5 ms·

How Much Would You Put Up with to Avoid United Airlines?

22 points by panarky 10y ago

theprop 10y ago
If United's fare is more than 20% lower than the otherwise lowest fare, I'd probably risk it...but until there's a big change in management, I wouldn't feel good about it.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  The odds of being involved in an incident are essentially 0 (especially right after the big negative publicity). Someone analyzing just that risk should take United anytime it is cheaper or more convenient.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    ...and, this is how change doesn't happen.
    - frogpelt 10y ago
      In one way you're right. In another way, the mounds of negative publicity the last few weeks have already caused change I'm guessing.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Read both sentences. Focus on the phrase "analyzing just that risk" in the second one. Think about what I might have meant. Think about whether what I meant really should have prompted your snide remark.
      - ryandrake 10y ago
        I think we are in agreement--people who are only picking who to buy from using that mentality (It won't happen to me) are why companies can get away with shenanigans on a once-in-a-million cadence.
  - dboreham 10y ago
    Well, I fly United about once a month and I've been involved in an incident exactly once in the past 20 years. I wasn't thrown off the plane, just the guy seated in front of me. I still fly United because I expect they are on best behavior now.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - mcphage 10y ago
    > The odds of being involved in an incident are essentially 0 Involved in what kind of incident? United getting the police to throw me off the plane? Yeah, that's probably around 0 right now. But an incident involving poor customer service? That's definitely a lot higher than 0.
muninn_ 10y ago
This probably won't be popular, but frankly if the price was the lowest for where I was heading I'd just take UA. The incident is beyond stupid but also incredibly rare. If it was like a $5 difference or something and the flight was exactly the same in all aspects I guess I'd take another airline, but meh.
- primitivesuave 10y ago
  I actually agree with you on this, I'm mortified by what they did but that doesn't make me a less rational consumer.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    I'd argue that continuing to take the lowest fare when the operator behaves like this is a sign of irrational behavior -- you're ignoring second order effects because they're computationally hard and don't cater to emotive needs like base resource conservation does. So you're mortified, but not enough to jog you out of irrational spending habits.
    - bohemianr 10y ago
      Am I missing something? How is going for the cheapest ticket an "irrational spending habit"?
      - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
        Did you read the rest of the sentence? There are second order effects that come from the pricing pressure and the way the business operates which have a negative utility spread across the rest of your life. My contention is that the price delta now (what you save) is worth less than the negative value (eg, from societal harm), so the total value difference, when you account for the more subtle effects, is negative. (That is, you'd be better off paying more now and not influencing things that way.) That's computationally hard to account for and doesn't give the emotional high of "fuck yeah, good deal!", so people tend to do the irrational thing that costs them more in the long run but feels good now and they don't have to think too hard about.
abawany 10y ago
In recent searches on Google Flights, I took the trouble to eliminate United from the results to avoid ~30% 'savings'. Even prior to this incident, my opinion of United was extremely low (due to my prior horrifying experiences with them); I haven't flown this airline in 10+ years.
- dawnerd 10y ago
  I actually just booked a flight the other day for a fairly last minute vacation and round trip PDX to MCO was 244 on united, but almost 800 with Delta. It was tempting to fly United purely because of price, but since I have nice status with Delta I ate the cost. Only other airline that was as cheap as United was Spirit, and no way in hell am I flying them.
  - ComradeTaco 10y ago
    I took a red eye flight that boarded only about 45 minutes after the security checkpoint for the terminal reopened for the morning. I sat right next to the Spirit Airlines counter, where I watched dozens of people place their bags on the spirit airlines baggage pricing stand. I tallied up the extra fees and Spirit just got away with an extra $4,000 that morning. One of the only times I could say that I was thankful for flying American.
AndrewKemendo 10y ago
I used to fly exclusively Continental, but after the merger with United, the entire brand just started cutting every corner possible and I bailed for Delta about three years ago. Well before this issue, they were already flagging IMO and one of the biggest changes was the changes to their seats. They are thin and uncomfortable, have limited recline and their back pocket size is not large enough for a thin laptop anymore. Their customer support and mileage program were also relatively bad up until recently - now everyone's FF plan is about as bad. Also DeltaOne from JFK to SFO is amazing - no domestic carrier can beat it.
