United Airlines employees may be known for a chain of events that led to the David Dao beating, for shoving an elderly man to the ground and threatening to steal his miles if he complained, and for killing a dog.
But abusing travel benefits? That’s a step too far. United has fired 35 employees accused of selling access to their family travel perks.
United Airlines has fired 35 employees who were allegedly involved in a “brokering scheme” involving the sale of travel privileges that employees get as a perk of working for the carrier, according to a notice the airline sent employees on Wednesday.
…[S]uch programs are a common perk in the airline industry and abuse isn’t unique to United.
A recent Chicago-area Craigslist ad from a person claiming to be a Delta Air Lines employee offered a year’s worth of travel for $2,000, or one-time buddy pass trips at $300 for domestic flights and $500 for international.
Airlines don’t allow customers to sell their frequent flyer miles, though most airlines do permit gifting of awards as long as no money changes hands or barter takes place. (It’s common among programs in North Asia to limit gifting of awards to family members.)
Some carriers are more aggressive than others in policing this. When there’s suspected brokering of award travel passengers may be met at their gate and asked who gave them the tickets. If they don’t know there’s going to be a problem, usually denied boarding or a request for payment of full fare. They’ll ahve their own frequent flyer accounts closed, and they’ll be asked to ‘flip’ on the people involved in the transaction. (Here’s what to do if your frequent flyer account gets audited.)
Much the same takes place investigating employee travel.
United’s recent investigation into abuse of the program started with a group of nine flyers who were traveling overseas on passes but couldn’t name the employees who provided their tickets, the airline said in its Wednesday warning to employees. United said the passengers reported paying $3,500 to $4,000 per person for a year’s worth of travel.
Employees sold their travel benefits and registered buyers as “stepparents or domestic partners.” In some cases no money changed hands, employees had given away the perks but still registered people who weren’t related to them as though they were family.
I know two people who work for commute air who are selling their privialege on united you can email me at marteldantzler39@gmail.com. I will be more than happy to assist you.
I could not help notice this very important fact when watching this shameful video where the 71 year old man was struck by the seemingly muscular UA agent. What type of people would be standing around going about minding their own business while this elderly man lay on the floor for all those minutes? If you look at the scene around this incident, people are going by, picking up their luggage, and acting like nothing was going on. I am truly appalled. Shouldn’t someone have stopped to ask the 71 year old if he is okay after being on the floor for all that time? Shouldn’t someone have interfered after the fact to check to see if the man was dead or alive? I am sure that there would have been AT LEAST one doctor in all that crowd What is wrong with people? Have we forgotten what it is like to be human? As far as the UA employee is concerned, if this happened to me I would not only have sued him personally and UA but I would ALSO have leveled criminal charges of assault and battery against this sicko. People like him deserve to be in jail, not outside in the world. The airline is to blame for hiring such a sicko, he is to blame for being an aggressor, and the public moving around is to blame for not stopping to check on the man. Shame on all three. A very sad day for all Americans.
David Dao has only himself to blame for what happened to him. If he’d obeyed the police they wouldn’t have had to resort to force. Never argue with police orders, do as you’re told and argue the issue LATER.
@William – Fortunately we are not living in a police state like you seem to think. And time has shown us that you are wrong and the passenger was not. UA paid dearly for the actions of their employees, and rightfully so. Oh, and by the way, they were not police, they were airport employees. And they also suffered the price of that action.
American carriers are the very worst the Airline industry could come up with…
A communist, nazi international crime syndicate of thieves,thugs and paranoid lunatics….
Fits perfectly to the rest of this shameful and so much hated “nation” .
I never said we live in a police state. if i did i would not be living here. The whole point of my argument is that this incident should have never happened and the travelling public should have stopped immediately to check on the 71 year old man after he lay on the ground for all those minutes. What UA did after the fact (compensated the 71 year old man and punished the UA agent) is beside the point. This incident should never have happened/ Assume for a moment that while falling backwards, the 71 year old man would have struck his head against the concrete floor and sustained brain trauma/intracerebral bleed. He would have been suffering from some sort of neurologic impairment for the rest of his life. No amount of money, no amount of compensation would have brought back his previously normal neurologic functioning. My point is that this should never have happened. The UA agent should have received a prison sentence for assault and battery just to discourage other agents from repeating what he did. That is my point.