Thought I would give a little insight as to why our (American) airlines are doing rather poorly.


My son and I left Madison Wisconsin on a small puddle jumper, landed at O'hare...United to Frankfurt...Air Namibia to Windhoek, return, Air Namibia to Frankfurt, Lufthansa from Frankfurt to O'hare. This was all arranged by Kathi and she did a great job of helping us over the couple bumps we faced at the start.

Air Namibia was clean, especially the bathrooms, staff very friendly, tried to upgrade to business but they were full as was first class which they would have given me for business fare had there been seats available...can't beat that...meals offered were game or chicken...we had both and they were exceptional for airfare meals. Plenty of liquids, overall, very nice flights.

Lufthansa. Outstanding in all ways. We were in economy seats and still received great treatment. Hot towels prior to meals, newspapers and the meals were excellent, real silverware, not plastic...plenty of snacks and liquids, someone was constantly walking by with wine and water...my son took advantage of the wine!combined with a very pleasant staff this was the best leg of the trip by far.

United. Bathrooms were filthy, VERY skimpy refreshments, I asked for ginger ale and was given a can that was warm, no ice. When I asked for ice it was a real chore for her to get it, both cubes! Our meals were not hot, hardly luke warm, the staff acted as tho' they were short-time employees and didn't give a darn.

I called their customer service line 800-864-8331, total waste of time.

Hope any of you traveling United have a much better experience.

Wishing all good travels,
SFC E7 (retired)

And they wonder why. . . .

I'm elite on United because of all my domestic flying but I always try to fly a foreign flagged carrier when I travel internationally because of the better service that I get.

quote:

Originally posted by SFC E7:
Thought I would give a little insight as to why our (American) airlines are doing rather poorly.



Our meals were not hot, hardly luke warm, the staff acted as tho' they were short-time employees and didn't give a darn.

I called their customer service line 800-864-8331, total waste of time.

Hope any of you traveling United have a much better experience.

Wishing all good travels,
SFC E7 (retired)

Glen.Tilton@united.com

He is the CEO. Give him jingle.

The reason that the "staff" at UAL acts like short timers and don't give a damn is that they are treated like shit from management and the way that UAL is being run they very well probably are short timers. I'd be surprised if UAL is still in business in a year.

Glen is the highest paid CEO in the airline industry he never misses a chance to reward himself with yet another huge bonus package and he has made the following public statements. "Employee morale is not my problem". At a stockholders meeting last year he commented to large corporate customer after being asked about the declining conditions at UAL."You are free to fly another airline if you don't like it."

In the mean time under Glens control he has dished out over 50% pay cuts, loss of the pension for all employees and retirees. He's shrunk the airline by over half and has generally run the place into the ground. He has been featured in the Hall of Shame as one of the worlds worst CEO's and has Web site devoted to his failures as the chief of the once proud Airline called United.

Checkout,

http://www.glenntilton.com/

Here is coveted entry into Mad Moneys Wall of Shame.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/31324057

Anymore questions as to why the service sucks?

This is a real shame!

We used to always think that American run companies are service oriented.

Obviously there has been a drastic change not for the best.

quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:

quote:

Originally posted by SFC E7:
Thought I would give a little insight as to why our (American) airlines are doing rather poorly.



Our meals were not hot, hardly luke warm, the staff acted as tho' they were short-time employees and didn't give a darn.

I called their customer service line 800-864-8331, total waste of time.

Hope any of you traveling United have a much better experience.

Wishing all good travels,
SFC E7 (retired)

Glen.Tilton@united.com

He is the CEO. Give him jingle.

The reason that the "staff" at UAL acts like short timers and don't give a damn is that they are treated like shit from management and the way that UAL is being run they very well probably are short timers. I'd be surprised if UAL is still in business in a year.

Glen is the highest paid CEO in the airline industry he never misses a chance to reward himself with yet another huge bonus package and he has made the following public statements. "Employee morale is not my problem". At a stockholders meeting last year he commented to large corporate customer after being asked about the declining conditions at UAL."You are free to fly another airline if you don't like it."

In the mean time under Glens control he has dished out over 50% pay cuts, loss of the pension for all employees and retirees. He's shrunk the airline by over half and has generally run the place into the ground. He has been featured in the Hall of Shame as one of the worlds worst CEO's and has Web site devoted to his failures as the chief of the once proud Airline called United.

Checkout,

http://www.glenntilton.com/

Here is coveted entry into Mad Moneys Wall of Shame.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/31324057

Anymore questions as to why the service sucks?

Surestrike:

If you don't like the job, quit. But don't screw customers because you think the CEO is a dick.