ilamont 10y ago
My family travels regularly from Boston to Asia, usually once every two years. A $150 difference in ticket prices for a single person makes a big difference when multiplied for several family members, and UA consistently is the lowest priced. My wife and son went for Lunar New Year a few months ago and paid $780/ticket on UA, which was not only far cheaper than the competition, it was the cheapest I had seen it at any time for decades (I have heard that the new international routes enabled by the 787, including direct flights from Logan to Japan and Dubai, as well as new carriers flying to Logan have changed the pricing dynamics). Yes, UA service blows. It's really quite bad. But we are willing to put up with it based on the savings for our family, and can sometimes wrangle the trans-Pacific leg on a codeshare with ANA. Another thing I have to say about UA: It's much easier to redeem points for goods than other American carriers. This helps us, as my kids and wife get a bunch of miles for the transpacific flights but don't fly frequently enough to exchange them for free tickets. I've been able to cash their Mileage Plus points for tools, luggage, and gifts, including a really nice Citizen Eco-Drive watch. Yes, I know the exchange rate for the miles isn't great, but they cost money to transfer or extend and would likely be abandoned if we didn't use them for purchases.
SerLava 10y ago
I very recently found out the answer to this question: about 200 bucks. Luckily I only had to spend 50-60 bucks to avoid them. The viral doctor beating video did not even factor in -- growing up I was personally fucked around by United too many times to ever consider intentionally flying with them as an adult. I've been told to run literally a mile through an Airport by a United employee, when I actually needed to go 2 gates down the hall. They are past not caring - they actually have a strong desire to avoid helping customera. It's endemic - United employees are an abused and bitter people. Once my flight was delayed so they transferred me to United and I was pretty ticked off. This gave United the opportunity to lose my bag, an opportunity they did NOT squander.
- backpropaganda 10y ago
  Doesn't this information help United? They can now price their flights $200 lower than competition, just so that they continue getting customers, then surprise everyone with their awesome services, and then increase the price back to normal.
  - mcphage 10y ago
    > then surprise everyone with their awesome services ...if they were at all able, as an organization, to provide awesome services, then they wouldn't be in the mess that they're in.
  - SerLava 10y ago
    >then surprise everyone with their awesome services, I'd bet on bankruptcy before that.
technofiend 10y ago
I will happily take Southwest every time over UA. If that results in a small premium so I'm not hassled at every turn to spend more money (better seat, buy miles, buy WiFi, buy a lounge pass, etc), have an easier boarding process and a larger seat to boot? There's no comparison. Don't get me wrong: there are purchasing options on SWA also, but they are less pushy about it and last time I checked their prices were lower. The only reason I have United miles is because they're the best direct choice for business class travel to South America and at that fare class most items are bundled but still no free wifi. And just like their vouchers their miles are essentially unusable. I recently priced Houston to London with an eye to using miles to upgrade to business. It required $2000 in fees for two people plus the miles on top of the higher airfare required to get an upgradable seat. British Airways could ask me to sing Hail, Brittania every hour and I'd still take them over UA because they're so much cheaper.
bohemianr 10y ago
Call me cynic, but being bullied, overcharged, and incovenient is somehting I learend to expect when travelling by plane. I also know that if I don't follow the directions/orders of anyone with a bit of authority I will not allowed to fly the specific day in the best case, not be allowed to fly again, or even worst in the worst case. I don't think that changing airline will affect my whole flying experience too much.
- lokedhs 10y ago
  > I don't think that changing airline will affect my whole flying experience too much. It would, if you switch to a good airline. Just pick anyone in the top-10 and you'll be good: http://www.airlinequality.com/review-pages/top-10-airlines/ http://www.airlinequality.com/review-pages/top-10-airlines/
  - Zanni 10y ago
    You have to go a long way down that list, well outside the top 10, to find an airline that offers domestic flights in the U.S.
    - lokedhs 10y ago
      Yes, I know that, but there seems to be little reason to use one of these airlines when travelling abroad. This is all because of lack of competition, and one would think that a place like the US wouldn't put up barriers to competition, but that's what they apparently do.
egwynn 10y ago
