what is remarkable about the airline industry now is how closely aligned to the state power they are. airline workers have absolute immunity, they can treat you any way they want and if you speak up as a consumer you are tagged as a security threat.

this is corpratism…i got a first hand dose and it's pretty scary what they are willing to do and how little recourse you have.

Below is my email:

Customer service offered by Shawn/Sean at IAD, gate A3/4 on 4/27 at approx 10pm was unacceptable. I have flown all over the world, and been on hundreds of airplanes, but this was by far the rudest encounter I have ever experienced. According to your web-site’s customer service promise, “In the air and on the ground, online and on the telephone, our customers have the right to expect — to demand — respect, courtesy, fairness and honesty from the airline they have selected for travel.” Shawn was disrespectful to a women his senior, a woman who PAID to fly with your company. He was NOT courteous nor was he fair. I was looking through the 12 points for customer commitment…are these just to save face or does your company really uphold these standards? If they are for real, then step number 7 needs to be shown to Shawn/Sean.

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,1512,00.html

7. Readily, Capably and Respectfully Accommodate Travelers with Special Needs

United’s commitment:

We will provide our customers who have special needs, including individuals with disabilities and unaccompanied minors, with the level of attention, respect and care they deserve.

Below is the encounter btwn Shawn and the elderly lady who couldn’t walk (he yelled at her).

A flight to Allentown was overbooked/overweight so they bumped 8 people. Shawn announced they would bump all those who paid the cheapest fair price. One of those people was an elderly lady who couldn’t walk. She had two medical bracelets on her arm, one pink and the other yellow. One said “fall risk.” She was told a wheelchair was coming to get her and take her to customer service where she could get on another flight the following morning. When no one showed up she asked a United agent about it when he walked by. He blew her off. She began to get visibly flustered. She got out an inhaler and used it twice. A few minutes later, another passenger reminded Shawn the lady needed a wheelchair, he said one was on it’s way. At this point it had been almost 30 minutes, and still no wheelchair. The lady began to get more flustered and started to shake, muttering about how she needed to get home to her son. She took out a portable machine and wrapped it around her wrist. I believe it was a blood pressure machine, because she said she needed water to take her blood pressure medicine. Shawn then yelled across the room at her, saying he told her 30 minutes ago to go to customer service – there was still no wheelchair. She said again that she needed water to take her blood pressure medicine, and he yelled again to go to customer service – STILL no wheelchair. This lady could NOT WALK. How was she supposed to get to customer service? She was waiting for United to provide her the services she required, but instead she is humiliated in front of other passengers. So a few ladies, myself included, went to help her. I got her water. She was shaking so badly that she could barely get the pills and water in her mouth. She spilled it on herself, the chair and the floor because she was shaking so severely. She was slightly disoriented from her blood pressure getting so high and was also beginning to sweat. Shawn never once helped or treated this elderly woman like a human being.

I am APPALLED that your airline would allow this to happen. She had someone escorting her during her other flights, and then because she was bumped, she is left high and dry? This is unacceptable. To treat a helpless, handicapped woman, who cannot walk and obviously has medical problems is an atrocity. I have emailed, twittered and facebooked about this and I plan to continue to. I want everyone to know how United treats it’s disabled passengers. It is unacceptable. Shawn needs to be punished or fired. If you claim you don’t know who I am talking about, I took a photo of him with my phone, so there is no confusion. Here is a link to the photo: http://s618.photobucket.com/albums/tt266/emtravis/?action=view&current=UnitedShawn.jpg.

For Shawn to humiliate this woman the way he did is unacceptable. I have only flown United a few times, and every single time I have been delayed going out of IAD. But the way your personnel treated a PAYING DISABLED passenger has sealed the deal for me. I will never fly United again. And I will NEVER suggest it to anyone. I have already told a number of my friends this story and they have agreed that they cannot fly an airline who treats people this way.

United needs to review the 12 points with their agents. I have never seen such disrespect by any other airline. A number of the passengers on my flight 8009 to Richmond said they plan to write and call as well. I plan to report this event on any other website I can. It is unacceptable. I would be glad to talk to someone.

It’s the consistency (or inconsistency) of experience good or bad with a single company that tells the real story.

Clearly there’s a lot of pent up emotion around bad airline experiences (and UA in particular) that help explain the length of this piece. Rightly or wrongly it’s touched a nerve.

I wonder what the reaction would have been if the post were about an amazingly good experience with United? (my guess – it would have been passed off as an anomaly or fluke). In the end I guess that tells us all something about the UA brand ’state of health.” Ah, the disconnect between reality and perception… (there’s no science here…)

If none of you (including Shashank) cannot correctly identify United’s brand, who can? This has been the principal problem with United Airlines, even during the time I was there: They were a great operational airline. They were absolutely awful at marketing…and they still are.

What United has tried to do, unsuccessfully I might add, is transform itself from a carrier whose brand appeals to everyone (e.g. let’s fly the friendly skies), to one that is more narrowly focused on the business traveler. Of course, I have to infer a little bit here, because no where do they really state that that is who the target is..I mean, does anyone remember “Rising” or “It’s time to fly”? Who do those slogans say about the brand? Furthermore, the change in the livery that was initiated in 2004, in which the United logo was sliced in half and the font and colors changed, what did that communicate? I still to this day haven’t fully figured it out.

What the Consumerist article speaks to a rather heinous event, one in which United really did significant harm to its image by reinforcing the notion that United is a big, monolithic airline that does not care for the individual traveler unless thay are a 1K (and there are so many 1Ks now that this level has now been seriously eroded in value), Shashank’s point in which he asks the question “How can this (incident) be good for their brand, or how can they improve their brand delivery?” are not the right questions. He does, however, correctly asks the question “How do they improve their service (delivery?)” That is the key issue here. Clearly there was a breakdown in the service commitment to the customer. Did the brand fail her? It’s hard to say, since in my opinion, their brand is not clearly identified nor articulated. Yes, I know they are fully focused on the business traveler, but that isn’t a result of the brand or their marketing efforts, it’s because I’ve been involved with the airline, in one form or another, for 31 years.

United has serious problems with their employee relations. United has serious problems with its product. United has serious issues with the delivery of service. United is not in the greatest financial health, despite everything you will hear coming out of the mouths of Glen Tilton and Co. in Chicago…they have a fleet which is still not sufficiently rationalized. If I had a choice, would I fly United? Probably not…and I have used to work there and still have a large number of friends who work there.

Sadly, this one incident just underscores one thing: UA has some unhappy employees who will do just the absolute minimum to get the job done. Operative word here: SOME. There are people at United that are killing themselves to make their airline something of which they can have some pride. It’s unfortunate that the people in the front office don’t seem to recognize those folks….and that is perhaps one of the biggest issues of all. One thing to remember though…they haven’t been “The Friendly Skies” now for a very long time….by design.

But my point is that whatever happens at every brand touchpoint is the responsibility of United Airlines. I’m not trying to sensationalize anything, rather there’s been a healthy debate if you look at the original article. Again, I mention that a brand is not what it says it does, but what it actually does. And here’s an instance where United Airlines is claiming to “fly the friendly skies” while this incidence was not even close to that. Don’t you think?