What is this hysterical nonsense? Fine, UA should have called the mother to let her know what was going on. Someone screwed up. But they obviously went to a lot of effort to take care of the kid, putting her up in a hotel to wait for the next flight, with a UA employee of the same sex chaperoning her.
The case was seized upon by what appears to be a professionally outraged busybody trying to "monetize" shrill complaints against big companies, and they get banned. So what?
I am no fan of UA but this is a storm in a teacup. The mother should just chill out, and "PublikDemand" should learn that a kid not talking to her mother for a couple of hours does not constitute a national emergency.
I feel sorry for the kid, yes - because of her irrationally overprotective mother. And the exaggerations amount to lies in my book - at no point was the child "stranded", nor made to stay with an actual stranger. One wonders, if "strangers" are so inherently evil, what the mother was doing sending her precious little angel onto an entire plane full of strangers. Stranding her on the plane, even!
Yeah, UA could have done better, but it's not like the kid is dead, for fuck's sake. Can we have some perspective please?
"But they obviously went to a lot of effort to take care of the kid, putting her up in a hotel to wait for the next flight, with a UA employee of the same sex chaperoning her."
How is that a lot of trouble? Isn't that what they were paid to do? Isn't that the minimum obligation? Sure they could have put the kid in a suitcase and kicked it down the Mississippi, but that seems like a high bar for outrage.
If they don't intend on informing the parents they should let the parents know, "Over the next 2-24 hours you may or may not know where your child is and we have no obligation to let you know as long as they eventually get to their destination". But I'm sure that may not fly with a lot of parents.
PublikDemand leaves the same sort of taste in my mouth as GetSatisfaction. They build a 3rd party forum for users to try and resolve issues, then people get outraged when the company doesn't jump on the new communication method.
IMHO, United shouldn't be discussing a customers business with PublikDemand anyway. Just like I can't call up American Express and ask them why they haven't raised your credit limit.
From your tone, I'll assume you aren't a parent. The parent purchased a ticket with a specific itinerary plus paid extra for a chaperone. If my daughter was flying alone and my wife got this kind of call from her, you can rest assured that she would move heaven and hell to get things sorted out. From personal experience, never underestimate the power of a mother protecting her child.
PublikDemand aside, United failed big time. First by changing the itinerary (I've never had this happen to me) and second by not contacting the parents. Yes, the girl is fine, but that's really not the point.
I agree with a lot of your sentiment, especially considering some 3rd party that doesn't hold a ton of credibility is acting as the mouth piece.
Out of curiosity, are you a parent? I'm not, but as an uncle that loves the shit out of his niece and nephew, I'd have a hard time telling their parents to chill out when their kid is not sticking to the plan, and UA's response (3 hours) seems minimize the importance (to the parents). To be fair, I'm not sure my sister or brother-in-law would allow a 10 year old to travel on their own, either.
Also worth pointing out that Courtney Powell is not a mother, despite the letter stating the contrary. But I guess lying to United isn't really a big deal.
All this reminds me of when I used to fly internationally as an "Unaccompanied Minor" in the early 90s.
This clusterfuck would NEVER have happened back then (at least never happened to me..) -- kids travelling alone were treated like royalty.
I'd randomly get bumped up to First Class, be able to use the nice lounges in airports, and got put up in really nice hotels when flights were delayed too long. All this amidst a constant stream of little delights (candy, toys, snacks, compliments from the stewardesses for being well-behaved).
Nah, you're just lucky. I'm an older fart than you, and pretty much exactly this happened to me in 1984. The airline had a delay, bumped my friend and I (13 and 12 years old) to a later flight (NY -> Paris!), and didn't tell anyone. And of course we were too dumb to call someone too.
This isn't an issue of malfesance or neglect. It's just what happens when a bureaucracy hits a situation it didn't forsee. You can only "fix" it with common sense, which was in no greater supply 30 years ago than it is now.
Yeah I used to travel from 10yrs-14yrs alone, back/forth EU<->AU 4 times a year return. I had the same treatment. Random bumps up to higher class seats, driven from gate to gate on those electric carts when I needed to do a transfer, accompanied by hostesses every minute I wasn't on the plane, etc etc.
The idea of them ignoring/abandoning a kid would've been met with riots back then.