At one time, the employees owned UAL. They couldn't do any better themselves, and I believe they lost a lot of equity granted to them.

I remember years ago I was on a hotel shuttle bus with some UAL pilots. I pointed out some things I thought the airline should do. One pilot looked at me and said, "Hey, don't tell me. I just drive the bus."

If any of my employees EVER said that to one of our customers they would be out the door tomorrow. The fact that UAL employees had or have that attitude is stunning to me. And it has been going on long before Tilton took over. Remember Wolf?

BTW, I am lifetime Gold (Premier Executive) on UAL but I don't fly them very much.

Thanks for serving Sergeant First Class.

It's too bad people like AnotherAZWriter thinks that the CEO has nothing to do with running the company. It's clearly all the employees fault. So you'd fire those pilots for saying not to tell them about what you thought the airline should do? How about the dipshit CEO for telling someone at the stockholders meeting that he is free to fly on another airline. Come on.

Armbar.

Armbar:

I didn't say the CEO had nothing to do with running the company. Just about every CEO in America is overpaid, as is every airline CEO.

But surestrike is saying that you can't blame the employees for acting terribly...come on. What if a surgeon did a poor job because he thought his or her slice of the action was too low with respect to the hospital's? As I said, if you don't like the company, quit. No one is holding a gun to any pilots head.

Eastern Airlines had the same kind of crappy attitude a few decades ago. We know where that got them.

Finally, let us not forget that UAL was majority owned by the employees in 1994. Oh, just in case you didn't know it, Stewart Oran, the key legal advisor to the pilots union, took a 5.5 million dollar package to join the new company. So much for union solidarity.

Bottom line: the employees couldn't run UAL any better than anyone else.

i guess i am old fashioned, but i think the captain of a ship bears ultimate responsibility for whether it floats or sinks. damn glad my frequent flier miles are with Am airlines(mainly) and Delta. both of them (especially Delta) pretty much suck but their international partners are good(especially BA and Air France).

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
This is a real shame!

We used to always think that American run companies are service oriented.

Obviously there has been a drastic change not for the best.

Most are very service oriented. The airlines and auto companies have been on the "union gravy train" for a long time and are just now learning that the customer pays them, not the airline union or management.

I travel American Airlines all the time (over 50 flights in the last 12 months) and I have seen a marked improvement in service and on-time arrivals. Southwest Airlines is the same - they jump to help.

I quit buying GM cars when I bought a Toyota. Seems the GM boys thought they could repair things when they wanted to. The Toyota guys jumped through hoops to be sure I was happy. Now I own two Toyotas. I hope GM learns a lesson and turns things around but it will not happen until the unions are dismantled and destroyed completely.

Health care is similar. I go to a physicial owned clinic and they treat me very well. I suggest anyone that does not get what they feel they are paying for - vote with your feet - go somewhere they do treat you well.

Same goes for safari companies.

Not changing the subject but are you getting "good service" from your employees, OUR state and federal government? Seems the problem is rather widespread!

I think they all need to take lessons from Southwest

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:
Surestrike:

If you don't like the job, quit. But don't screw customers because you think the CEO is a dick.

At one time, the employees owned UAL. They couldn't do any better themselves, and I believe they lost a lot of equity granted to them.

I remember years ago I was on a hotel shuttle bus with some UAL pilots. I pointed out some things I thought the airline should do. One pilot looked at me and said, "Hey, don't tell me. I just drive the bus."

If any of my employees EVER said that to one of our customers they would be out the door tomorrow. The fact that UAL employees had or have that attitude is stunning to me. And it has been going on long before Tilton took over. Remember Wolf?

BTW, I am lifetime Gold (Premier Executive) on UAL but I don't fly them very much.

Thanks for serving Sergeant First Class.

There has never once in my career been a flight delayed or canceled because of me. Just the opposite I bust my ass to make things run smoothly. It's pretty tough however to pull the wagon uphill with a management team pulling on the other end of that wagon. So don't give me any crap about screwing customers because I DO care about the people in the back.

FYI UAL was never truly employee owned or employee "run" that was yet another management scam to skim off 7 billion in labor concessions.

During the ESOP in the mid 90's UAL was rated as the second best airline in the world in all areas including customer satisfaction after British Airways. UAL was an excellent place to work back then. All airlines have their problems including Southwest who just had multiple airplanes grounded for yet another delinquent maintenance issue. But at least back then we were all pulling in the same direction.

The employees lost a lot of equity after 9-11-2001 after UAL, DAL, and NWA all went into chapter 11 due to the extreme economic situation that caused. If you remember correctly that was caused by a bunch of Islamic terrorist a'holes I am pretty certain that the employees of UAL had nothing to do with that little event.

