6 ms·

United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

• leesalminen 11y ago
  I had a decent experience with United over the holidays. Only $99 to upgrade to first class from DEN - LGA.
  • sveiss 11y ago
    This is actually one of the things (some of) United's frequent flyers complain about -- very cheap day-of-travel upgrades which prevent complimentary upgrades for their most loyal/highest spending customers from clearing.
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• zyxley 11y ago
  Airlines taking away free snacks for customers feels like companies taking away free snacks for employees: it doesn't really matter much by itself for anyone involved, but it's an obvious signal that the management involved can't bother to even put a fig leaf on the matter of your personal comfort.
  • hellofunk 11y ago
    What is odd is that even the cheapest budget airlines of Asia, and there are many, many of them, nearly all provide not just free snacks, but free hot meals.
    • yinghang 11y ago
      Except for Air Asia
      • maxxxxx 11y ago
        The stuff they sell is quite good. I much prefer paying form something decent than getting crap for free.
        • jsprogrammer 11y ago
          That crap isn't free (you did buy a ticket, right?).
    • ghaff 11y ago
      I imagine I'm the minority opinion--and Asian airline meals are generally better than US ones but that probably just reflects my preferences--but I actually don't especially regret the general demise of hot meals on most flights. They were always horrible in coach to the degree that I can recall joking cartoons about them. Serving the meals was disruptive and often stunk up the cabin. Now, when it comes to passing out cold snacks, by all means.
      • rconti 11y ago
        Yeah. To be honest, I almost looked forward to layovers during air travel for my once- or twice- yearly McDonalds visit. The food options in airports, as dismal and overpriced as they tend to be, are gourmet fare compared with what's served on the airplane. I'd just as soon not have to shuffle my laptop or book around to make space for lousy food.
        • ghaff 11y ago
          Many airport options have improved quite a bit--though most are still hardly cheap. At some point, the message seems to have gotten out--for at least some terminals--that very few people want pseudo-fine dining at airports but many want good, relatively fast food.
    • CyberDildonics 11y ago
      They give snack but they sell meals.
    • pcurve 11y ago
      I've flown on couple dozen airlines. Yes, Asian carriers are almost always better in terms of food. I was actually served medium cooked steak on Asiana. But the real difference is in their cabin attendants. x10 better. But what I hate flying about isn't the food or CA service. It's flying into and out of JFK. Everyone working there is f'king miserable. They treat people like live stocks. And their customs and immigration are incredibly inefficiently run.
      • ghaff 11y ago
        >But the real difference is in their cabin attendants. x10 better. At least some of which is for reasons that, properly, wouldn't fly in the US. They hire young, attractive, college-educated women who are enjoying flying the world for a few years before they settle down and get married. And who are not expected to stay on once they've enjoyed those few years.
        • GVIrish 11y ago
          I'm sure that's some of it, but I suspect the bigger factor is that some of the other international carriers put a bigger emphasis on customer service. I don't thing being young, college-educated, or female matters nearly as much as working for an organization that prides itself on customer service.
          • ghaff 11y ago
            That's certainly fair. Although it's probably easier to implement that emphasis on customer service with young, enthusiastic people as opposed to a 25-year veteran who has been through various downsizings and contract disputes.
            • GVIrish 11y ago
              Yeah I think a big component of the poor customer service with United is being beat down over years of cost-cutting. I've seen firsthand how they've drastically cut down the number of gate agents which leaves almost a skeleton crew to deal with customers. In that environment I'm sure it's hard for someone to be chipper and helpful.
    • mtanski 11y ago
      The competition is Asian for Airlines is a lot more intense then in North America. Almost every country has a Carier or 2 or 3. They all fly to each other countries so there is a lot of choice. Every country has been expanding its airports for the 20 years. And competition is driving the use of brand new planes and perks. Now look at North America. There are only 3 countries here. United States airlines are the largest carriers. In the past 20 years consolidation has reduced the number of airlines. That's why despite the huge drop in oily our not seeing ticket prices go down. In most cities / airports there is one dominating airline and they know chances are you will take their flight. There's times of the year (not holiday) when it's marginally more expensive for me to to Vietnam for a vacation then to visit my family living in Austin. This is from NYC.
  • Karunamon 11y ago
    "Very many little things" is a great way of describing how bad air travel is. None of the issues are all that bad taken individually, but taken together, the experience is worse than the difference of its parts. * Security (a stressful PITA) * Boarding (never goes smoothly) * Environment (tiny seats, loud, sick passengers, babies, etc) * Service (rude/inattentive FA's, overpriced small extras that feel insulting) * Delays (taking off, getting there, getting your bags) And then then there's the one-offs. A bag gets lost, a connection gets missed, mechanical problems.. Most of this stuff can be addressed directly.
