United CEO Oscar Munoz sent MileagePlus members a letter yesterday promising a “turning point” in customer service. But actions speak louder than words. Last night’s flight home from Newark to Los Angeles reminded me that the carrier has a long way to go.
In his letter, Munoz stressed–
Each flight you take with us represents an important promise we make to you, our customer. It’s not simply that we make sure you reach your destination safely and on time, but also that you will be treated with the highest level of service and the deepest sense of dignity and respect.
….
This is a turning point for all of us here at United – and as CEO, it’s my responsibility to make sure that we learn from this experience and redouble our efforts to put our customers at the center of everything we do.
My commentary was United should focus on delivering great and consistent customer service. That’s all. Only when United does that will it gain back the credibility it lost as a result of the Dao incident.
My Flight Last Night
So let’s fast forward to my flight from Newark to Los Angeles last night on United’s premium domestic product (called p.s.). United promises international service levels on this flagship domestic route, with lie-flat beds, amenity kits, movies on-demand, and great food.
I flew the last flight of the night, a 9:55p departure that arrives into LAX at 1:00a. On flights after 9p, a light snack instead of a meal is served.
This is understandable as most people have already eaten by 9p and the snack provided is still hearty. I had just eaten a nice dinner a couple hours earlier so when a FA asked if I’d like a hamburger with salad directly after takeoff, I turned her down.
At the same time, I’ve written before (thrice) about how much I love United’s hamburgers. I asked the FA to hold one for me and I could eat it before landing.
Her response–
Not possible, because they are hot now. They will be overcooked if you wait.
I told her it was not a problem and requested eating about an hour before landing.
Her response–
No, that will not give you enough time to eat.
That is an absurd response because airlines around the world serve full meals on flights far shorter than an hour, but I did not want to be combative so I suggested eating 90 minutes before landing.
I told her I was going to sleep and requested that she wake me up.
She reluctantly agreed. You could see the hesitation and annoyance in her eyes.
But she never woke me up. I still woke up an hour before landing. When she saw that I was awake, she brought me over a hot towel, which I appreciated. I thought the meal would come next but instead she informed me there was no time left for the meal.
I just smiled and said nothing. Even if it was 700 calories I did not need, I found her response so pathetic.
It’s Not About the Hamburger
Let’s be clear. This issue is not about the hamburger. It’s about the inability to honor a very simple, reasonable request. If United cannot get the little things right, how will it ever be trusted with the big things? I am flabbergasted that many FAs seem programmed to resist anything that disturbs their routine. Flexibility is essential to delivering good customer service. Every customer is unique.
CONCLUSION
This is something so tiny, so small…but it matters. Instead of talking about how well I slept and how much I enjoyed the Saks Fifth Avenue bedding (both true statements), I am focusing on an unnecessary service lapse. United must do more than send out letters to its members. If providing “the highest level of service” is really the goal, then serving a small snack at a later point in the flight should not feel like pulling teeth.
My wife is making hamburgers for lunch.
Psst… How about Delta, Alaska, Jet Blue?
Yes indeed. I should have noted in my story that my experience was exactly the opposite when I flew JetBlue MINT.
Can’t teach an old dog new tricks. United FAs are some the worst I’ve seen around. Especially on the flights which are more premium. I’m assuming the FAs who have been around the longest (and are least friendly) bid for those.
Isn’t the option for executive dining on demand noted on the menu? It use to be I thought.
A westbound reverse redeye.
I thought those only existed out of Dulles on Columbia Airlines in 1975.
Hope you didn’t make an unscheduled stop in Salt Lake City.
Doesn’t sound like your FA was Karen Black.
Unfortunately CBAs and customer service tend to not go well together. It is Impossible to define In a contract what being friendly means or say don’t be rude.
It is a cultural thing and it takes time to change once the culture is poisoned. Right now United’s culture is bad. Turning it around will require time and a concerted management effort.
