Passenger email to a friend (fellow UAL Captain).

LAX Meltdown; Scary Situation, unbelievable agents...
I was on the flight 90 debacle yesterday at LAX; in my million+ miles with the airline, this was the first one where I was thisclose to calling 911 due to the situation getting out of hand.

Flight 90 is a 757-300 LAX-EWR that continues onto Tel Aviv on new metal in EWR. Inbound equipment was about 3 hours late due to mechanical issues...and after a few more hours of mechanical issues on the ground, they decided to ground the plane...and after an hour after that, they decided to use a 757-200 that was parked at LAX to run the flight. Total delay of about 6 hours. Throughout the process, there was a total lack of information or help from any agents (or on the phone with the Premiere hotline) and they handled the downgraded equipment absolutely horribly.

Rather than ask for volunteers for the packed -300 to come off the -200, they first randomly decided to involuntarily deny boarding to First Class passengers. I was one of the lucky victims, told I was being denied my 2nd row seat due to my status. "we would rather let someone who hasn't experienced united before a chance to fly in the BusinessFirst cabin than you" was the line I was fed, even though Ive been a CO top tiered elite for 20 years and was on a full first class ticket. I told them I wasn't going to budge unless they gave me $1k in involuntary denied boarding comp and refunded my $2040 lax-EWR fare. I was livid and somewhat calm and held firm to the idea I wasn't going to give up my seat. Others in the cabin folded though, especially passengers with mileage upgrades who got their miles refunded and got a $500 downgrade certificate. Because others folded or simply gave up, I was able to keep my seat.

Then the economy class mess: rather than tell the masses there was a downgrade and serious oversell and deal with displaced passengers in the 6 hour delay period, they had economy board...and if the gate scanner buzzed, you were denied boarding and put into a long line to be dealt with. Somewhere in that mess, they were asking for volunteers to come off for $300 travel certificate....to be re-accommodated on a flight that would get in Tuesday morning, nearly 3 days late.

This is where things got ugly: passengers and employees started yelling, pushing, and shoving, and the situation quickly got out of hand. Passengers were barking "welcome to the new United" while employees shouted back "this merger is your fault", "I just work here, this isn't my problem" , "I don't need to deal with this, if you have problems with United, I'll just go home." I really thought punches were going to start flying...but for whatever reason, they didn't.

Passengers who were seasoned enough to ask for food vouchers got a $10 one ...otherwise, they had set up bottles of water for people who got thirsty during the long mechanical delay.

All in all, the situation was handled poorly...and I was surprised at the employees that were venting more anger to the passengers, especially elites at the gate or passengers in the United Club, moreso than passengers expressing their frustration for being so late or misconnecting in EWR. New system or not, agents should be better equipped and informed to deal with mechanicals and equipment swaps. And while they may not be thrilled about the integration, they should not be taking it out on UA's most valuable/loyal passengers.
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I passed through LAX yesterday. The gate agent was frazzled and seriously thinking about quitting after 17 years due to the new reservations software. The day before she had called the police 3 times.

But, according to Jeff, everything is working smoothly and the employees are happy.

UALHvy.. do you know if this made it to the media out there, or to YouTube. If it was as bad as it sounds, you would think that someone would have video'd it.

It seems as if the meltdowns are starting to become more routine, and bigger in nature. Doesn't bode well for the summer.

All we can do is to Fly Safe, Fly Professionally and Fly The Contract (nothing more, nothing less...)

Always
Motch

S.N.A.J.U. ... All Jeffed up... they were talking about this on airliners.net

United not so friendly for calling customers - Red, White and Blue Chips - MarketWatch

This is a very unfortunate experience no doubt. I too have seen first hand the ensuing meltdown between passengers and gate agents particularly when there is an equipment substitution. And, as you highlighted, first class passengers are on the front line sort to speak when seat assignments have to be changed. Of course this can happen at any time and in this case was due to a maintenance event. On the other side of the line are the gate agents.

No employee groups are insulated from this merger process. I've talked to several gate agents to get their perspective on how this merger process is affecting them. As you can imagine they are frustrated and tired and scared. Frustrated because so much is changing that affects how they do their jobs, tired because their ranks are pretty thin, and scared because of downsizing, transfers, and potential pay cuts. This is the current state of the company from a grassroots perspective.

Now throw in passenger frustration and you have a nice little ticking time bomb waiting for that moment like you described to go off. And that is not the way we want to do business.

Obviously this merger process is not perfect or seamless or even transparent. It is a gargantuan undertaking and will require the commitment of all to make it work. And, to me, the key to making it work is leadership.

So how do we rally the troops in a positive way considering that many are bruised, battered, miffed, etc. Bethune and Brenneman had a pretty good handle on how to do it. It really is simple; treat people with dignity and respect. Although our anointed one is quick to use these words they just don't seem to have the same meaning coming from his lips. He is arrogant, cocky, and reckless. And he has singularly undone all the hard work done by Bethune and Brenneman.

I'm sure that as a manager the anointed one is very intelligent and capable. Unfortunately that does not make him a leader and the CEO of our company definitely needs to be a leader. He needs to rally the troops as a combined team not divide and alienate them. Until this happens everyone; employees, their families, passengers, and everyone else associated with the company will suffer.

I remain hopeful that we will get through this process and be better for it. I also hope and pray that the Board of Directors have a clue and the courage to act when necessary.

I was told CAL had much better technology than UAL does. I was told their computer system is better.

I spoke to a few gate agents recently who were charged with teaching the SHARES system to the UAL agents. When they held classes for 20 or so, only 2 or 3 UAL agents would even show up, and then they talked amongst themselves or on their cell phones for the entire sessions. They said the lack of respect was certainly evident and that they made no qualms about not wanting to learn the new system. No wonder things are so screwed up.

upset and ****ed off pax are a daily issue.... If a gate agent has been there for 17 years and hasn't found a way to handle this then they do not belong there. I'm not a fan of a lot of gate agents....some of them have power trip egos and never see any repercussions from acting like total a-holes towards pax and crew members.... I have no sympathy for one that responds to upset pax by yelling at them. If its that bad then call security.

That's awful. Welcome to the new United, America's largest sideshow.

And you believed this? Well I just talked to several of our CSR's who say that it now takes 6 keystrokes to perform an action that they used to do in 1. They cannot check multiple people in at the same time. Our Flight attendants no longer get a manifest with our passengers status on it so they can recognize who our most premier passengers are. We kept SHARES because it was cheaper, but it is a TOTAL JOKE of a system.

The feedback that I get from our folks is that the CAL agents are openly hostile to them and are still ticked that they got outvoted on the union drive. So do you believe that??? I can't believe you would post that drivel.