    • CyberDildonics 11y ago
      Need to be humbled and reminded how small you are? Fly United.
    • scottkduncan 11y ago
      There are also a few great things about modern air travel. For one, it has gotten considerably cheaper (and thus more accessible to a broad spectrum of consumers) over time. It's also amazingly safe for travel in a metal tube at 550 MPH 35,000 feet above the earth. There are market-based products that would address many of your concerns if you are willing to pay. Prefer a larger seat or priority boarding? Try economy plus, which will also decrease the likelihood of sitting next to a baby and may get you more attentive service. The reality though is that collectively we prefer lower prices and choose flights almost exclusively by this metric, but then gripe about all the ways air travel could be better. One study on the cost of airfare over time: https://www.aei.org/publication/the-cost-of-air-travel-in-the-us-has-been-remarkably-stable-for-the-last-decade-and-17-cheaper-than-20-years-ago/ https://www.aei.org/publication/the-cost-of-air-travel-in-th...
      • Zigurd 11y ago
        Making a product horrible in order to sell "less horrible" is not a great example of a market success.
        • ForHackernews 11y ago
  • ams6110 11y ago
    Free snacks (or meals) for employees is a quirk of tech employers. Or McDonald's. At most employers you're lucky if they provide coffee (mine currently does not).
• CyberDildonics 11y ago
  I wonder if Satan also has a quest to be less evil.
• taurath 11y ago
  Flight experiences are really just anecdotal if you're talking about the same "class" of flight. I know people who fly regularly and are perfectly fine with Delta while they'd never fly American. At the same time, its always felt like the "national" domestic airlines have had very poor service - I liken it to GM and Chrysler vehicles.
  • jmspring 11y ago
    For years, I felt Lufthansa was better than United for SF -> Germany flights. Especially after the merger with Continental. Lately though, LH has been in decline. In general, I find United to be ok for the travel I have done. But they aren't what they used to be. Also, my options are limited if I want to do SF -> Europe direct and not go to CDG, Heathrow, etc. KLM wasn't bad, but it's also One World and I don't fly American or Delta domestically.
  • digikata 11y ago
    The quality of the experience can also depend on what routes and/or hubs people use regularly. Airlines also have different grades of presence at various airports.
• rezashirazian 11y ago
  The airline industry needs to be disrupted. Lets hope for a day when building safe and reliable planes is cheap and fueling them even cheaper.
  • ghaff 11y ago
    The problem is that people complain but many then go ahead and book the cheapest flight whether it's to save their own money or to comply with corporate travel policies. I'm not sure what "disruption" you have in mind that isn't available to existing carriers.
    • mikeash 11y ago
      This is the key. People complain about the airlines, but they're only giving their customers what the customers want. Sure, nobody says they'd rather be crammed into terrible seats and treated horribly to save $50, but that's how people behave, and that's all that counts. Next time you're eating your terrible free pretzels with your knees in the back of the person before you, don't blame the airline, blame your fellow passengers. And yourself!
      • izacus 11y ago
        Why the heck would I blame myself or other customers when it's the company that's giving shitty service?! If you want to make a capitalist argument then you also need to accept that customers also have the right to complain about the service they receive. It's part of the market. None of this "it's your own fault" bullshit when it's the airline that's installing the seats.
        • mikeash 11y ago
          Airlines offer better service if you pay for it. If you choose not to take advantage of that offer, you're telling the airline that you prefer to save money than have better service. You have every right to complain, but complaining itself doesn't do anything. If you say X when you complain, but say Y when you pull out your wallet, airlines are naturally going to listen to Y much more than X. I've lost count of how many times I've seen a conversation go like this: "Airlines suck, I'm a tall guy and my knees are crammed into the seat back for the entire flight." "Almost every airline these days offers an upgraded economy class with more legroom." "Yeah, but it's too expensive!" If you don't want to pay for it and would prefer to suffer (I'm a tall guy, and that's what I do too) then fine, but don't be surprised when the airlines listen to the signals you send with your money.
• dnautics 11y ago
  It's a whole lot of little things. On one flight, there wasn't enough space for my carry-on, so they told me to check it. I assumed they had meant "gate check", because that's what other airlines I fly do, but instead it got routed to the carousel, and because my next flight was on a different airline, there was no way to route it to my final destination; I had to leave the security area and come back in to continue. Thankfully security was light and I didn't miss my flight. The least they could have done was to check to make sure I understood what this entailed, and worked to find a solution.