You mean you were treated in such a way that it was always known where you were so these sorts of things couldn't happen? (hey! He's playing with his toys in the lounge! I can HEAR the gameboy and him clicking on it; and oh, I'll go give him another treat so I know for sure he's there every few minutes!)
Yeah, they were checking on you every time they brought snacks and toys, and doing their best to keep you entertained so you didn't do bad things. And that is what they should be doing: watching out for you.
I'm somewhat surprised that the regulators are not cracking down on these incidents. This is not the first time we've heard of kids being stranded and not getting the chaperone that parents paid for. Refunding the chaperone fee is a bit like choosing to refund the cost of insurance rather than pay a claim -- the fee is far more expensive than the usual value of the services, and it's only paid to protected against unusual situations like a flight rerouted.
This is a bit like a hosting company offering a 24/7 support hotline for a monthly fee but never staffing it, and only refunding it when people complain after failing to get through to the support hotline.
Here's the HN thread on an earlier, equally egregious error on the part of United. This one also involves United taking money for their chaperone service and then failing to follow through.
They're bound to make some mistakes when flying millions of people around the planet every day. But thanks to social media, all it takes is one of those mistakes to turn into a viral blog post -- and now you've got a PR crisis.
Not defending United or saying they didn't screw up. They did. But dang it, as an entrepreneur, that business seems really f'ing complex and I feel for them.
The reason I don't feel particularly bad for United is that this was not a single mistake. It was a series of mistakes, each compounding the last to really create damaging PR. I feel like they earned this one.
1) They didn't notify the parents when the child was first re-routed. While this is a serious mistake, and not something to dismiss when you're considering sending a child with United, I think it falls into that small error rate that might appear when you're serving millions of customers.
2) When the parent contacted customer service they weren't immediately helpful. This, to me, is the point when they start earning the "name and shame" treatment. If a parent calls with an issue related to an unaccompanied minor this should immediately be raised to the level of "take this very seriously" customer support.
3) They only refunded the chaperone costs of the ticket. After making a serious mistake, they didn't issue a mea culpa and do everything in their power to make up for their mistake. After what the child and parents went through, it should be a no-brainer to refund the entire ticket price. If they are making mistakes of this level so often that they can't afford to refund the tickets in situations like this the "small error rate" defense no longer applies.
4) They blocked the account of someone trying to resolve the issue. This looks extremely petty and makes it appear as an "us" vs. "them". In a PR war you never want to be up against a wronged child. Guaranteed outrage.
The combination of these factors make me think its totally appropriate to name and shame. Of course social media reactions should be a concern for every business, but if you don't monumentally and repeatedly make mistakes you have a lot less to worry about.
I guess my point is, don't paralyze yourself by fear of making mistakes. When (not if) you do make a mistake, own it and respond appropriately.
It is a complex business but this error wasn't caused by complexity. It was caused by a combination of dreadful management, low quality standards and bad reporting.
There are so many examples of people being badly treated by United that as awful as this story is, it's probably also acting as a nucleation point for the general anger and disappointment they have created.
I might feel some small smidgin' of sympathy if it weren't for (1) the fact that this isn't the first story like this and (2) they charge money to chaperon a minor and simply did not do it.
I can't believe that airlines accept the liability of flying unaccompanied minors. It seems they have so much to lose when something like this happens.
I understand the need/demand. So if the airlines stop offering it, I'm sure some kind of private travel companionship service would develop. They might be more expensive, but as their primary business, they may be able to provide a higher level of service/assurance.
The "problem" is that these social media users can sometimes achieve parity in expectations. United (and business in general, on the large) expects people to take what they're given for the price they pay. "You pays your money you takes your chances." That "one tweet" or whatever is seen to cause United problems is evidence of how inured we have become to their abuses. Your critique kind of reminds me of police vs. video, "Hey, you're not supposed to have any power here." Why should a business deserve sympathy? They certainly don't have any for us in the profit-margin-improvement meetings.
The entrepreneurial lesson to be learned here is not to sell items you can't provide.
If supervising unaccompanied minors is too hard, they're under no requirement to offer the service. They offered the service and then they screwed up delivering it. I don't see why you should be sympathetic.
Nope. They're not flying millions of children around every day, where they're paid a premium to ensure their safety and care. I can't feel a thing for them, which is exactly what they felt for that kid and her parents.