It seems like a central conceit of this article is that market forces may end up being substantial punishment for UAL’s recent bad press. Maybe it’ll make an impact for consumers, but what about business travel? I’d wager that it makes up a big chunk of UAL’s bottom line, and it all comes from entities that care almost none at all about UAL’s bad PR. What large company is gonna uproot their business travel workflow because of their airline’s bad publicity?
toephu2 10y ago
People are blowing this out of proportion. About 300K people fly United every day [1] and for the most part have 0 problems (that other airlines don't have) whatsoever. This one bad incident makes the news (the definition of news) and everyone thinks United is horrible and they will never fly them again. Also remember it was the police who dragged the guy off the plane not United. Once the police got on the plane it was out of United's control. All United did was make a phone call to the them (to boot passengers off for their own employees which was wrong), so I feel people should be directing more of their anger at the police instead of United (although some anger can be directed at United too). [1] extrapolated out of my ass from 2015 data but should be close https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/press_releases/bts018_16 https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/press_releases/bts018_16
- egwynn 10y ago
  People felt like UAL’s decision to get the police involved made them primarily responsible for letting the situation get out of hand. And then after it all blew up, they failed to take a compassionate position for the passenger, and instead stuck to their “we get to throw anyone off our planes for any reason with any amount of force” story. So yes, it’s kinda not 100% their fault, but it’s at least partly their fault, and they didn’t have the good sense to fess up to it until it was too late.
- skue 10y ago
  No, it's really not about this one incident. United's customer service record has just fallen apart over the past several years, and many of us have had miserable experiences flying United. Every single one of my nightmare travel stories has been on United. Their CEO took as his mission to improve morale and build it back up, and ended up throwing gasoline on the smoldering fire instead. So when we heard the news, we didn't just say "How could an airline do that?" Instead we said "An airline knocked out a passenger and dragged him off a plane so a stewardess could have his seat? Let me guess... was this on United?" (Spirit would have an equally good guess, but at least they don't pretend to be on par with the other carriers.)
  - toephu2 10y ago
skue 10y ago
How much? Well, those of us living in the Pacific Northwest just went through the wettest, cloudiest, gloomiest winter in our history.[1] But if someone gave us perennial sunshine and all we had to do was become a United hub instead of Alaska? Pretty sure I wouldn't be the only one begging to bring the rain back instead. [1] http://www.startribune.com/soggy-seattle-lives-up-to-name-breaks-another-rain-record/420375073/ http://www.startribune.com/soggy-seattle-lives-up-to-name-br...
chomp 10y ago
I'm bound by my credit card rewards. As much as I don't like how United handled the issue, I'll still fly United.
chomp 10y ago
I'm bound by my credit card rewards. As much as I don't like how United handled the issue, I'll still fly United.
shiven 10y ago
I just booked a return flight for two and paid a $200 premium to avoid United.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
notacoward 10y ago
While everyone's sharing anecdotes that put United in a bad light compared to other major US airlines, I might as well share mine. For context, I've been very critical of United since this incident happened, and I even did my homework to justify my criticism. Any Johnny-come-lately can check my comment history to verify. I'm not going to make any apologies for them. I haven't had any particularly bad experiences with United myself, beyond the general badness of flying coach domestically. Do you know who has screwed up my life multiple times? Northworst (now merged with Delta) and even more so USeless Air (now part of American). So I don't delude myself that the exact same thing couldn't happen on the other members of the big three. The real bad actors here were Republic who subcontracts to all three, and the Chicago boyz who serve literally everyone going through that airport. It could have been the same cops responding to the same operator, even if the planes and tickets showed Delta or American. It just happened to be United, who also happens to have the cheapest flights at the most convenient times for the route I travel the most. I might expect something better from JetBlue or Southwest, certainly from Virgin, but I definitely would have to make a sacrifice of cost and/or convenience to make either of those switches. I might still do that, but "fly American because United sucks" (and ditto for Delta) is just absurd. If you're going to switch, really switch to something that has some real hope of being different.
dvcrn 10y ago
We all have these airlines that we try to avoid. For me it's AirAsia. I would without hesitation pay 100 USD more (depending on the distance) just to NOT take them. I had so many bad experiences with this one airline that you'll have to force me into a AirAsia flight.

