Usually, I'm quite the laid-back, friendly, easy-going, not to mention handsome, philanthropic, and a perfect gentleman, but I had quite the 'vacation' this week in Las Vegas. United Airlines was kind enough to extend it by a day and, well, read my letter to them (sent today) for a snippet of my state of mind for the past couple of days.
I'll update everyone with their response, but I had to get this one off my chest.
Really, I have to get over it. I've spent the last 3 days at this point trying to control my blood pressure, as the tiniest of sideways looks get me to nearly explode. This is a great form of venting though, and what I've been trying to keep in mind was the fact that I did have a good vacation for the first three days, and beyond that, there's plenty else in the world that's worse than an extra day in Las Vegas, not that it was the happiest day ever there.
Still though, I was a tad upset, and I've channeled that energy into a strongly-worded letter, which is also hopefully entertaining for y'all.
Enjoy!
To whom it may concern,
I am writing today to inform United Airlines of my recent
experience using your services, and to inform you of my decision to no longer
use your airline for domestic flights unless absolutely necessary.
When I told friends and family about my trip to Las Vegas,
an annual tradition for me and a friend from home, the first comment I got from
many people was “good luck with United!” Having flown with you last year, with
minimal issues (outside an airline’s control, at least), my reply was to hope
for the best and rely on my good luck traveling with you in the past.
However, after my vacation began on Saturday, May 10th,
2014, with a flight from Providence, RI, to Chicago, IL, that would be the end
of my good experiences with UA. My vacation was subsequently cut short by not
one, not two, but three separate
customer service, informational, or mechanical issues, and that is without
placing any extra emphasis on the final and worst issue. I realize there are
certain things beyond an airline’s control when flying, and I certainly don’t
place blame on United for those issues that are outside your control, but the response
to those issues is far more important to me.
In my opinion, your response, for lack of a more eloquent way
to put it at the moment, sucked.
First, the most minor and easy-to-understand issue was a
mechanical issue with our plane on Saturday, May 10th, when backing
out of the gate in Chicago. It wasn’t a huge deal, mechanical issues are great
to know about before takeoff, but we were told by the flight crew that, lucky
for us, we had another plane to board, a few gates down, and we would be
getting out as soon as we could get boarded and luggage moved. However, that
plane wasn’t actually there. It took another 45 minutes, in fact, for that
plane to arrive, an additional 30 minutes to prepare it, 30 minutes to board,
and 30 to eventually get out, causing a total delay of about 3 hours to get to
our destination. Again, this is not a big deal in the grand scheme of flight issues,
but I appreciate honesty and the accuracy of the information given to me. Peace-of-mind
goes a long way in flying and traveling in general, so just knowing the
situation, for me, goes a long way in how I look back on the experience. However,
the way that issue was handled, with United representatives telling 150+ people
that they’d get right onto a different plane and right out, was not only
incorrect, it was dishonest, because someone certainly had to know there wasn’t
actually another plane waiting. That situation luckily did not affect me beyond
arriving 2.5 hours late, since my final destination was Las Vegas, but to
anyone looking to make a connecting flight, I hope they did not rely on your
inaccurate information. That was the first issue.
The second dealt with my check-in for my flight on Tuesday,
May 13th, and also should have been very minor. When I attempted to
check in online using confirmation codes or other information on Monday, the
United website repeatedly was unable to find my reservation. I had to call and
speak to a representative, which took a 45 minutes of the rep asking the same
information (confirmation codes, names, flight #’s, etc), only to tell me that
I may need to speak to a travel agent to re-book a new flight. And after this
45 minute run-around of the same 6-letter confirmation (by the way, the code is
AKDQMQ, don’t worry, I’ve memorized it by now!), the conversation ended with me
getting the correct email with my boarding passes, with the same confirmation
code I had been using for the past hour. Again, I’m not entirely certain what
causes issues like that, technology is a funny thing, but the response is more
important, and the response this time was a simple ‘have a nice day’. I didn’t
mind too much at the time, since I anticipated that phone call being the last
of my issues, but an apology or some sort of explanation of what went wrong
would have been nice. And, not having the first suggestion be “book another
flight” would have been great too. Still though, my ‘vacation’ was still
shaping up pretty well.
And then it unraveled on Tuesday, May 13th,
around 11AM.
The final straw was smoke in an FAA building in Chicago. Or
rather, the final straw was United Airline’s way of dealing with the chain
reaction and meltdown that followed. Again, a malfunction in a ventilation
system is far, far beyond an airline’s control. And again, United’s response
was abysmal.