Time ? ….this stupid issue has been going on for over ten years. Trust me, there have been all sorts of “team” meetings, brainstorming, workbooks, workshops, memos, classrooms, seminars, feedback from the rank and file, plus, plus, plus to almost no avail. I’ll agree about management needing to wake up and give it a good study/ scrutiny about what goes on down the food chain. You would think that would be evident since most people have made their way up from the bottom to the top of the food chain but really, you cannot police people 24/7 and you cannot knock “be nice” into bullies and power-tripping leaders. Much more accountability needs to be enforced but that seems to peter out as well in a over litigious, politically correct world. Nobody is allowed to feel uncomfortable or disappointed in any and all environments – we all have to be provided a “safe place” so that we don’t see/ hear/ experience any of that. United (and all the others’) answer to “bad service” and complaints is to just shove miles and canned responses on people. We’ll see if any of these new 10 commandments will hold. My guess is it will not hold; it has just opened up another can of worms. Airlines will now become The Bank of United Airlines, The Bank of Delta, The Bank of American Airlines, etc……….”Here’s some (hush) money,….just shut up and go away” !!
I find it curious that FAs on the big 3 airlines tend to focus more on ‘safety’ than on ‘service’. I think that safety on an aircraft is very important, however, there’s an imbalance and an inconsistency.
I’ve been flying United forever, and their FAs really are the worst, especially on long haul routes. They make you feel like you’re committing a huge crime by asking them for a glass of water or anything else, regardless of Business or Economy. So I always have to be so apologetic to ask for anything.
I hope that you write to United about this issue. The F/A’s behaviour was unacceptable, especially for a premium class 1K passenger. This failure by too many F/As to perform any meaningful level of customer service is appalling. Question for you: How many times are you going to allow yourself to be loyal to a carrier that knows little loyalty to its customers?
United’s big problem is not the FAs, but the passengers. Passengers breathe, demand food&service, they disturb the every day life of the United crew.
Oscar ! Re-accommodate your incompetent staff and hire the right personnel, or…just focus on cargo.
I agree. Business class is business class. You survived without the hamburger, that is true. Unfortunately it seems to me that thats all the FA actually cares about. Somehow you’ve earned the right to sit up there, you therefore have earned the right to be served well. A culture change will definitely take time, though. I expect to see improvement and I’m hoping you re not in a position where you have to write something like that for us 5 years from now. I do think that Oscar Munoz, though, is heading in the right direction. My brother works for United Airlines, and you can’t forget that these are very isolated incidents. Everything has changed since Smisek has left. It will be interesting to see what happens five, ten years from now. If I were you, I’d write a letter to United explaining to them the unacceptable service your received on this flight. These people do seem to care now, and maybe they’ll consider what you had to say. Also Matthew, are you a 1K right now?
Sorry, Matthew, but this seems like acute (potentially terminal) DYKWIAitis.
Where/when does UA promise dine-on-demand service on PS flights?
Here’s what the website says:
Dine
We are proud to partner with The Trotter Project to continually update and improve our onboard dining. The Trotter Project invites chefs from across the globe to join the United culinary team in an ongoing collaboration to bring new, inspired menu options to our flights.
Before departure, you’ll receive a menu, and a flight attendant will ask for your preferred selections. On flights departing before 9 p.m., the meal service includes a delectable multicourse menu with two appetizer choices and three entree options. For dessert, enjoy our signature ice cream sundae with your choice of toppings. A light snack is offered prior to arrival.
On flights departing after 9 p.m., enjoy a hot sandwich and chocolate truffle, as well as a light snack prior to arrival.
Honestly, you come across like a Hollywood brat here.
I can’t believe you would call my “DYKWIA” for making a reasonable request like that. I strongly disagree. Only three people ate…the FAs had literally nothing to do for the entire flight. This was a totally reasonable request.
Matthew –
I went back and reread the entry to see if I was in a particularly grumpy mood and I missed something in your original post.
Nope.
The reason I called you a brat is because you asked them to do something that’s not part of the service on that flight, and when they didn’t, you wrote a whiny blog post about how their customer service sucks.
You say at the beginning of your post “United should focus on delivering great and consistent customer service…” but yet you’re asking for them to do something that is not part of the promised service on PS flights. You finish your post by saying “I am focusing on an unnecessary service lapse.” It *wasn’t* a service lapse. Perhaps a missed opportunity to “give 110%” but they didn’t fail to give you what you promised.
You and I have both been on plenty of flights where dine-on-demand is part of the promised service – that should be provided consistently. This wasn’t one of those flights. Sure, it would have been nice, but it would have been above-and-beyond “great and consistent customer service.” “Surprise and delight,” if you will.
That’s why I think you come across as a brat here – you didn’t get what you wanted (but weren’t *entitled* to), and then threw a public tantrum about it.
