Tag Archives for united airlines.
What United says is the reality of the industry. Fewer customers, fewer flights, will be serviced by fewer people. Allocating nearly $60 billion to the U.S. airline industry hasn’t changed that. It’s just delayed it to the fall.
After just yesterday announcing the end of all long haul services, United Airlines on Saturday evening changed their mind and reintroduced several flights through their May schedule. They’ll fly to Europe, to Israel, to Tokyo, Sydney and even into South America.
Customers whose events are cancelling are getting travel credits, often without change fees, from major airlines. While hotels are waiving cancellation penalties and refunding non-refundable bookings, airlines are not.
For a leisure traveler perhaps they’ll use a travel credit for another trip in the future. In most cases they’ve got 12 months from original date of purchase (not date of the trip) to use the credit. For managed business travelers their company may be paying for the booking directly, and is on the hook for trips not taken. But what about unmanaged business travelers who submit receipts for reimbursement after a trip?
United’s April flight schedule is down 60% year-over-year; an 85% decrease for international (and greater than that for transatlantic and transpacific) and a 42% for U.S. and Canada flying.
It’s easier to list the international flights that are actually operating than those that aren’t. Domestically there are a lot of cuts but United emphasizes they’ve only completed stopped flying to one U.S. airport
United Airlines sent out a press release this evening, a copy of a letter to employees under the signatures of outgoing CEO Oscar Munoz and soon-to-be CEO Scott Kirby in which they lay out how bad they expect the novel coronavirus to be for the business – and in the middle of the letter they reveal that it “no longer appears realistic” to “avoid [taking] steps that affect [employee] paycheck[s].”
The airline reports that this weekend they have been in discussion with its unions to reduce “payroll expense.”
This is United’s fourth refunds policy change in just a week. If they change your international flight by 6 hours or more they will give you a credit for the amount of your ticket. If you don’t use the credit within a year then and only then are you eligible for a refund.
As recently as March 6, United offered refunds if they changed your schedule two hours or more.
United has revised their refund policy for reservations where they impose a schedule change three times in the past week. They are more draconian than competitors, and the changes to published rules apply even to tickets purchased prior to the changes. This points to how United is viewing holding on to customer cash in the short run – over taking care of their customers in the long run.
United Airlines has to be the one of the most remote work-averse employers in the country, at least based on this e-mail from Kate Gebo, Executive Vice President Human Resources and Labor Relations at United Airlines, that was sent at the end of the week.
Effective today United Airlines plans to stop offering some seats that used to be available for upgrade to members of their MileagePlus program, holding those back to sell to infrequent customers at check-in instead. This helps the airline generate extra short term cash now as they prepare for a drop in revenue of as much as 70%.
In light of the U.S. government’s limits on travel by non-U.S. citizens that have been to Europe within the past 14 days, in addition to reduction in travel broadly in reaction to the novel coronavirus, United has announced that it will only fly it’s current schedule through Thursday, March 19. That gives people time to get home, and to bring employees home.
Here’s what Europe should look like after that for United.
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 »