During the ESOP or as you say "ownership" we had one guy on the board, that was it. We never had the ability or even the means of forwarding your recommendation to anybody that could make a difference, even back then. So it was getting pretty frustrating hearing from people about what we should do to make the airline better. WE couldn't do anything about it. I understand your frustration with Mr. attitude. That was wrong on his part and I apologize for his actions but no matter how crass and idiotic his statment was correct.

Glens only concern is to sell UAL off or break it up and make a huge personal financial gain and get out. It is pretty tough to work and stay positive in this environment. But I do anyway.

I wish that I had more control over the way things are being run but the most I can do I am already doing by providing the safest most efficient travel experience I can make possible. When the whole airline is understaffed it gets real hard to depart on time. I can't do it on my own it takes a team and that team is severely understaffed and their morale sinks deeper every day with the total non commitment to success this management team has.

Just curious but what was it that you had recommended to the pilot that the airline do to make life better?

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:

But surestrike is saying that you can't blame the employees for acting terribly...come on. What if a surgeon did a poor job because he thought his or her slice of the action was too low with respect to the hospital's? As I said, if you don't like the company, quit. No one is holding a gun to any pilots head.

Eastern Airlines had the same kind of crappy attitude a few decades ago. We know where that got them.

AZwriter,

I said the reason that you are seeing these attitudes is for the above mentioned issues. But for you to shift from a report of a poor cabin experience to somehow making that into a Pilots issue is simply false and totally incorrect and completely out of context for this conversation.

EAL was killed by Frank Lorenzo he planned it's demise he screwed the employees mercilessly and you wonder why they had a shitty attitude? You have got to be kidding me. You need to read up on what happened there with the whole Texas air deal and the shifting of assets from EAL to CAL.

By the way there is a gun to the pilots heads. We can't just up and leave and go to another airline it doesn't work that way. We are stuck where we are if we don't want to start at the absolute bottom at starvation wages if you want to stay fly for a living. Your only other option is to start a new career or move to another country. China and Vietnam are hiring pilots at the moment. No thank you I like my guns and my freedom a bit to much to swallow that one.

It is an absolute financial 12 ga to the temple.

By the way if you don't think that many surgeons have piss poor attitudes and are unhappy with their groups you need to talk to more surgeons outside of the hospital. Being unhappy with your current employer has nothing to do with being a competent professional surgeon or a professional pilot. Exactly what are you saying in this thread? Have you had a pilot do a bad job of flying an airplane?

Your analogy with the surgeon is wrong in so many ways. Let me turn it around on you. If you go to a hospital to get a surgery and the nurses are unfriendly the admissions staff treats you badly and they charge you a ton a of extra fees for stuff like bringing an extra pair of under ware. You'd be unhappy and rightfully so. The surgery goes fine and you come through it with no problems. The only time you saw the surgeon was briefly before the procedure as you were being put under. But you got your new hip and you'll be on your way soon.

How is it the surgeons fault that the hospital was lousy and the nurse was a bitch? Please tell me? IT is EXACTLY the same for the pilots you are bagging on. We don't have anything to do with UAL's customer policies and fee's we don't have any control over how the flight attendant treats you we fly the airplane and we have very little contact with you the passenger. Just like your surgeon we are there to do a specific specialized job. I hope that clears things up for you. You are blaming the wrong people. Just like at the hospital if you don't like the policy and the general attitude you've got to talk to people who can effect change. Some off duty line pilot on the bus isn't that guy. In fact when you really think about it, it's pretty silly to even bring it up on a bus ride to a hotel with an off duty crew.

Surestrike:

Here is my observation after flying over 1 million miles on United and over 1 million on NWA/Cont/Delta: United employees have the worst attitude in the industry. And they have been blaming the CEO for eons. Remember Wolf? You guys didn't like him either.

I understand you don't have many options. But if the employees don't change, UAL will go under. And to your point about options: what will you do then?

My opinion about Eastern was created by the husband of my mother's best friend from HS. He was a mechanic and used to talk endlessly about how he was screwing Eastern. My father used to tell him he was cooking his own goose. "Naw, this airline will never go out of business."

So you are right; I don't know that much about Eastern and my extrapolation of my experiences as a kid are not appropriate. But my experience with United is.

BTW, I sat next to a very friendly Delta employee today. I normally work during flights, but I am on my way to the Selous so I just relaxed and chatted with her. She was very interested in how they can do things better. Not once did she bring up her CEO.

I have not had an issue with pilots not doing a good job. To me, if the plane lands, I am happy. BTW, you remember the Continental flight that skidded off the runway in Denver? I personally tracked down the head of the Continental flight attendants union (is it IAM? Can't remember) and called him. To my shock, he picked up his phone. I told him that those flight attendants did a fantastic job in saving those passengers lives. So I don't have a hard-on for the airline industry.

