DISQUS

Fireblazes(CheetohsandCatfood) · 1 year ago

The greed and arrogance of big business knows no bounds.

kdoug · 1 year ago

I don't in anyway want to bail out United for their unforgivable, crass, thoughtless behavior HOWEVER I can NOT see how airlines can make ANY money selling tickets FOR THE SAME PRICE I paid 31 years ago.
In 1975 I flew from Santa Barbara to Newark the lowest price ticket was $380.00. I just bought 2 tickets from Santa Barbara to Boston and paid $338.00 each. In 1975 a nice house in Santa Barbara was $75,000.00 now that same house is $2,000,000.00. In 1975 a new BMW was $8,500 now it is $50,000.00. Gas in 1975 was .50 cents a gallon. Today it is $4.00. What do you think about this?

evan_la · 1 year ago

Uhh, hello? Deregulation. Flights used to be darned expensive - and the tariffs were set by the government. Now we have competition on, guess what, low fares. I don't have a whole lot of sympathy. Air travelers got what they asked for when they asked for deregulation and made low fares the number one criterion. Many many more people are traveling by air nowadays, so there are economies of scale, still, flights are too cheap.

GWMustGo · 1 year ago

My story is no where near as frustrating, nor as touching, but it does show the disparity of how some airlines (well, one) treat their customers versus other airlines (well, another one).

Over the course of 2 weeks I flew round trip Raleigh, NC to Philadelphia, then round trip Raleigh to Jacksonville, FL. Due to nasty weather in the Northeast, my Sunday afternoon 3:45 flight out of Raleigh left after 10:00 PM. There were well over 1,000 of us trying to get to the Northeast or whose flights originated in the Northeast who were waiting for many hours. This was on Southwest Airlines. The Southwest folks were keeping us up to date constantly, and doing everything in their power to help people arrange to get where they needed to be. During that entire time, I heard one single person curse. One out of over a thousand. Why? Because of the way the Southwest folks were treating us - adults who were due every piece of information available, and who appreciated the Southwest folks' sympathies.

The next week on my return leg from Jacksonville on American Airlines was a different story. I checked in, and everything said the flight was on time. Only when I got to the gate did I see that the flight was postponed. Until when? Who knows - certainly not me. I tried to find somebody who could tell me ANYTHING, but there wasn't an AA employee in sight. After waiting around an hour or so, a person magically appeared behind the counter. Another passenger asked why it was late, and whether it was weather. The AA person's reply: "No - that flight out of Chicago is always late." Well, if it's "always late," WHY SCHEDULE THE JACKSONVILLE FLIGHT DEPENDENT ON THE FLIGHT BEING ON TIME?!?

Now, and hour or so is not much, and really shouldn't have upset me that much, especially after being delayed 6+ hours just a week prior. But the way AA handled (or mis-handled) the situation made it infuriating.

But that is not the end... I sent identical letters to each airline's customer service departments, praising Southwest, while bemoaning AA's "service".

AA's response? An initial post card stating that their customer service is getting greater than anticipated traffic, and that my concerns will be attended to shortly. Many weeks later, I received a letter saying "sorry, but we can't do anything about the weather." I'm glad they spent as much time and care reading my note as they did taking care of their passengers...

Southwest's response? A letter thanking me for taking the time to let them know how their employees are treating the customer, and letting me know that they would be passing the letter on to the folks who were working that day. Oh, and they also sent me a voucher for $100 (including the statement "We know you weren't looking for any compensation for the delay (I wasn't), but we appreciate your taking the time to contact us."

Guess which airline I'll be choosing for my next flight?

(Full disclosure - SWA is a client of the company I work for, but I have been flying them by choice many years before they were a client.)

Some carriers care - others don't give a flying rats patootie (pun intended).

vkobaya · 1 year ago

Don't the Cabral family have the makings of massive lawsuit, with huge, huge punitive damages? I hope they can document everything and seriously stick it to United.

There was a time 45 years ago, United was held up as the ideal by which all airlines should be measured and it was unthinkable that anyone say anything bad about United. Of course, back then people gave ATT and stock saying that ATT was stock that would be worth a fortune some day in the future as it was regarded as the perfect stock investment. Sigh! Things change a lot more than imaginable in 45 years.

flygirl · 1 year ago

My worst airline experience was also with United and 10 years ago they were supposed to be the best. Ha.

WhoAmI · 1 year ago

My daughter was bumped from a flight she had booked for a business trip. Northwest Airlines gave her a voucher for a free round trip ticket anywhere in the US. The catch is that Northwest only allows these "free" trips on flights that THEY choose and they only post the options for free travel a few days before the flight. What a ripoff! Never take the "free flight" if you're bumped off a flight. Take the voucher for $250 off, or whatever they offer other than "free" and give them hell for the inconvenience!

jr · 1 year ago

this is the republicans wet dream. Us living under the jackboots of corporate tyranny

Roscoe · 1 year ago

You can expect a lot more of this kind of behavior from the US airlines in the future. To try to save money the airlines are cutting flights and routes and almost every plane is flying full. That means that they have no ability to accommodate last minute changes due to weather or equipment problems. If someone paid more for their canceled flight or has higher status than you, you can expect to be bumped from your flight. Tough luck chump. As a 1K flier on United (100,000 miles a year) I have plenty of stories to tell. Here's an especially interesting one: I was flying from the West Coast to Indianapolis through Chicago. The segment from Chicago to Indy was the last flight of the day, which is always asking for trouble. Fifteen minutes before the Indy segment was to leave, we were informed that the flight was canceled. They had no plans to put us up in Chicago or even to get us to Indy the following day, because all flights were fully booked. We were simply screwed. It was looking pretty bad when suddenly our flight was reinstated and we went to Indy as scheduled. What happened??? Somebody at United discovered that there was MAIL going to Indy on that flight, so contractually it HAD to go. Instead, they canceled a full flight to Baltimore and used that plane for us, leaving 135 Baltimore passengers to fend for themselves in Chicago at midnight!

I fly on all the US airlines and United is no worse than any of the others (except Southwest, which really is a lot better and US Airways which is really a lot worse). It beats me how a customer service industry can expect to make money by screwing the customers, but that seems to be the business model the airlines are adopting.

Wesinoregon · 1 year ago

Airlines need to be regulated like they were before.

randysmith · 1 year ago

NO! The airlines need to be allowed to FAIL! Chapter 7. Go away!

At some point the transportation system will unscrew itself and somebody will come along that can make money at it. Maybe we should invite in Emirates!

Southwest may or may not be a "fuel hedging operation with an airline attached", but it seems to also know how to move passengers from point A to B. And I suspect they will remain competent even if they did have to charge higher prices.

I've fot frequent flyer miles on most US airlines. None are worth sh*t! I've been royally screwed by all of them, so don't anybody start the "X is better than Y" BS. I fly because I need to get somewhere and in the US there is simply no other viable alternative...