• stephengoodwin 11y ago
  About 1/2 of the flights I've taken in the past 5 years have been on United or Continental. 11 flights on United and 4 flights on Continental[1] (I keep track of my airline travel in a spreadsheet). 2 of my United flights were international. My most recent United flights was in late 2014. I can only speak for myself, but I've never had a bad experience with United or Continental. A few small delays here or there. One 3 hour delay caused by really bad weather, but no cancellation: I still made it to my destination before 1am. For context, I've always flown economy, by myself or in a small group, and usually departing from Austin or Houston. [1] In this instance, 1 flight = 1 leg.
  • ubernostrum 11y ago
    Congratulations, you're an anecdote! Statistically, United's performance has been absolutely abysmal. The crap really started hitting the fan in June of last year, when United reported departure/arrival on-time numbers of 42% and 66% (in other words, over half of flights departed late, and over one-third arrived late, meaning they didn't make up much time in the air). For another perspective: if we look at "chronically delayed" flights (DOT defines this as being 30+ minutes delayed, 50% or more of the time), the most recent month published (November 2015) shows one-third of the chronically-delayed flights in the US are on United's network, through its chronically-comically-delayed Newark hub. Back in 2013 the WSJ published a report listing eleven flights through Newark which had landed on the chronically-delayed list for 8 consecutive months or more. The only carrier with more chronically-delayed flights than United... is Spirit. And that's saying something (they're also typically the only airline with worse overall on-time performance than United). Granted, a lot of that is from affiliates running small regional jets under the "United Express" brand -- though mainline United was still dead last in on-time performance among the big three legacy US carriers in Q3 2015 -- but in turn that's mostly ripple effects of the way United manages its regionals and shops out as much flying as possible to them (in Q3 2015, Delta operated 233,000 flights, American operated 234,000 and United only 133,000; over the same time period ExpressJet, which does regional operations for all three but primarily for United, operated over 142,000 flights, and SkyWest which has over half its flying as United Express operated over 152,000 flights), which in turn was thanks to a major strategy (slashing mainline operations in the name of "capacity discipline") of the previous Smisek-led management at United.
• GizaDog 11y ago
  You'd figured with the reduction in fuel prices they'd be able to spend that extra cash on its clients or erase those dumb baggage fees!
  • elthran 11y ago
    why would they do that, when they can just make extra profit?
• jstalin 11y ago
  I travel frequently and United is one of my favored airlines. I guess I just don't expect much and airlines tend to deliver. My biggest frustrations are usually with other passengers, not the airlines or their staff. One thing I do miss is the airline Midwest Express, which used to hand out warm chocolate chip cookies on each flight. It was a delight just smelling them warm up about 30 minutes in to the flight.
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    • deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
      • deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
        • pklausler 11y ago
          That's $30/hour when the plane is in motion, and $0/hour during boarding, deplaning, and idle time between flights.
  • Zigurd 11y ago
    I would not tag "low IQ" as the problem. Airline employees are mismanaged. Every working day they experience the same cheap-ass approach to stakeholders their customers only experience when flying. Then the bad ones take it out on the customers.
• marshray 11y ago
  Not to mention that they break guitars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
• rconti 11y ago
  I think the airlines have had a bit of a race to the bottom in a few ways: * Fees. Charge baggage fees, everyone else does the same, nobody's any better off. Boarding is slower and passengers crankier. I was HAPPY to not have to tote my bag around every single layover until they started charging for bags, now I'm another unhappy customer lugging a bag everywhere, walking up and down the aisles looking for space, having my bag gate-checked (and inevitably lost -- gate checking is the least reliable way of actually getting your bag to its destination, it seems). * Chasing "frequent flier" business travelers. I don't have the numbers to back this up, but most of them already seem loyal to their chosen airline to funnel their corporate dollars to, because they've got so many damn miles accrued. But airlines trip all over themselves to throw free shit at the 1% of frequent fliers that they piss off the 99% of occasional travelers. Yes, the frequent flier dollars are very important, but now we have a (very) long tail of less-frequent travelers who can be guaranteed that they will never, ever, ever be offered a free upgrade. You won't even get an emergency exit row (see: fees). I hate to sound entitled, but on my honeymoon, I was hoping that, for once, I might get a courtesy upgrade. Nope. I'd wager that if every airline set aside 2 slightly-better seats for a random upgrade, they'd get a lot of good word-of-mouth from the average joe like myself. But instead they waste every single bit of effort on the jaded business traveler whose opinion won't be swayed that much by small favors, because all of the airlines are throwing free stuff at them all the time anyway. * Space, obviously. I continue to insist there's a market to pay 50% more for just a LITTLE bit more space. I don't mean economy plus; I'm not tall, I'm just an average-sized male. I just want my own goddamned armrest. I don't know why the airlines can't get this right. Business class 2x2 seating on a narrowbody would 'only' cost them 33% of seat capacity. 2x3 would even be acceptable, with an offset aisle. On a widebody, even just taking out ONE coach seat would make enough space to give passengers a meaningful upgrade. add a couple more inches of legroom to make it easier to get in and out, and bam, you have my loyalty for life. I'm happy to pay for a little comfort. I just won't pay 5x as much for business class. It's simply not in a normal human being's price bracket. I don't have to pay $100k to get a car that's a bit nicer than a Corolla. (see: frequent fliers spending business dollars).