I don't think the original failure is that big a deal; the child wasn't in any danger and could easily communicate with her mother. I agree with you that things of that sort are inevitable when running an airline.
The problem is the customer service response. Asking a parent looking for her child to fill out a form when your company is supposed to know where she is is not acceptable. Blocking someone trying to get a customer service response on social media is not acceptable.
Yeah but we aren't back in the old days of "coffee tea or me". In the end the bad PR actually means very little. People choose airlines based on price and schedule. In the end does a screw up like this actually change buying behavior? I don't think it does. People fly because they have to. Even the cruise lines typically rebound after a major disaster which effects many more people. People who forget and are on to the next shiny ball from the media.
I feel bad for the person who's going to have to defend United as a company. I don't feel as bad for the several people who are going to get fired over this.
Yeah, sorry. Had the misfortune of flying with United some time ago, and it was just one fuckup after the other. Out of 5 flights only one went without problems (the international one), all national ones were foobar.
This reminds me of the issue with Dave Carroll http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars. As a company, you can't afford to get yourself in conflicts with people who have genuine issues and are savvy with social media.
I propose a solution to this and all related problems. It is a law that every legal entity in the United States must maintain a public, permanent record of any and all complaints against it. They may choose to publish individual responses, but this is not required.
This would solve the problem of aggregating complaints. The first line of defense of a large entity is information asymmetry: they isolate the customer, make them feel like their problem is unique, or that it's no big deal, no-one else cares, etc. In this case, United (correctly) realized that PublikDemand's twitter account was successfully serving as a de facto complaint database, and acted to remove it.
Knowledge of other customer's complaints is a powerful weapon for any customer with a problem. It tells them that they are not alone, that the company has a problem, and opens the possibility of combining forces to take action against the company: the cost-burden of legal action against the company can be shared between plaintiffs, a kind of psuedo class action suit.
As it stands, only the most sensational horror stories are seen, and they are not reported in a way that is easily searchable or usable for the next customer that is abused and whose abuse is buried by information asymmetry.
For the specific case of air travel, your description of the system you want almost perfectly describes the system that actually exists today, the United States Department of Transportation consumer complaint database & process.
Anyone can file a DoT complaint about an air carrier. In my experience, United treats the number of DoT complaints they receive each month as a core key performance indicator and they take a very strong business message from every DoT complaint they receive.
The one time I've filed a DoT complaint about United, I got a personal phone call within days from a UA executive in Houston who understood the scenario exactly and gave me evidence that the situation had been resolved. They were clearly documenting this not only for me but also for the DoT to prove that they had resolved the complaint appropriately.
I'd be concerned about complaint spam, which could quickly devalue a system like that. A small number of legitimate complaints (like in this story) could be drowned out by thousands of pointless/fake complaints.
>You may have also heard that in recent years complaints about TV have gone through the roof, from a mere 350 complaints in 2000 to a whopping 240,000 in 2003, and potentially even more this year ... The problem is that, unfortunately, these massive numbers all boil down to one politically motivated group with an axe to grind.
I'm sure there are ways to make it more difficult to file a complaint, but that just leads to bureaucracy. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the system would have to be executed very well or every airline will have a few million complaints that are impossible to search through.
Airlines need to start charging enough for their child chaperone service to operate it with the level of care and communication required. $150 seems low for a high touch personal service with brand/life-threatening failure modes.
If that's the only one, that's very surprising. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would spur an instant block, even from an overprotective overzealous social media rep.
One could swear to never fly United, if one hadn't already done so for American. Airlines have the worst customer service of any industry. Their horror stories are actual horror stories.
This sucks and United should really get a bunch of bad PR over it, but the real message that I'm taking away is: don't trust a %$&*#! airline company with your kids. I barely trust them with my suitcase.
What if my child’s travel is affected by delays, cancellations or other problems?
It can be very stressful when flights do not operate as planned, especially for unaccompanied children. In the case of weather or other delays and cancellations, United will contact you or the person designated to meet your child at his or her final destination. You can also track the status of the flight on united.com. Advise your child to remain with a United representative at all times. Consider giving your child a calling card or teaching him or her how to make collect calls so he or she can reach you.
In short, someone at United screwed up. The chaperone didn't call. That's bad, and they need to investigate whether this was a one-off or systematic screw-up.
