excellent at customer service and others the opposite, but United has stood out as being one of the worst examples of how not to treat people. I recall a hilarious experience in Denver when I'd bought a discounted coach class ticket from Calgary to Denver, return. The two meetings went very well so instead of driving back to Denver from Casper Wyo. and staying over night like I had planned, I drove directly to the airport to see if there were an evening flight I could catch. The woman at the counter said that there was plenty of room on it and then looked at my ticket, telling me I couldn't use that ticket since it was "restricted" and couldn't be changed from the flight I had booked the following morning. I asked to speak to her supervisor and she said "why, he knows the rules and won't change the flight", even though she had checked and found that the flight I was booked on was oversold. The young fellow who was her supervisor checked the flights and when I told him I wished to give up my seat on the oversold flight in exchange for one on the flight that was half full, he made the change. As I walked away from the counter I could hear her ranting that "you can't do that, his ticket was restricted". My hunch is that she's still with United and he found a better airline.