Luckily, I was not one of the people that had to board and de-plane our aircraft 4 times that morning and afternoon. That joyous experience was only reserved for the elderly, active military, passengers with babies, and passengers with disabilities. I only physically boarded once, but some of my fellow travelers made it onto, and back off the plane FOUR times (presumably, the last time they were actually allowed to board, fly to Chicago, and get off the plane), and I find that somewhat absurd. After the situation began, I immediately looked it up on my phone, and it seemed like the entire time from then on, I was better informed of the situation and better understood the impact of it than United, which is hard for me to believe. Instantly, when there is a fire in an FAA building, 800+ flights were grounded for precautions, across two airports, which makes perfect sense given the importance of those folks at the FAA. I have no issue with being grounded for smoke, fire, or any sort of potentially dangerous situation.
However, we were subsequently told by United
representatives, on two separate occasions, that if we could board as quickly as
possible, we could get out in X minutes and hopefully many of us could make
connections or get to our respective destinations, which sounded good. Too good
to be true, actually. Since I had been checking from the minute the problem
occurred, I was aware of the fact that at the time there were over 800 flights
at two major airports grounded, delayed, re-routed, or cancelled. United had to
have access to this same information, yet every time I checked United.com to
check my reservation for my ORD to PVD flight that evening, it still said I
would board at 6:30PM local time, and arrive at 10:10PM. Calls to United’s 800
number mentioned a ‘weather issue’ causing delays and heavy call volumes, and a
promise of a longer-than-expected wait time. However, I didn’t wait on the
phone. After going through the ever-so-fun-and-easy 10 step method to explain
to your automated server what my issue was, I was promptly disconnected.
Additionally, it took until that fourth and final boarding
of our flight (7 full hours after we arrived at the airport) to finally be able
to speak to a United representative live and pry the most important piece of
information - to my friend and I - out of him: the fact that our flight to
Providence was, as I had a feeling it would be, cancelled.
He casually mentioned we could certainly still go to
Chicago, but in the meantime he wouldn’t be able to find us anything to
Providence right then, or pay for a hotel for us in either location, since this
wasn’t a ‘United Airlines’ issue, it was an ‘FAA issue’. I informed him I didn’t
have a house in Chicago, and thus that would be unacceptable since we were
trying to get to Providence. Again, I understand the FAA versus United issues,
I understand the nightmare that must come out of having to re-book and re-work
over 1000 flights-worth of passengers’ issues, but at the same time, be a
little realistic with your passengers. Telling me twice that I need to board as
quickly as possible sounds great, but every other source I’m looking at is
telling me that there are still massive delays, cancellations, re-routings, and
all sorts of issues. The words “meltdown situation” were used in one article I
read. I heard of other airlines cancelling much earlier, and re-booking their
passengers, which would have been greatly, greatly appreciated. Any sort of
feeling that United was going out of its way to improve the situation would
have been appreciated. Instead, I consistently got the impression that everyone
I spoke with was trying, essentially, not to be the bearer of bad news and to pass
the buck to the next person to tell me. I don’t really need that when flying.
It’s stressful enough as is, what I need is accurate information and again,
peace-of-mind. A hotel room would have also been wonderful. I found it hard to
believe that one option to rectify my situation was to fly me to Houston, then
to Philadelphia, then to Providence, or even connect more ways and at who knows
what cost, but a $35 hotel room (which is what I ended up Hotwiring later on, $70
after taxes and a resort fee) was out of the question in either Las Vegas or
Chicago.
At no point did I feel that any person I spoke with through
these three separate issues was going above or beyond to help me out or in any
way rectify the issues that occurred. In fact, it felt like no one was willing
to take even a centimeter step in the right direction, and in a customer
service industry, I had thought the customer experience was paramount to getting
repeated business. Rest assured, this week and the problems involved has led me
to conclude that I won’t be flying United Airlines any time in the foreseeable future.
Once more though, my main complaint is not with the actual
issues, but the response. I would greatly appreciate speaking to another
representative of your airline regarding my experience, at your earliest
convenience. Should you need any more specific information regarding flight numbers,
itineraries, passengers, any sort of documentation, or even to hear of a few
more of the stories of other passengers whose experiences were even worse than
mine (I’m single, I don’t have to worry about babysitters, a family, and
luckily have a job with a very understanding group of people who were supportive of my situation, but that wasn’t
the case with many other of those people), please let me know when you respond. I am more
than happy to speak with anyone over the phone, at XXX-XXX-XXXX (cell), or via
email at eharms1@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from someone soon.
Thank you,
Ed Harms
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