I used to fly a lot for work. I have flown over 750k miles on United. Probably 200k miles on other airlines combined. I used United because it was convenient and flexible for me; and I was “locked” into their frequent flier program. Their customer service sucked, even for fliers like me who had 1K or Platinum status.
I had to write 3 letters to their customer service for severe issues that I encountered. The gate agents are either incompetent, not trained, are not empowered to make correction, or the company just don’t care. I don’t think it has to be their intelligence, because there are smart and stupid people everywhere. I don’t think it is training for specific agents, because they are all like that. I think it has to do with United company culture. Well, I voiced my opinion but didn’t never got a response.
In one case, my seat was changed from aisle (at reservation) to middle/window (at check-in). This occurred on 3 consecutive trips. I swear I must have pissed someone off in real life, and the person works at United, who then went into the system to change my seats. Must be some high school enemy
In 2nd case, I was asked to pay a change fee at check-in for making a change done several days earlier. I knew my ticket code allows change without fee. It’s not the money, as it was paid by the company. But just the agent’s attitude. She just refuse to listen and to even check the ticket code. She claims this is standard policy. I was outside US somewhere in Asia. She said the payment must be in cash (even if in US $) and cannot take CC. Ridiculous. In any case, I got the refund back later because I know that ticket code has free change fee. I let the company travel agent deal with United.
In 3rd case, I was in Hong Kong and I forgot the exact situation. It also had to do missing flight or changing flight or connection flight. I just blew up. I actually gave that agent an earful. Now that I think about it, it might be that agent who changed my seats years later.
UA deliberately causes these problems by over booking more than anyone…Why didn’t they just stop the 4 people from boarding? Once the passengers are on board itis too late…They could have chartered a plane to fly their 4 employees. .No instead thay acted like corporate thugs and and lost a $1b on the stock market…Fuck UAL, their arrogant employees and their stupid corporate culture…
Not only billions lost on stock, but all costing CEO his perks soon when people move away from UAL with negative attitude. In addition, UAL needs to pay hefty price to Dr.Dao & lawyer to settle within or out of court !
you are right, this was not traditional overbooking. All paying passengers were seated. They felt that they needed to provide seats for 4 UA employees. It had been posted somewhere that they could have hired a cab to drive those 4 employees to their target destination.
It was a really sad Monday when I read about this, and I cannot help but wonder if this law enforcement behavior can be attributed to the recent political change. I know, one is not supposed to bring race to the discussion, but ICE officers now also feel more confident to “be bold”. It might be unrelated, but it’s not a good trend.
I think 9/11 was the change point. Before then it was a balancing act of customer service/costs/convenience. After 9/11, the TSA agents were given the power to do whatever the heck they want–delay you, lie to you, search everything, throw your stuff away, even delay your blond teenage daughter for no reason and tell you there are no female TSA agents available for the grope-down, err, pat-down search so you can wait and miss your flight, or let these gentleman do the search.
I think this incident is a sad result of the “militarization” of airflight.
Oh no… This could get interesting… I don’t know if it’s true or if it would actually affect a lawsuit:
“Dr. David Dao was charged in 2005 with 98 felony drug counts for illegally prescribing and trafficking painkillers. Prosecutors claimed Dao fraudulently filled prescriptions for hydrocodone, Oxycontin and Percocet.
Dr. Dao was also convicted on 6 felony counts of obtaining drugs by fraud and deceit and in 2005 was given 5 years probation.
Dao was also convicted for writing prescriptions and checks to a patient in exchange for sex.”
Come on @Terri, you know better…his past life has nothing to do with this incidence at all. Now, I hate to bring the race card in on the discussion but we are family right? Some people are theorizing that they picked him, an Asian, thinking that he would be docile and too cooperative like we are stereotyped. Oh well, guess wrong…
Of course, but it does make things more interesting. One question will be whether he really did have clients to see the next day. Simple yes or no answer.
I don’t know that there are race issues here, but I absolutely could see age playing into it. They probably figured that an older man would not fight. But he could’ve been an older white man and I think this same thing could’ve happened.
Dr Dao definitely has a sleazy past and is a professional poker player…He played his hand well…A bit beat up, but probably will be $10m richer with a settlement…a lot better than the $800 offer
I don’t think UAL will be harmed financially. In some hub cities like Chicago there aren’t many choices. After decade long of consolidation there aren’t that many big airlines left serving the domestic market. That’s the reason why Buffett bought into airlines. And he didn’t just buy into one airline, he bought into several.