Years ago pilots made as much as doctors. Now, their pay declines every year. Why? Because someone will do the same job for less money. And the internet is killing your business almost as much as it is killing the newspaper business (we can connect to our clients computers over the internet; years ago, we had to travel). And while guys like you take it in the shorts, you have to watch CEOs make gobs of money running the business into the ground. At the same time, the only way to make airlines profitable is to cut costs. Everyone wants to make the highest pay. Read the Wikipedia entry on UAL; it seems the pilots have kind of peed in the pool.

I feel for you; I am certainly not envious. But again, the point here is that as long as you show up, you need to the best job you can. I never said pilots were to blame for the crappy state of affairs at UAL. It is not your job to clean the latrine. I would guess the latrine is not clean due to a spending cutback, not because the cleaning crew thinks Tilton is making too much money.

One more thing: I used the term "employee" almost exclusively - you used pilots. I did use the term pilots when I talked about the gun to the head. Why? Because unlike other employees, pilots will make less if they quit. They know that; their sense of being trapped is obvious to all of us. But you aren't a slave. You could make another career choice. I have made three of them in my life. I would love to be a full time writer, but guess what? The pay stinks. I make more in one week in my software business than I do writing all year.

I am off to AMS in a few hours, so if I don't answer for 21 days, you know it isn't because I am blowing you off.

AZ,

Thanks for your reply I am in agreement with much of what you say. This is a tough subject for me because I do care and I do try as hard as possible to make your travel experience as seamless as possible when I am the captain. Some days I am just beating my head against the wall it seems.

Hey have a great hunt. And by the way I start my MBA in December. I am expanding my options for the very reasons that you speak of above.

Regards and happy hunting.

quote:

EAL was killed by Frank Lorenzo he planned it's demise he screwed the employees mercilessly and you wonder why they had a shitty attitude? You have got to be kidding me. You need to read up on what happened there with the whole Texas air deal and the shifting of assets from EAL to CAL.

And the greedy little bastard destroyed a lot of lives in the process.

I'm retired from the non-skeds and living near Daytona. Embry Riddle is located there. I attended ER when it was in Miami during the 60's.

Some friends have asked me why I don't go over to ER and try to volunteer to give the kids coming up in pilot training a chat-up or two about what a great career aviation is.

I usually answer something to the effect that if I talked to them, I would tell them that corrupt, incompetent management will take your dream of flying the line and use it and abuse it and wipe their asses on it until you have lost your dream and to go get a job where you are at home at night and you aren't constantly belittled by remarks like, "Hey, the airline business would be really great if we just didn't have to deal with those damned pilots!"

I'd tell them to get an MBA, make some money and buy yourself an airplane if you really want the freedom of flight.

If you are stuck as surestrike and thousands of others are because the airlines have lowered fares to the point where people who used to ride Greyhound now fly American and United and don't have an idea of what good airline service really was like, no wonder we have lousy cabin service.

Historically, the flight crews were directly responsible for most major safety innovations and regulations. And yeah, they organized and did it through unions.

If I am a pilot and I get my bird from point A to point B as safely and expeditiously as possible, taking care to safeguard my life and the lives of my crew and passengers, I have done my job. If management structures their business model so I get screwed out of my retirement and the top dogs get huge golden parachutes by cutting my salary to the bone, and I still do my duty, then no one has a reason to complain. About me, anyway.

Southwest has historically been successful because of a positive attitude from their CEO. The attitude trickeled down to the cabin crews.

But if a CEO is concerned about nothing but screwing the flight and maintenance personnell so he can continue to feather his own nest and the crews know it, it is understandably demoralizing. This lack of morale is then understandably exhibited in the daily contact with the public.

The foreign carriers are so much better than the American carriers that there is no longer any apt comparison. The difference between KLM and Northwest is night and day.

I used to commute all over the world and have flown on at least a couple of dozen carriers. I had a million miles on BA alone, one of the top carriers in the world. If you want good service, go off shore. I've had better service in the cabin on TAG Angolan than I've ever received on Northwest. That says it all right there.

Well, thanks for letting me vent. For the sake of all, I hope UAL does not go under.

And I really do get tired of hearing how much CEOs make WITH NO PERSONAL RISK. If my business fails, I lose real money. BTW, this past year I gave my employees a 10% raise. Their raise is absolutely connected to our profit incrase. So far, they will get over 15% next year. I do believe it is important to share the profit.

I am in AMS; flew on NWA and I really had no complaints.

Have a good one guys.