That said, flying from Great Falls to Nashville (which is already hairy due to the small regional airports on either end of the journey) on a day where there's a major winter storm forecast to slam the midwest. This including a foot of snow on Chicago, which ruins United's system for the day (is this not a well known fact)? If you don't want to entertain the possibility that your child might be stranded without you? Fly yourself to Great Falls, meet your child, and fly back together. Alternatively, driving to Atlanta or Memphis will up your odds considerably of a successful venture.
Instead of sending her on the next flight to Nashville, they have routed her across the country on three connections and is staying overnight in Houston with a complete stranger!
United probably thought there was a pretty good chance "the next flight to Nashville" wouldn't exist (It was delayed 5 hours, arriving in Nashville at 2am).
This doesn't excuse United's behavior, but Ms. Neff-Aguilar could have prepared better.
My sister (several years ago) was flying United solo (minor, 17, first solo flight) from CA to ME, connecting in LGA. Her flight came in late and she missed the connecting flight (late at night). There were no United employees on staff (at all!) in LGA at that hour. My mom spent several hours trying to get someone at United to help her out and they couldn't get ahold of their "on call" staff member to assist her. They ended up telling her to "sleep on a bench" and wait till the staff came in some 4-5 hours later in the morning and someone could get her set up with a new connecting flight. They eventually offered a $150 coupon for her "next" flight, which will never happen.
Not necessarily related to this incident, but United really have become my least favorite airline in many ways. There's just something about dealing with them that constantly leaves me with this weird feeling, like nobody there knows what the f%!# is going on. When I've had flights delayed with other airlines, the process has at least felt organized, and while the delay was annoying, it never felt like a total clusterfuck. OTOH, with United, it seems like every time there is a delay, things get, well, weird. There will be 3 or 4 gate changes; airport monitors with information that doesn't match what is on my phone via their mobile app, neither of which matches the screen behind the gate agent stand; gate agents who seem totally clueless and so on. At times, when I fly United, I wonder if I'm ever actually going to get where I'm going at all.
American, Southwest and Delta all seem to do a much better job of organizing things, from what I can see. The only thing United really has going for them is Economy Plus seating, and American is adding a similar feature. Honestly, I try to avoid United these days.
"As a result, no one has ownership of the minor." Maybe no one by name has ownership, but someone by role has ownership. So whoever is filling the role for the airline/airport at that time/on that flight/for that airline at that airport (however the process is defined) has ownership. So there is an individual with ownership at all times. I agree though, that training may be sorely lacking for those situations that are exceptions to the normal process. None of that changes the fact that ultimately, the airline has ownership.
This sounds much like my family's experience with United as well. I will never patronize them again in my life. Blocking on Twitter is taking it to a whole new level.
This is more worrying than the typical HN post about having to turn off an electronic gadget on the plane.
I'm not necessarily saying that United did something wrong though. Planes can have mechanical issues and there are a bunch of reasons why the mother may not have been contacted in time. But not knowing where your child is should definitely get more attention than the typical "they told me to turn off my iPhone" kind of complaint.
[+] [-] venus|13 years ago|reply
The case was seized upon by what appears to be a professionally outraged busybody trying to "monetize" shrill complaints against big companies, and they get banned. So what?
I am no fan of UA but this is a storm in a teacup. The mother should just chill out, and "PublikDemand" should learn that a kid not talking to her mother for a couple of hours does not constitute a national emergency.
edit: Just read the "complaint". http://www.publikdemand.com/blog/letter-to-united-ceo-jeff-s...
I feel sorry for the kid, yes - because of her irrationally overprotective mother. And the exaggerations amount to lies in my book - at no point was the child "stranded", nor made to stay with an actual stranger. One wonders, if "strangers" are so inherently evil, what the mother was doing sending her precious little angel onto an entire plane full of strangers. Stranding her on the plane, even!
Yeah, UA could have done better, but it's not like the kid is dead, for fuck's sake. Can we have some perspective please?
[+] [-] kenjackson|13 years ago|reply
How is that a lot of trouble? Isn't that what they were paid to do? Isn't that the minimum obligation? Sure they could have put the kid in a suitcase and kicked it down the Mississippi, but that seems like a high bar for outrage.
If they don't intend on informing the parents they should let the parents know, "Over the next 2-24 hours you may or may not know where your child is and we have no obligation to let you know as long as they eventually get to their destination". But I'm sure that may not fly with a lot of parents.
