united airlines

Tag Archives for united airlines.

Did United Airlines Bait-and-Switch Flight Attendants Into Taking Early Retirement?

by Gary Leff

Dec 05 2021

During the pandemic airlines were gifted billions in taxpayer dollars to keep all of their employees on staff, ready to work when travel returned. Only they didn’t do that. They convinced employees to retire early, and they paid employees to stay home rather than staying certified and work ready.

As they tried to get employees to take unpaid leaves and early retirements, the offers sometimes got better and better. One United Airlines employee, who took an ‘early out’ is suing because United made a better offer than the one they accepted, and they want that better offer too.

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United Sent A Remarkable, Trolling Email To Customers

by Gary Leff

united plane
Nov 04 2021

Delta’s operation melted down over last year’s holidays. Southwest has melted down over lack of crew. American melted down over the summer without enough pilots and then at the end of October without enough flight attendants. And now everyone’s worried about holiday travel with the government requiring airlines to have their employees vaccinated – with deadlines coming up.

United Airlines sent out a remarkable email, both for its candor and effectiveness but also for the way it brutally subtweeted these competitors. Under CEO Scott Kirby’s signature, United obliquely references news of airline meltdowns and says in effect ‘this won’t happen to us.’

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United Airlines Will Run 32 New York-DC Flights A Day To Squat Their Slots

by Gary Leff

Oct 26 2021

New York LaGuardia, New York JFK and Washington National airports are ‘slot controlled’. That means there are limits on the number of takeoffs and landings at each airport, and the right to use those have been given (free!) to incumbent airlines as a property right. That’s a huge subsidy to incumbent carriers.

Normally slots come with ‘use it or lose it’ rules. If an airline doesn’t make use of their slots 80% of the time, those slots can be reassigned to another carrier. As a result you’ll see airlines flying more or less ghost flights, service designed to hold the slot rather than meet any economic need.

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United Passenger Threatens Seatmates And Crew, Demands To Be Kicked Off Flight

by Gary Leff

Oct 11 2021

Viral video with nearly 4 million views shows a passenger on being kicked off of a Los Angeles-bound United flight “after screaming, threatening, and pushing flight crew and passengers.” Things began going south when the passenger wouldn’t get off of his phone, and only later did it descend into a mask dispute.

Maybe for the first time ever the passenger demands to be removed from the flight yelling at the crewmember that he “didn’t even want to go to Cali.” He took off his mask and declared plans to dox the flight attendant, and pushed a seated passenger to get into the aisle.

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Passenger Planned An Elaborate Hour-Long Inflight Meal To Avoid Mask-Wearing Entirely

by Gary Leff

Sep 29 2021

When face mask policies were introduced for air travel last year, ‘but I’m drinking’ became a common excuse and passengers could nurse a Starbucks throughout the entire flight. This is no longer acceptable, or at least while some passengers will still do it – and some flight attendants allow it – the rule doesn’t permit it and you may get kicked off the plane.

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United Flight Attendants Union: It’s Unrealistic For Passengers To Expect Clean Lavatories

by Gary Leff

lavatory
Sep 23 2021

When you fly an Asian or quality Middle Eastern airline, you expect that lavatories will stay relatively clean throughout the flight. I’ve seen ANA flight attendants cleaning restrooms between passengers, and Emirates has even had staff on its A380s dedicated to this cleaning.

After a long haul flight on a U.S. airline, though, it’s almost de rigueur to expect that by the end of the trip lavatories look like something out of a post-apocalyptic zombie film where we everyone must band together to rebuild humanity out of the ashes.

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