Tag Archives for united airlines.
You’re supposed to be at your seat for takeoff and landing of course, and there’s no seat belt in the lavatory. However on Wednesday’s United Airlines UA1554 non-stop from Washington National to San Francisco, the flight had to divert to Denver when a passenger got stuck in the lavatory.
The passenger had to sit on the throne for landing, and United mechanics were sent in for a rescue.
United shared this morning that they’re revamping their confirmed regional and global upgrade certificates that Platinum elites and higher are able to take advantage of effective December 4. They’re introducing a new upgrade points system to replace certificates called PlusPoints, and existing banked certificates will convert to PlusPoints at that time.
I received a briefing on the changes from Luc Bondar, United’s Vice President of Loyalty who is in charge of MileagePlus. Here’s how upgrades are changing.
The issue was caused by a gate agent error and, it seems, poor employee communication and customer service coupled with a misunderstanding. But it’s the customer who suffered – but only emotional suffering and inconvenience, no beatings, and that’s progress.
United Airlines President Scott Kirby spoke yesterday at the Morgan Stanley 7th Annual Laguna Conference. There probably no one in the industry that’s been more ‘by the numbers’ than Kirby, and in my view no one that’s been more an enemy of customer experience. I’ve often called him a destroyer of airlines.
Yet he told the gathering that “more and more” United has to be “competing on quality instead of just schedule and price.”
Choose the airline with the best schedule, where they’re equivalent with the best reliability, and for regular coach comfort go with Southwest. Since I need to work inflight pretty much all the time I prefer American or Delta, United still isn’t an option though if I lived on Staten Island I’ve fly out of Newark and sacrifice productivity.
No airline is all things to all people, no airline frequent flyer program among those four carriers is a real differentiator and reason to go out of your way to fly a specific airline, but it’s useful to stick with one carrier and earn status where you can. Your miles will be earned through things other than flying and there flexible points transfer programs are best.
Passengers need a pilot contract because unhappy pilots mean massive delays and cancellations. But a pilot contract is going to mean the airline can squeeze more seats into regional jets. Either way, passengers lose.
Women were lining up for the lavatory for about ten minutes, and no one was coming out. That’s usually when you hope a flight attendant will put some coffee grounds in there between uses. A flight attendant notices the line, saying to one of the women “you’re still right here” as no one has moved.
When the lavatory door opens a man appears and then “[j]ust a few seconds later, a woman in a matching red jumper also walks out from the cramped room, apparently having just joined the Mile High Club.”
JonNYC is usually a source of leaks about American Airlines, however over the weekend he broke Delta news and he’s expanded his portfolio by tweeting out United’s fleet plans.
We’re getting details on United’s plans for their 737 MAX 10 aircraft, thinking on a new Boeing 757 replacement, and changes to their ‘domestic’ Boeing 777s.
I wrote the other day in a Forbes.com piece about a bit of a feud between American Airlines and United over the best approach to the environment, the CEO of American calling out United’s biofuel efforts as being largely meaningless compared to American’s investment of newer, more modern and fuel efficient aircraft.
It turns out Parker is right on the science.
It’s great to see the airline deploying their new premium-heavy 46 business class seat 767s aggressively, and not just out of Newark or even on pure business routes.
The new Polaris business class seat is a competitive advantage not because it’s better than what Delta, American, or Air France offer – or what British Airways or Virgin Atlantic will offer – it isn’t. It generally lags all of those. However they’re able to offer fully flat direct aisle access business class seats, attractively designed, using less cabin space. That allows them to fit more seats into the same footprint, or add seats without taking out as many from a lesser cabin.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