22 points by panarky 10y ago

If United's fare is more than 20% lower than the otherwise lowest fare, I'd probably risk it...but until there's a big change in management, I wouldn't feel good about it.

maxerickson 10y ago
The odds of being involved in an incident are essentially 0 (especially right after the big negative publicity). Someone analyzing just that risk should take United anytime it is cheaper or more convenient.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  ...and, this is how change doesn't happen.
  - frogpelt 10y ago
    In one way you're right. In another way, the mounds of negative publicity the last few weeks have already caused change I'm guessing.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Read both sentences. Focus on the phrase "analyzing just that risk" in the second one. Think about what I might have meant. Think about whether what I meant really should have prompted your snide remark.
    - ryandrake 10y ago
      I think we are in agreement--people who are only picking who to buy from using that mentality (It won't happen to me) are why companies can get away with shenanigans on a once-in-a-million cadence.
- dboreham 10y ago
  Well, I fly United about once a month and I've been involved in an incident exactly once in the past 20 years. I wasn't thrown off the plane, just the guy seated in front of me. I still fly United because I expect they are on best behavior now.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- mcphage 10y ago
  > The odds of being involved in an incident are essentially 0 Involved in what kind of incident? United getting the police to throw me off the plane? Yeah, that's probably around 0 right now. But an incident involving poor customer service? That's definitely a lot higher than 0.

muninn_ 10y ago

This probably won't be popular, but frankly if the price was the lowest for where I was heading I'd just take UA. The incident is beyond stupid but also incredibly rare. If it was like a $5 difference or something and the flight was exactly the same in all aspects I guess I'd take another airline, but meh.

primitivesuave 10y ago
I actually agree with you on this, I'm mortified by what they did but that doesn't make me a less rational consumer.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  I'd argue that continuing to take the lowest fare when the operator behaves like this is a sign of irrational behavior -- you're ignoring second order effects because they're computationally hard and don't cater to emotive needs like base resource conservation does. So you're mortified, but not enough to jog you out of irrational spending habits.
  - bohemianr 10y ago
    Am I missing something? How is going for the cheapest ticket an "irrational spending habit"?
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      Did you read the rest of the sentence? There are second order effects that come from the pricing pressure and the way the business operates which have a negative utility spread across the rest of your life. My contention is that the price delta now (what you save) is worth less than the negative value (eg, from societal harm), so the total value difference, when you account for the more subtle effects, is negative. (That is, you'd be better off paying more now and not influencing things that way.) That's computationally hard to account for and doesn't give the emotional high of "fuck yeah, good deal!", so people tend to do the irrational thing that costs them more in the long run but feels good now and they don't have to think too hard about.

abawany 10y ago

In recent searches on Google Flights, I took the trouble to eliminate United from the results to avoid ~30% 'savings'. Even prior to this incident, my opinion of United was extremely low (due to my prior horrifying experiences with them); I haven't flown this airline in 10+ years.

dawnerd 10y ago
I actually just booked a flight the other day for a fairly last minute vacation and round trip PDX to MCO was 244 on united, but almost 800 with Delta. It was tempting to fly United purely because of price, but since I have nice status with Delta I ate the cost. Only other airline that was as cheap as United was Spirit, and no way in hell am I flying them.
- ComradeTaco 10y ago
  I took a red eye flight that boarded only about 45 minutes after the security checkpoint for the terminal reopened for the morning. I sat right next to the Spirit Airlines counter, where I watched dozens of people place their bags on the spirit airlines baggage pricing stand. I tallied up the extra fees and Spirit just got away with an extra $4,000 that morning. One of the only times I could say that I was thankful for flying American.

