As United Airlines works to improve customer feedback scores, it is reminding flight attendants that personal touches make a world of difference in shaping passenger impressions onboard.
United Airlines Asks Flight Attendants To Engage In Meaningful Conversations, Create Special Moments Onboard
A memo to flight attendants reviewed by Live and Let’s Fly suggests the following:
As a flight attendant, you shape our customers’ travel experience onboard, whether it’s through meaningful conversations, mentioning customers’ names and offering thanks, or even by recognizing special occasions through the use of our Customer Recognition Cards. Each and every one of you makes a lasting impact on our customer’s experience.
It’s always important no matter the flight to make the most of the day-to-day moments. Always remember to:
- Recognize MileagePlus status: You can do this by recognizing specifics such as: “Thank you for being a GS Mr. Smith, we appreciate your loyalty to United.”
- Being Proactive vs reactive when recognizing our customers: Knowing where they are seated and offering them a heightened onboard experience by using their name or offering them the appropriate 1K/GS products in economy can assist with this.
- Celebrate milestones and special occasions: Check the My Flight app for specific milestones/special occasions to brighten our customer’s onboard experience.
- Utilize the Customer Recognition Cards: These can be used to recognize our customers’ status, special occasions, and much more.
- Create special moments for our customers on every flight every day!
A separate memo reminds flight attendants that a great flight starts with a great welcome:
“One way you can continue to enhance our customers’ boarding experience is by welcoming each customer onboard the aircraft with a smile and warm welcome!”
As a personal observation, the Apple iPhones flight attendants are issued includes relevant information like a passenger’s status or birthday and flight attendants have consistently thanked me for my 1K and MillionMile status on a handful of recent flights.
More than just being ego-stoking, such simple reflections of thanks genuinely make passengers feel more valued and create loyalty to the brand.
One area for improvement is that I would like to see flight attendants more proactively offer 1K benefits (a complimentary food item and drink) when these MileagePlus members are seated behind the curtain.
CONCLUSION
United Airlines has reminded flight attendants to continue to proactively improve the passenger experience, particularly by recognizing MileagePlus status and special days or milestones. Generally speaking, I have already witnessed tremendous improvement in this area in 2022. As United continues to grow, such low-hanging-fruit as a warm smile or genuine greeting can make a world of difference onboard.
Telling that they even have to be reminded of this, seems like common business sense to most of us. And most customers appreciate even the smallest gesture of recognition for their loyalty.
Sadly most long term UA attendants have become jaded from dealing with righteous arrogant entitled Aholes like UANYC they have forgotten the basics of the job. He has left a stain on everyone he comes in contact with that is hard to forget.
Was it UANYC that made the FAs jaded or was it you and all your rowdy friends threatening to kill them when they were just doing their jobs by reminding you to put on your mask?
Forgot about you fu#ks who thought cheap cloth masks would make a difference. Thanks for reminding me of another great moment in liberal history. Great times when you lunatics were washing bags of groceries off, not eating takeout and threatening people who exposed their nose.
Now it’s socially acceptable to laugh at anyone in a mask and the crowd joins in. You people made that possible so I thank you.
Tell me you’re a red neck without telling me
Hey dave Edwards. No those cloth masks weren’t the best but that’s what was available & still better than nothing, but perhaps that’s beyond your understanding. And call me what you will (as name calling is your currency) I still wear a mask.
And yes, we laugh at you, I assume you aren’t Asian afraid of bird flu so I take you for a fuck$ng moron who shouldn’t leave the house because you are obviously a psycho. Please don’t breed because the kids will be ridiculed their entire life and we have far too many kids dying of suicide. It’s sad so please don’t contribute to it.
Triggered redneck snowflake alert!
Not everybody wearing a mask is making a political statement, and there were situations to wear masks even before covid. Like when you were sick, as a courtesy to those around you. I’m not a liberal but my mom is going through cancer treatment right now. So if I was flying with her, you would see us in a mask, while normally I wouldn’t wear one ordinarily. You just never know other peoples’ circumstances.
It didn’t take long to jump into the morass, did it? I just want to mention that Fortune magazine, which in no stretch of the imagination could be termed a “liberal” publication, two days published a very interesting report on how long the Covid virus can survive on grocery store items, including fresh produce:
https://fortune.com/2022/12/02/covid-can-live-on-groceries-for-days-scientists-say-study/
Some of us wear masks b/c we are fighting CANCER, you righteous f*ckwad. Not making a political statement. Just trying to shield my immuno-compromised shell from your selfishness, ignorance and stupidity. Bless your heart.
Your pathetic political stunts are getting lazier and more redundant by the week. Such a weak mind, can’t even cone up with any new material. *YAWN* We’re laughing at your whining, chump.
Did a recent SFO-HND (rt) in Polaris. SF-based crews for both legs.
-Thanked for flying, but my 1K/2MM never acknowledged. No recognition of status of passengers seated nearby.
-FAs could barely smile and certainly not welcoming.
-Crews didn’t know what wines were boarded; get the “sigh” when asked as they have go back to galley and report back.
-Never offered a refill of water or wine; same as passengers around me. They just want to clear trays and disappear.
-I asked FAs on both legs when SFO-KIX (Osaka) would resume; four answers of no one knowing. I found it quickly online.
-No offer of liquors or port after meal service to anyone around me. Was it even boarded?
UA has a long, long way to go.
SFO-MUC in two weeks; curious how that will go.
For a Polaris customer that sounds pretty bad, I get treated better on DL Comfort+.