To be clear, I’m also a > 1 million-miler on UA. I probably won’t make 2 because I keep flying *A internationally, but I do my fair share of domestic, including PS, so I know what to expect and what know to expect.
UA deserves a lot of criticism, not just for the big recent stuff, but also for the fact that they get a lot of little stuff consistently wrong. That said, writing an entire blog post about not getting something that they never promised you is trying to take advantage of your status as a FF blogger, which unlike some of the guys out there, is (I think) uncharacteristic of your stuff..
Let me push back once more. First, was my request really unreasonable? What makes it unreasonable, especially on a late-night flight in which FAs virtually sat and did nothing for the entire flight? Second, you talk about promises. Doesn’t the website promise a hot pastry prior to landing? Why was nothing served? Same culprit –> lazy FAs.
“for making a reasonable request”
Huh? You turned down the burger, then asked for it to be held. You then argued over when it should be served to you then you requested she wake you up so that you could eat the previously declined burger.
Do you treat everyone like this, or does the cheap/free ticket make you act differently at 35k feet?
I made a reasonable request in a premium cabin on United’s premium domestic route that was not honored by a lazy FA. Sorry you don’t see that.
Matthew does not come across as a brat at all. He is a business class customer. The man has flown more than a million miles with the airline. Surely you can show him the respect he has earned on that particular flight. And I must say that to say that the passengers are THE problem shows a lack of empathy and a deep misunderstanding of priorities. Customers are the paying ones, therefore they are first. It would be like a camp counselor putting the needs of the camp director at a higher priority than that of a crying homesick camper. There really is no difference here. Campers (or families) pay for the opportunity to have a summer of their lifetime, and a homesick child is a chance for the staff to show how much they care about their campers. Matthew is a paying customer (or uses miles because he has earned enough to get the same level of service), and a simple request like this can show that United cares about its passengers. Matthew is in no way entitled, he is simply a consumer of product. United should treat its premium cabin passengers like premium customers. Hard product is very nice, but soft product si as if not more important in my opinion.
Thank you.
This being said, although I do not feel that Matthew is a “brat” or a “problem” because he is a “customer,” United also has not lost mar respect. United is making a lot of progress since Munoz took over. I expect that this will continue, and although the last incident shows a lack of some kind, Munoz seems like he will fix that. It does not take a day to fix however many thousand employees United employs. I hope that Matthew will never again be forced in a position where he has to write something like this, but my hunch is that five, ten years from now he will not.
I agree with kangkang:
Oscar ! Re-accommodate your incompetent staff and hire the right personnel, or…just focus on cargo.
Like one of the commentators wrote: It is a cultural issue.
United has an unpleasant work culture so:
1. Some aircrew take it out on the passengers because they hate United Management.
2. United Management can’t be bothered to screen their people properly and keep the naturally sour people from working with customers.
3. The good people get discouraged and leave United because it is so unpleasant to work there. So only the nasty ones are left and they don’t have a problem with treating customers poorly.
I flew on United recently and I pressed the “service” button by mistake but no flight attendant ever came to me for assistance. Oh, well…. LOL
The FAs probably eat all of the unclaimed food.
I counted only three passengers in the cabin who ate (I was in the last row), so that was a lot of leftover hamburgers…
Reminds me when I flew back from FRA in UA business in their abominable 2-4-2. A gentleman kindly asking a FA to hang his jacket. She went off on a riff about how she was the chef and it was not her responsibility to take jackets. Just kept loudly repeating “I’m the chef”.
I for one was surprised UA had chefs……
They don’t.
UA should really employ secret shoppers. Those would be incognito UA employees who would fly anonymously and make requests like Matthew’s: not unreasonable but outside the routine. Then report back to management; and offending employees should be re-educated.
I’d be happy to volunteer!
I never really understood the reality of customer complaints until I had access to the passenger complaint file of a major cruise line. After every cruise, in a business that takes pride in micromanaging the passenger experience to keep everything happy and precise, you will find hundreds of complaints that the service was inadequate. Some people are upset because their steaks were not well done; others because their steaks were overcooked (and it would take too much time to send them back). Some people are upset because there were ice cubes in their drinks; others because there was no ice. Some people say the mattresses were too hard; others say they were too soft. Some people complain because the dining staff helped their children; others complain because the dining staff ignored their children. Some rooms were consistently too hot; others too cold. Some people get upset because of all the “fake” happiness of the crew; others think the crew was unfriendly. So it goes, week after week, cruise after cruise, hundreds of complaints turn into thousands and hundreds of thousands of them. Most sound just like Matthew when his idiosyncratic needs were not met. How can any company deal with customers who define right and proper in different ways? We have turned into a society of complainers. How is an airline crew expected to wake up every passenger on the passenger’s schedule, when this is not a service the airline offers so there are no procedures in place to get it done? How can we expect this of a crew? What is the matter with someone who expects a service like this that the airline never promised? Reasonableness should start with a person’s demands and expectations.
