Glenn Tilton.com

From an email today to Glenn Tilton. Reproduced with author's permission.

Dear Mr. Tilton:

I wanted to personally let you know frustrating it is to deal with your customer service representatives not due to their fault but due to your company's customer policies.

I have to fly from Maryland to Washington State to my son's wedding tomorrow. Unfortunately, I did not know about this trip until just a couple of weeks ago or I would have chosen another airline.

I checked in online today and to my horror realized that only single seats were available; but I am traveling with my six-year-old daughter. So, I paid an extra $139 for Economy Plus to have two seats that are together so I do not have to worry about my six-year-old daughter who is not fond of flying.

Needless to say that the fact that I already paid $400 per ticket, added $139 to have appropriate seating, and that UAL charges for checked bags got my blood pressure up a bit but oh well, there is not much I can do.

So, I thought it would be a good idea to call customer service today to have seats assigned for the return flight in advance. You have to know that I will be in a rural area with no internet connection during my visit. I do not even know if my phone will work up there. I am 2 ½ hours away from the airport, I am in a wedding on Saturday and I have to leave at 3 am (!) on Sunday to make it back to the airport on time to catch my flight.

When I called your customer service number, my call was routed to India. The person on the phone, although very polite, had a hard time understanding me. He understood what I wanted but his cookie cutter approach, dictated by your company, would not enable him to help me. I asked to be transferred to an agent in the US. I was told to call the 800-number which is what I had done in the first place and I landed in India.

I asked if I could pay for Economy Plus again. The agent was going to accept my payment (he also wanted to sell a Mileage Plus membership to me) but he would still not be able to assign seats. I know for a fact that if I would have signed up for whatever membership your company offers, I would have been helped. But I do not fly often enough to make that worth my while.

I am not saying that the agent was not willing to help me or that he was unfriendly, he was simply not able to help me due your company policy.

I just traveled extensively with my family to multiple countries in Europe. I always received help from customer service (not UAL) when I stated that I needed seats together for my family. Agents would go out of their way to help me. I had my six-year-old and an 76-year-old in my party.

So, here I am, frustrated, anxious and stressed out that I might have to ship my six-year-old little girl cross country with two strangers next to her and her mother a couple of rows back.

What happened to customer service? And no, I don't mean the free bag of peanuts, I mean true customer service? We are all tightening our belts (probably not you) but cutting back does not mean cutting back on service. I don't need a bag of peanuts and a soda, I am capable of planning ahead far enough to pack some snacks. I remember when flying was exciting, special, and enjoyable but those days are long gone. Now we are all squeezed into our seats like a bunch of sardines (did I mention I am 6"tall?) with no leg, elbow and storage room. Who wants to pay extra for a checked bag if they can just bring a carry on and save a few bucks? BTW, have you ever flown Economy so you actually know what I am talking about or do you travel by private jet?

Anyway, I am frustrated and very stressed out over this trip. Should you actually read this and have a good idea as to how I could get something moving here, please contact me @(redacted).

Route and Week: SFO-ORD, w/o 8/22

Details: I was on Flight 158 from San Francisco-SFO to Chicago-ORD on Friday, August 22. Shortly after takeoff as we were ascending, we heard a loud "Bang!" and the plane shook, smoke poured into the cabin through the air vents and the smoke alarm began to sound. Our flight attendant got on the speaker and said they would get back to us with what was going on. A few minutes later the pilot got on the intercom and said that our left engine had failed, and we would be making an emergency landing back in San Francisco, and that we should be back on the ground in 7 minutes. We made it safely back to the airport, and were welcomed back by a line of fire trucks on the tarmac and police at the gate.

Back in the terminal customer service agents began to reschedule people for flights the following morning, and told us that accommodations would not be provided for the night, and instead brought out pillows and blankets for us to sleep in the terminal. In the meantime we were able to get our luggage from the baggage claim area. Since we were one of the last flights of the day, after going to the baggage claim area we were unable to get back to the terminal area because the TSA security checkpoint was closed for the evening, and would not reopen until 4am the following morning.