Many FA’s don’t know much about when certain routes will resume until the month before fyi. Also many flights can be pushed back which UA tends to do a lot so just something to keep in mind for you. 🙂
Sounds like vintage United, and to just think we bailed these hoodlums out, is just too much to stomach man!!!
I think it’s really a personality thing. I flew to Buenos Aires in October, and a well experienced flight attendant was the friendliest and talkative flight attendant I’ve had in a long time. She made everyone in Polaris on the flight welcomed. I definitely filled out the customer service survey.
This is a nice, and appreciated, start. One thing that I think would significantly improve the flight experience for everyone is to cut down on the f/a “noise.” As examples, when the fasten seat belt sign goes on, we only need one announcement. Not the automatic announcement, the f/a announcement, and a f/a going down the aisle saying “seat belts….seat belts….seat belts.” While this is clearly an issue for me, there are a lot of studies that show excessive announcements create anxiety and a stressful atmosphere.
It’s called a compliance check and is a requirement. Google it
Whenever I enter a SkyClub, the agent always thanks me for my gold status, which I find amusing, not gratifying, because Delta is my backup airline, and I really don’t fly them all that often. I guess if you’re a person that only flies once a month, then maybe you appreciate it, but it’s almost patronizing to me because I know I’m not really that great of a customer.
Aside from providing safety, security, bouncing drunks, policing disorderliness and slinging hash for not much cash, I not surprised they need a reminder to smile and act like a Stepford wife to the entitled. Frankly I am surprised anyone wants to be a flight attendant.
A good passenger knows how to thoughtfully treat the help.
Flight attendants have some of the toughest jobs in the industry and are the most customer facing employees, where the responsibility comes with enormous challenges. I generally avoid United but found myself on two long haul flights this year, in Polaris (FCO-EWR and ORD-ZRH) and there was a general shift in the disposition of the flight attendants compared to my last experience on the airline, in 2019. They were polite, interactive, helpful, and really seemed to work hard at their job. Management should not be blind to the fact that it is often the passengers who are the challenging ones in the relationship, and not the flight attendants. The industry would do well to levy very intense fines on those passengers that disrupt flights or create unpleasant situations on board, and consider banning them for years, if not permanently. This would probably help the cabin crew and everyone else along for the ride. Grouchy, rude, and unfriendly flight attendants aren’t unique to United and can be found on every airline.
They never have before, why would they start now?
Shouldn’t that be default? Do they need to be encouraged to do that?
The business acumen of this Scott Kirby guy continues to amaze. Making customers feel valued is good? WHO KNEW? I better write this down so I can use it for my business.
Now if only Kirby would stop being so miserly and start spending money to make money rather than continually engaging in what Matthew called Kirby Kuts. That’s unlikely to happen though, when he can just hector employees (whose bonuses he revoked) to be nicer to be extra attentive.
As long as AA is out there acting like America West, United will always have one legacy airline they are superior to so Kirby won’t have incentive to improve
Have to disagree that 1K members should get special food/drinks when behind the curtain. If you’re flying economy, you’re flying to economy. They get their point multipliers and upgrade priority for that.
This is a published benefit of 1K status.
I always go to the GS and 1K’s BEFORE we take off and offer a choice of the FRESH food first by taking their order. It’s not required but truly appreciated by those loyal customers. I have honestly never seen them skipped and NOT offered their comp drink or snack. It is clearly marked on our handheld devices. On the flip side, I have tried to acknowledge a GS or 1K and they don’t or won’t look up with their noise canceling headsets on… so it’s a two way street. It is REALLY ingrained in UA culture we must offer this to every 1K an especially GS.
I feel like I’m inconveniencing FA’s when requesting a snack box (based on the look of annoyance I usually get). FA’s, should 1K’s not request snack boxes?
FA’s need to eat, too.
Shouldn’t this be the basic service being offered? Why must they have to be reminded to treat customers well and do certain things? At the very least, shouldn’t “welcoming each customer onboard the aircraft with a smile and warm welcome!” be something that all their FAs are doing anyway, do they really need a memo telling them to do that?
When you’re barely paid minimum wage, yet you are responsible for the safety of hundreds of people every day you go in to work, YES, you may need reminding.
I have had a couple of United Captains send me notes and thank me for 1K. I usually stop and chat with the captain on the way out if the flight deck is open. As a flying Junkie I really appreciate the opportunity. I have 20 years of AA EP as well and (on balance) United is way ahead of AA in customer service. (e.g. i don’t have to wait an hour for a customer service rep on the phone.)
After I started flying up front most of the time, I quickly came to the conclusion that flight attendants MAKE a flight and create customer loyalty. You can forget a curt gate agent, an arrogant checkin agent … but you’re with FAs for hours. Their demeanor means a great deal to pax. They do put up with a huge amount of garbage … an airline could make a lot of difference if they treated their FAs like the valued ambassadors they can be. Airlines could think of all kinds of ways to motivate their FAs if they wished to. “Combat pay” is the first thought comes to mind.
I’m a United flight attendant and I sincerely strive to make each passengers flight as pleasant as possible.
United asked us to recognize passengers “milestones.” Several years ago I noticed that it was one of our passengers birthdays, so, trying to follow my companies encouragement I approached this passenger, and said “Mr. XXXX, I see that you’re celebrating your birthday today! Happy birthday to you from all of us at United!” He looked me straight in the eye, without smiling, and said, “Thanks, what do I get?” I was so embarrassed, I’ve never done it again.
That’s really sad. Bless you for going out of your way to recognize passengers. I would hope most would not act like that idiot.
Just flew on United for last time. All the bs they are reminding their attendants to do is not working. Poor management and follow through on this one.