First, I woke myself up. Second, we are talking about managing 16 premium passengers…not a cruise ship full of people.
Matthew
Be grateful she didn’t stuff the overcooked hamburger into your mouth while you were sleeping and then call LAPD on you when you landed.
There is that…
LOL, Jake!
While I think your complaint is reasonable, the reality of what you’re seeing is the general lack of a service-oriented culture that afflicts all of the legacy airlines. For the past 15 years, we’ve been constantly reminded that front-line employees are there “primarily for your safety”. Furthermore, these employees have been told at every turn by management that they have basically unfettered discretion to deny service to any passenger that they determine constitutes a threat to said “safety”. Bad apple employees have seen over and over again that they have the power to provide bad service, even make up rules, and then kick any passenger off the plane that questions what’s going on by playing the “national security” card. You’ve obviously seen that where passengers get kicked off planes wrongly, the airlines apologize, but still make it clear that they have the backs of employees that make “safety” determinations, even when wrongly applied.
It’s going to take a lot more than one letter from a CEO to root out bad employees and change that culture.
I agree.
“She reluctantly agreed. You could see the hesitation and annoyance in her eyes.”
Hmm, I wonder why…
“I asked the FA to hold one for me and I could eat it before landing.”
“I told her it was not a problem and requested eating about an hour before landing.”
“I told her I was going to sleep and requested that she wake me up.”
Are you this high maintenance in real life, or only on planes?
I don’t see anything wrong with refusing to hold cooked meat for you so you could eat it four hours later on a red-eye flight. The burgers are not made to order, and I would guess the food is heated starting at takeoff in order to get them out quickly on a redeye flight. If you want it held for four hours until the end of the flight, then that means it has to sit there without refrigeration in the galley. The flight attendant was being smart about food hygiene. There are food poisoning concerns about having food sit out like that. There’s enough wrong with United to complain when they, for good reasons, might say no to an unreasonable and in this case, unsafe request by a passenger.
As for not waking you up as requested, that’s a different story. That’s just a plain service failure.
Airlines have no way to get rid of employees who don’t care or are very low performers. They have very strong unions. Employees are rewarded for seniority, not service. (sounds like the government, right? See any similarities?) Complaining does no good because management knows there is nothing they can do about it except send you a few worthless miles or a voucher to get you to buy a seat they would not have sold anyway.
Yes, I think your request was entirely reasonable. If it was against company regulations for the FA to comply with the request, then she should have apologized and so explained. Otherwise, why couldn’t she comply? Matthew asked to be woken up 90 minutes before landing so he could comply with the FA’s 60 minute rule. It is the little niceties or personal touches that don’t cost the airlines any money that could make all the difference.
Matthew, I think your request is entirely reasonable. In my experience, on international flights in premium cabins, I have asked for the Dine Upon Request (or whatever it is called) dinner option to be served instead of breakfast (since I try to eat before getting on overnight flights in order to get a good block of sleep, and greatly prefer the dinner offerings to what is served up at breakfast). Many crew are completely fine with that; a few are reluctant. If hesitant, I engage in a negotiation to determine what is the least additional effort/least disruptive to their routine (e.g., serve it up prior to or after breakfast for everyone else, give me the entree only (dispensing with the appetizer and salad, etc.)). It appears you are of the same bent to try to be accommodating. I think it is a shame that a small deviation that would bring a premium passenger a large amount of happiness was not honored.
Great sentiment. Thanks for chiming in.
This reminds me of the time I was flying Dragonair in first. I had transferred off my longhaul, ate at the lounge, was supremely jetlagged, and wanted to sleep a bit. Of course, when I woke up 40 min before landing in PEK, the flight attendant came over with two trays and said, “I know you said you weren’t hungry, but we prepared the meals in case you decided you wanted something before we land.”
So impressive.