From baggage handlers to pilots, everyone at United Airlines will be outfitted with new uniforms. That’s a foolish investment when customer service is so inconsistent.
New uniforms are coming in 2019, but the preparation process has already begun. Employee roadshows are occurring this week and the three companies will be tapped to outfit Untied employees:
- Brooks Brothers – pilots, male flight attendants and male customer service representatives
- Trace Reese – female flight attendants and female customer service representatives
- Carhartt – ramp service, technical operations and catering operations employees
Hoping to avoid the allergic reactions many employees experienced with new uniforms at American Airlines, there will be an extended testing phase being the new work clothes are rolled out.
But why? Seriously, why?
The current uniforms are less than a decade old and hardly out of style. But that’s not the issue.
A Horrific Customer Service Fail
Yesterday, a woman was downgraded from her business class seat on a transcontinental flight in the rudest of ways. She happens to be a Boarding Area blogger and I encourage you to read her account and follow-up.
Angelina was upgraded to business class only to board her flight and be told that a “paid passenger, who was more important needed her seat because the reading light did not work in his seat.” Turned out he was just an upgrader as well.
When Angelina protested, a FA stated, “Well you were upgraded for free sweetie, this person paid, now go take your seat.”
Sweetie?
Angelina again pointed out the passenger upgraded as well. She offered to take the seat with the broken reading light or a later flight. Both requests were denied. In fact, she was told to take her original economy class seat or “you won’t be flying.” A veiled threat…
So Angelina flew in economy class across the country. Thankfully, in San Francisco Angelina had the patience to visit the customer service desk and was taken care of by a wonderful agent named Kate Barnett. Barnett treated Angelina like a human…what a concept! She was compensated but more importantly, she received empathy and an apology.
Stories like Angelina’s are commonplace. In fact, they have been the subject of many posts on this blog lately. I have my own stories to share as well. After years of mismanagement and poor leadership, United has a huge trust deficit and a contingent of employees who hate customers, dispense poor service, and routinely fail to show rudimentary courtesy or basic common sense. I’m sorry to say that for every Kate Barnett there is a bad apple.
That is what United needs to address. Not new uniforms. And the longer this process takes, the more irrelevant the uniforms will become.
With new uniforms, dragging people off will be an easier feat.
Well put, Matthew.
Fundamentally, that’s why the awful United stories have resonated so widely and loudly. Anyone who flies United with any regularity has had bad experiences, and so there’s a sense of “there but for the grace of God go I.”
Many flight attendants are in the wrong job. Incompetent, unhelpful, indifferent, and uncaring is not adjectives to describe a successful service professional. Some FAs are great, others are awful. You could say that about many industries, but this is unique because an FA is stuck with you in a metal tube at 35,000 feet, and secondly, if you protest and don’t “follow instructions” you are breaking federal law so their commands even if wrong must me followed. With that type of power they can’t be incompetent jerks who show no empathy to passengers.
EXACTLY!!!
Unfortunately, rude, hostile and indifferent flight attendants, are not just limited to United Airlines. They are found on all domestic carriers in the USA. Many of them are similar to some nurses in a hospital, who don’t always answer a patient’s call button, or are otherwise, not empathetic to the patient. I can’t recall one instance, where I encountered a nasty flight attendant on British Airways, SAS, Iberia, El Al, KLM, Lufthansa, or Swissair; the only exception, was one time, when I encountered a nasty male flight attendant on Air France. It should be noted that when I flew on Iberia, they actually brought us slippers to wear on the flight, which were ours to keep. Further, an associate told me that he had exceptional service from the FA’s on Japan Air Lines. On JAL the FA’s bow to the passengers, bring them hot towels, and continuously go up and down the aisles, asking them if they can be of service. The cultural difference between those FA’s, and the ones in the USA, are like day and night!
I’m definitely not defending U.S. Carrier flight attendants, I’ve seen and experienced some of the worst -and I worked for two major airlines! …..however I recently flew All Nippon and Cathay (intra -Asia) in coach and I am not totally impressed with their FAs……too robotic and they simply do not speak decent English. Too overrated and they show just as much being “frazzled” as any other airline. I really don’t see how they are soooooo great.
On a domestic flight between Sapporo and Haneda on ANA, my wife mentioned to a cabin attendant (what we call flight attendant) that I was an avid AV geek and this was my first time on a Dreamliner 787. Midway through the flight they presented us with an inflated 787 toy that the crew had autographed. I thought it was for my 5 year old daughter. The cabin attendant said, no it was for me. Seriously great service on Asian carriers. That would never happen on an American flagged carrier. NEVER.
It’s simplistic enough to say “spend money on this, rather than that” but it’s typically from the viewpoint of someone who sees an airline introducing a new color scheme as something that should take a backseat in lieu of the airline adding something else like free snacks when in reality the fact is planes need to be painted as part of upkeep. Organizational improvements need to occur over time and while there are clearly all sorts of issues that need to be sorted out at UA, you can’t just stop executing brand improvements just because of a couple of incidents. By the time the uniforms actually roll out in late 2019/early 2020, the current ones will be around 8-9 years old but the overall purpose isn’t to have fancy uniforms, its to fix quality/wear issues. So in this case the uniforms will need to be replaced because of usage, they are taking the opportunity to update them. UA can still implement customer solutions and make improvements to a key employee requirement.
While a downgrade is unfortunate, and most of us have all had to deal with our share of them, the reality is there is a lot of speculative conclusions going on. I don’t doubt that Angelina was informed that she was being downgraded because someone else paid for their seat; but just because the other person appeared on the upgrade list doesn’t necessarily mean they were upgraded. I have had several instances lately where I have used miles for a F reward and showed up on an upgrade list as if I was processed as a CPU. I’ve also had full-Y instances that were more expensive than P or Z fares show up on the list. “Paid” vs “paid more” might have been lost in the discussion. Yes the agents could have handled it better, from either the response they gave her to the overall outcome. But the experience is not unique to United and happens on most airlines; that doesn’t make it okay, but “horrific” sounds overly dramatic.
Nice post mate