AndrewKemendo 10y ago

I used to fly exclusively Continental, but after the merger with United, the entire brand just started cutting every corner possible and I bailed for Delta about three years ago. Well before this issue, they were already flagging IMO and one of the biggest changes was the changes to their seats. They are thin and uncomfortable, have limited recline and their back pocket size is not large enough for a thin laptop anymore. Their customer support and mileage program were also relatively bad up until recently - now everyone's FF plan is about as bad. Also DeltaOne from JFK to SFO is amazing - no domestic carrier can beat it.

ilamont 10y ago

My family travels regularly from Boston to Asia, usually once every two years. A $150 difference in ticket prices for a single person makes a big difference when multiplied for several family members, and UA consistently is the lowest priced. My wife and son went for Lunar New Year a few months ago and paid $780/ticket on UA, which was not only far cheaper than the competition, it was the cheapest I had seen it at any time for decades (I have heard that the new international routes enabled by the 787, including direct flights from Logan to Japan and Dubai, as well as new carriers flying to Logan have changed the pricing dynamics). Yes, UA service blows. It's really quite bad. But we are willing to put up with it based on the savings for our family, and can sometimes wrangle the trans-Pacific leg on a codeshare with ANA. Another thing I have to say about UA: It's much easier to redeem points for goods than other American carriers. This helps us, as my kids and wife get a bunch of miles for the transpacific flights but don't fly frequently enough to exchange them for free tickets. I've been able to cash their Mileage Plus points for tools, luggage, and gifts, including a really nice Citizen Eco-Drive watch. Yes, I know the exchange rate for the miles isn't great, but they cost money to transfer or extend and would likely be abandoned if we didn't use them for purchases.

SerLava 10y ago

I very recently found out the answer to this question: about 200 bucks. Luckily I only had to spend 50-60 bucks to avoid them. The viral doctor beating video did not even factor in -- growing up I was personally fucked around by United too many times to ever consider intentionally flying with them as an adult. I've been told to run literally a mile through an Airport by a United employee, when I actually needed to go 2 gates down the hall. They are past not caring - they actually have a strong desire to avoid helping customera. It's endemic - United employees are an abused and bitter people. Once my flight was delayed so they transferred me to United and I was pretty ticked off. This gave United the opportunity to lose my bag, an opportunity they did NOT squander.

backpropaganda 10y ago
Doesn't this information help United? They can now price their flights $200 lower than competition, just so that they continue getting customers, then surprise everyone with their awesome services, and then increase the price back to normal.
- mcphage 10y ago
  > then surprise everyone with their awesome services ...if they were at all able, as an organization, to provide awesome services, then they wouldn't be in the mess that they're in.
- SerLava 10y ago
  >then surprise everyone with their awesome services, I'd bet on bankruptcy before that.

technofiend 10y ago

I will happily take Southwest every time over UA. If that results in a small premium so I'm not hassled at every turn to spend more money (better seat, buy miles, buy WiFi, buy a lounge pass, etc), have an easier boarding process and a larger seat to boot? There's no comparison. Don't get me wrong: there are purchasing options on SWA also, but they are less pushy about it and last time I checked their prices were lower. The only reason I have United miles is because they're the best direct choice for business class travel to South America and at that fare class most items are bundled but still no free wifi. And just like their vouchers their miles are essentially unusable. I recently priced Houston to London with an eye to using miles to upgrade to business. It required $2000 in fees for two people plus the miles on top of the higher airfare required to get an upgradable seat. British Airways could ask me to sing Hail, Brittania every hour and I'd still take them over UA because they're so much cheaper.

bohemianr 10y ago

Call me cynic, but being bullied, overcharged, and incovenient is somehting I learend to expect when travelling by plane. I also know that if I don't follow the directions/orders of anyone with a bit of authority I will not allowed to fly the specific day in the best case, not be allowed to fly again, or even worst in the worst case. I don't think that changing airline will affect my whole flying experience too much.

lokedhs 10y ago
> I don't think that changing airline will affect my whole flying experience too much. It would, if you switch to a good airline. Just pick anyone in the top-10 and you'll be good: http://www.airlinequality.com/review-pages/top-10-airlines/ http://www.airlinequality.com/review-pages/top-10-airlines/
- Zanni 10y ago
  You have to go a long way down that list, well outside the top 10, to find an airline that offers domestic flights in the U.S.
  - lokedhs 10y ago
    Yes, I know that, but there seems to be little reason to use one of these airlines when travelling abroad. This is all because of lack of competition, and one would think that a place like the US wouldn't put up barriers to competition, but that's what they apparently do.