[+] [-] dsl|13 years ago|reply
IMHO, United shouldn't be discussing a customers business with PublikDemand anyway. Just like I can't call up American Express and ask them why they haven't raised your credit limit.
[+] [-] ajtaylor|13 years ago|reply
PublikDemand aside, United failed big time. First by changing the itinerary (I've never had this happen to me) and second by not contacting the parents. Yes, the girl is fine, but that's really not the point.
[+] [-] malbiniak|13 years ago|reply
Out of curiosity, are you a parent? I'm not, but as an uncle that loves the shit out of his niece and nephew, I'd have a hard time telling their parents to chill out when their kid is not sticking to the plan, and UA's response (3 hours) seems minimize the importance (to the parents). To be fair, I'm not sure my sister or brother-in-law would allow a 10 year old to travel on their own, either.
Sorry, you asked for perspective :)
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cmiles74|13 years ago|reply
"The little girl ended up staying ten hours, overnight, at the Denver International Airport before being rerouted through Houston."
Did they in fact put the child in a hotel with a chaperon? That might sway my opinion a bit.
[+] [-] Cabal|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shrikant|13 years ago|reply
This clusterfuck would NEVER have happened back then (at least never happened to me..) -- kids travelling alone were treated like royalty.
I'd randomly get bumped up to First Class, be able to use the nice lounges in airports, and got put up in really nice hotels when flights were delayed too long. All this amidst a constant stream of little delights (candy, toys, snacks, compliments from the stewardesses for being well-behaved).
Ah, those were the days!
/end curmudgeonly old fart mode.
[+] [-] ajross|13 years ago|reply
This isn't an issue of malfesance or neglect. It's just what happens when a bureaucracy hits a situation it didn't forsee. You can only "fix" it with common sense, which was in no greater supply 30 years ago than it is now.
[+] [-] ColinWright|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Andrenid|13 years ago|reply
The idea of them ignoring/abandoning a kid would've been met with riots back then.
[+] [-] sukuriant|13 years ago|reply
Yeah, they were checking on you every time they brought snacks and toys, and doing their best to keep you entertained so you didn't do bad things. And that is what they should be doing: watching out for you.
[+] [-] girvo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saraid216|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinpet|13 years ago|reply
This is a bit like a hosting company offering a 24/7 support hotline for a monthly fee but never staffing it, and only refunding it when people complain after failing to get through to the support hotline.
[+] [-] cmiles74|13 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4379599
[+] [-] pud|13 years ago|reply
They're bound to make some mistakes when flying millions of people around the planet every day. But thanks to social media, all it takes is one of those mistakes to turn into a viral blog post -- and now you've got a PR crisis.
Not defending United or saying they didn't screw up. They did. But dang it, as an entrepreneur, that business seems really f'ing complex and I feel for them.
[+] [-] ncallaway|13 years ago|reply
1) They didn't notify the parents when the child was first re-routed. While this is a serious mistake, and not something to dismiss when you're considering sending a child with United, I think it falls into that small error rate that might appear when you're serving millions of customers.
2) When the parent contacted customer service they weren't immediately helpful. This, to me, is the point when they start earning the "name and shame" treatment. If a parent calls with an issue related to an unaccompanied minor this should immediately be raised to the level of "take this very seriously" customer support.
3) They only refunded the chaperone costs of the ticket. After making a serious mistake, they didn't issue a mea culpa and do everything in their power to make up for their mistake. After what the child and parents went through, it should be a no-brainer to refund the entire ticket price. If they are making mistakes of this level so often that they can't afford to refund the tickets in situations like this the "small error rate" defense no longer applies.
4) They blocked the account of someone trying to resolve the issue. This looks extremely petty and makes it appear as an "us" vs. "them". In a PR war you never want to be up against a wronged child. Guaranteed outrage.
The combination of these factors make me think its totally appropriate to name and shame. Of course social media reactions should be a concern for every business, but if you don't monumentally and repeatedly make mistakes you have a lot less to worry about.
I guess my point is, don't paralyze yourself by fear of making mistakes. When (not if) you do make a mistake, own it and respond appropriately.