  • ghaff 11y ago
    A typical domestic flight has very few upgrade seats (e.g. on a 757). As one of those "frequent flier" business travelers on United (Gold--50K mile/yr status), I hardly ever get upgraded. >would 'only' cost them 33% of seat capacity So, on today's planes, they'd have to increase fares accordingly given that utilization on most flights is pretty high. I get your point. But the market dynamics are more or less "lowest price" vs. business class is OK.
• martinald 11y ago
  What I can't understand is why United (and tbh most airlines) put such ludicriously short connection times in going from international to domestic in the US. I've literally had them quote a 42 min connection at me getting from IAD international to domestic. This is literally impossible unless the flight was very significantly early/they put me on Concorde by mistake. I phoned up when I noticed and asked to change flight. Nope, some huge change fee + additional difference in airfare due. Gave up and sure enough I missed the flight. They just stuck me on the next one anyway, but probably lost the revenue for the flight I was meant to be on. This has happend multiple times (I've it take as much as 4 hours at EWR to go through immigration -> go through TSA-> get bag -> recheck bag -> go through TSA -> board plane. It must cost them millions of dollars. And as far as I can see there is no option on the scheduling system to say I want a longer layover. Not crazy long, just some room to breathe. Annoying.
  • peteretep 11y ago
    > And as far as I can see there is no option on the > scheduling system to say I want a longer layover A travel agent can help you with that.
    • BookmarkSaver 11y ago
      Yes, but the idea that you actually have to hire a person to do something that can be almost trivially handled by their existing systems is ridiculous these days.
      • peteretep 11y ago
        > something that can be almost trivially handled One enters dangerous territory when one starts making assessments about how difficult changing a system they're not familiar with is.
    • scottkduncan 11y ago
      Or Kayak, where you can filter flights by layover time to make sure you don't get one that is too long or too short.
• enobrev 11y ago
  The last time I flew United was a non-stop flight from Chicago to NYC. I somehow ended up in Washington D.C. with seemingly clear skies* and no more flights out for the evening and a three-hour line for people trying to get hotel vouchers. I rented a car and was in my bed five hours later. That was six years ago. That wasn't my first bad experience with United by a long shot, but I'm trying to make sure it's my last. * If there WERE poor weather conditions anywhere along the way, they weren't showing up on any weather maps. I'm no expert - I'm sure they had their reasons.
• lokedhs 11y ago
  I can't help but think that all they have to do is to look at other airlines in the US and don't do what they do. Then you look at any airline in Asia and do what they do. Problem solved. I fly a lot in South-East Asia and judging by what I see from US commenters here, the things I can complain about are problems a US airline would love to have.
• geff82 11y ago
  I think not providing meals/refreshments on any flight longer than 30min is just wrong. Why? Of course on could argue that if you "pay less you get less" or that meals are not needed on short flights. But the true story is that often times, the actual time in flight is not the only time you wait. You stand in line at the TSA, you run through giant gangways, you are sitting in a plane that gets late an hour or more. Which all means: by the time you finally are in the air, many people need some rest and energy. Not providing at least some food/drinks for free thus is absolutely unacceptable to me. Recently flew Frankfurt=>Detroit=>Dallas (2 flights). I was lucky they provided 2 meals on the long first flight, as on the second leg they only gave a coke. Including the waiting time and the time after the last meal on board, we had 5 hours without food.
  • ghaff 11y ago
    There's much to complain about with the airlines but this is one I just don't get. 5 hours without food doesn't seem like any great hardship. And there are any number of places at most airports where you can pickup a sandwich or whatever to bring on board (or pack some snack bars). I guess maybe if you were expecting a meal on a transcontinental flight but airline food in economy was always a bad joke. I'd probably prefer a bag of chips when they serve me water or a Coke but it's really not a big deal if I know they won't.