egwynn 10y ago

It seems like a central conceit of this article is that market forces may end up being substantial punishment for UAL’s recent bad press. Maybe it’ll make an impact for consumers, but what about business travel? I’d wager that it makes up a big chunk of UAL’s bottom line, and it all comes from entities that care almost none at all about UAL’s bad PR. What large company is gonna uproot their business travel workflow because of their airline’s bad publicity?

toephu2 10y ago

People are blowing this out of proportion. About 300K people fly United every day [1] and for the most part have 0 problems (that other airlines don't have) whatsoever. This one bad incident makes the news (the definition of news) and everyone thinks United is horrible and they will never fly them again. Also remember it was the police who dragged the guy off the plane not United. Once the police got on the plane it was out of United's control. All United did was make a phone call to the them (to boot passengers off for their own employees which was wrong), so I feel people should be directing more of their anger at the police instead of United (although some anger can be directed at United too). [1] extrapolated out of my ass from 2015 data but should be close https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/press_releases/bts018_16 https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/press_releases/bts018_16

egwynn 10y ago
People felt like UAL’s decision to get the police involved made them primarily responsible for letting the situation get out of hand. And then after it all blew up, they failed to take a compassionate position for the passenger, and instead stuck to their “we get to throw anyone off our planes for any reason with any amount of force” story. So yes, it’s kinda not 100% their fault, but it’s at least partly their fault, and they didn’t have the good sense to fess up to it until it was too late.
skue 10y ago
No, it's really not about this one incident. United's customer service record has just fallen apart over the past several years, and many of us have had miserable experiences flying United. Every single one of my nightmare travel stories has been on United. Their CEO took as his mission to improve morale and build it back up, and ended up throwing gasoline on the smoldering fire instead. So when we heard the news, we didn't just say "How could an airline do that?" Instead we said "An airline knocked out a passenger and dragged him off a plane so a stewardess could have his seat? Let me guess... was this on United?" (Spirit would have an equally good guess, but at least they don't pretend to be on par with the other carriers.)
- toephu2 10y ago

skue 10y ago

How much? Well, those of us living in the Pacific Northwest just went through the wettest, cloudiest, gloomiest winter in our history.[1] But if someone gave us perennial sunshine and all we had to do was become a United hub instead of Alaska? Pretty sure I wouldn't be the only one begging to bring the rain back instead. [1] http://www.startribune.com/soggy-seattle-lives-up-to-name-breaks-another-rain-record/420375073/ http://www.startribune.com/soggy-seattle-lives-up-to-name-br...

chomp 10y ago

I'm bound by my credit card rewards. As much as I don't like how United handled the issue, I'll still fly United.

chomp 10y ago

I'm bound by my credit card rewards. As much as I don't like how United handled the issue, I'll still fly United.

shiven 10y ago

I just booked a return flight for two and paid a $200 premium to avoid United.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

notacoward 10y ago

While everyone's sharing anecdotes that put United in a bad light compared to other major US airlines, I might as well share mine. For context, I've been very critical of United since this incident happened, and I even did my homework to justify my criticism. Any Johnny-come-lately can check my comment history to verify. I'm not going to make any apologies for them. I haven't had any particularly bad experiences with United myself, beyond the general badness of flying coach domestically. Do you know who has screwed up my life multiple times? Northworst (now merged with Delta) and even more so USeless Air (now part of American). So I don't delude myself that the exact same thing couldn't happen on the other members of the big three. The real bad actors here were Republic who subcontracts to all three, and the Chicago boyz who serve literally everyone going through that airport. It could have been the same cops responding to the same operator, even if the planes and tickets showed Delta or American. It just happened to be United, who also happens to have the cheapest flights at the most convenient times for the route I travel the most. I might expect something better from JetBlue or Southwest, certainly from Virgin, but I definitely would have to make a sacrifice of cost and/or convenience to make either of those switches. I might still do that, but "fly American because United sucks" (and ditto for Delta) is just absurd. If you're going to switch, really switch to something that has some real hope of being different.

dvcrn 10y ago

We all have these airlines that we try to avoid. For me it's AirAsia. I would without hesitation pay 100 USD more (depending on the distance) just to NOT take them. I had so many bad experiences with this one airline that you'll have to force me into a AirAsia flight.