I had been automatically rescheduled for a flight the next morning since I was signed up for the automatic update, but after such a traumatic experience I would have thought that we should have access to Customer Service personelle to help us with any other issues we may have. I cried throughout the night and was unable to sleep, and felt that it was unsafe to get on another plane, so the next morning my husband and I cancelled our flight and instead drove home straight through Saturday and Sunday for 36-hours from San Francisco to Chicago. I have since tried to get reimbursement for my rental car and gas costs of approximately $950, and instead received 2 travel vouchers, one for myself and one for my husband, in the amount of $100.

Route and Week: Sept 6 2008, ORD-MUC

Details: I am a transplant surgeon working at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Göteborg, Sweden. On my way back from being on business in the US I travelled on flight LH 9269 Operated by United Airlines from Chicago to Munich on September 6th 2008.

Approximately 2 -3 hours prior to our arrival in Munich there was a call over the intercom requesting the service of a Physician. I replied promptly since the person in distress happened to sit in the row behind me. I found that she was unconscious but breathing and with a strong, regular pulse. There was no indication to start any kind of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

For about an hour I worked together with a couple of nurses that also responded to the call, to be able to manage the patient’s airway and with the few means available to us to try to establish a diagnosis.

When the patient slowly regained consciousness I was asked to go aft to the galley and speak with the Captain over the phone. After informing him of the situation I was asked if the flight should be diverted to London or continue to Munich. I was told we had about an hour left before arriving in Munich. My recommendation to the Captain was to continue to Munich but that it was mandatory that an ambulance and a Medical Team should meet up and take over once we arrived.

We landed in Munich and the Medical team was promptly on board and took over. I was told by the United personnel that I could leave the aircraft to catch my connecting flight to Sweden and that United Airlines would promptly get in touch with me to give me an update on the passengers situation.

More than a month has gone by and I have not heard anything from United. I wrote an e mail to try to get some feed back on the situation and the "response" I received was the following:

"Dear Doctor I thank you for giving medical assistance to a fellow passenger onboard. Please understand that the information you desire is confidential. Federal privacy guidelines prohibit us from releasing passenger information to other than the actual passenger or an authorized representative. We ask for your understanding. "

Needless to say I will never fly with United Airlines again.

From Cynthia:

In July, Mr. Tilton announced that he was laying off (or furloughing) thousands of employees. Other airlines were not taking such drastic measures, but United said it was necessary given the cost of fuel. That was when fuel was $147 a barrel. Two months later, fuel fell below $100 a barrel. Yet the layoffs and furloughs continue with NO EXPLANATION from senior management. I can only assume that the July fuel costs were a smokescreen for some drastic cost cutting Mr. Tilton wanted to do all along, likely in order to get a bigger bonus for himself. I suppose that he hangs on at United because his reputation is so bad that no one else wants to hire him!

Your Role: 1K passenger

Route and Week: LAX-LHR w/o 5/15 & 5/23

Details: No surpise, after putting up with inconviences all this year of mechanical delays, things not working, shoddy aircraft cleaning, etc. I finally reached the breaking point and fired off a complaint to the 1K/GS desk, and actually got a reply. The Tipping point was two expensive Business Class R/T tickets between LAX & LHR (no Ted Trash route) where I repeatedly encountered inoperative reading lights, audio/video systems, broken(unusable) & dirty tray tables, not to mentioned uncleaned seats, seat pockets filled with food and trash.

I have repeatedly pleaded on Ualsurvey.com to just fix the little things and please spend some maint. $.obviously to no avail.

My ultimate complaint reply came from Bill Norman SVP UA Services in the SFO Maint. Ctr. While it was a very concilliatory letter explaining what they try to do for every flight, no where did he say they had an initiative going to fix the never-ending maintenance problems.

but, I did get 2 additional upogrades for my troubles. I would really rather just have him fix the problems, but obviously the bean-counters have not empowered him to do so.

Maintenance cut-backs are always the death knell pre-cursor. When premiuim cabin (e.g. most profitable)customers start feeling they are getting pimped, how long will it be before we start flying someone else. I believe that unless the management culture at UAUA changes, it will be very soon, at least in my case.

Finally, the trash was still in my F cabin seatback pocket and on the floor on my flight out of IAD this past Tuesday. Nothing has changed.

Glenn's Gotta Go!