[+] [-] petenixey|13 years ago|reply
There are so many examples of people being badly treated by United that as awful as this story is, it's probably also acting as a nucleation point for the general anger and disappointment they have created.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars
[+] [-] cmiles74|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8ig8|13 years ago|reply
I understand the need/demand. So if the airlines stop offering it, I'm sure some kind of private travel companionship service would develop. They might be more expensive, but as their primary business, they may be able to provide a higher level of service/assurance.
[+] [-] rhizome|13 years ago|reply
The entrepreneurial lesson to be learned here is not to sell items you can't provide.
[+] [-] guyzero|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsieling|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zak|13 years ago|reply
The problem is the customer service response. Asking a parent looking for her child to fill out a form when your company is supposed to know where she is is not acceptable. Blocking someone trying to get a customer service response on social media is not acceptable.
[+] [-] larrys|13 years ago|reply
Yeah but we aren't back in the old days of "coffee tea or me". In the end the bad PR actually means very little. People choose airlines based on price and schedule. In the end does a screw up like this actually change buying behavior? I don't think it does. People fly because they have to. Even the cruise lines typically rebound after a major disaster which effects many more people. People who forget and are on to the next shiny ball from the media.
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krautsourced|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javajosh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alayne|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] courtneypowell|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javajosh|13 years ago|reply
This would solve the problem of aggregating complaints. The first line of defense of a large entity is information asymmetry: they isolate the customer, make them feel like their problem is unique, or that it's no big deal, no-one else cares, etc. In this case, United (correctly) realized that PublikDemand's twitter account was successfully serving as a de facto complaint database, and acted to remove it.
Knowledge of other customer's complaints is a powerful weapon for any customer with a problem. It tells them that they are not alone, that the company has a problem, and opens the possibility of combining forces to take action against the company: the cost-burden of legal action against the company can be shared between plaintiffs, a kind of psuedo class action suit.
As it stands, only the most sensational horror stories are seen, and they are not reported in a way that is easily searchable or usable for the next customer that is abused and whose abuse is buried by information asymmetry.
[+] [-] mherdeg|13 years ago|reply
In this specific case, the Department of Transportation does maintain a database of complaints about air carriers: see http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer/file-consumer-complaint#Airli... . The DoT publishes frequent reports about these data.
Anyone can file a DoT complaint about an air carrier. In my experience, United treats the number of DoT complaints they receive each month as a core key performance indicator and they take a very strong business message from every DoT complaint they receive.
The one time I've filed a DoT complaint about United, I got a personal phone call within days from a UA executive in Houston who understood the scenario exactly and gave me evidence that the situation had been resolved. They were clearly documenting this not only for me but also for the DoT to prove that they had resolved the complaint appropriately.
[+] [-] rm999|13 years ago|reply
See, for example, this story: http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2004/12/4442-2/
>You may have also heard that in recent years complaints about TV have gone through the roof, from a mere 350 complaints in 2000 to a whopping 240,000 in 2003, and potentially even more this year ... The problem is that, unfortunately, these massive numbers all boil down to one politically motivated group with an axe to grind.
I'm sure there are ways to make it more difficult to file a complaint, but that just leads to bureaucracy. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the system would have to be executed very well or every airline will have a few million complaints that are impossible to search through.
[+] [-] paulsutter|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] courtneypowell|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JeremyBanks|13 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/PublikDemand/status/309093527697104898
If that's the only one, that's very surprising. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would spur an instant block, even from an overprotective overzealous social media rep.
[+] [-] kingnight|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hamburglar|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jowiar|13 years ago|reply
That said, flying from Great Falls to Nashville (which is already hairy due to the small regional airports on either end of the journey) on a day where there's a major winter storm forecast to slam the midwest. This including a foot of snow on Chicago, which ruins United's system for the day (is this not a well known fact)? If you don't want to entertain the possibility that your child might be stranded without you? Fly yourself to Great Falls, meet your child, and fly back together. Alternatively, driving to Atlanta or Memphis will up your odds considerably of a successful venture.
United probably thought there was a pretty good chance "the next flight to Nashville" wouldn't exist (It was delayed 5 hours, arriving in Nashville at 2am).This doesn't excuse United's behavior, but Ms. Neff-Aguilar could have prepared better.
[+] [-] ukd1|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pheleven|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benologist|13 years ago|reply
Where is the line between civil and criminal when it comes to caring for children?
[+] [-] mindcrime|13 years ago|reply
American, Southwest and Delta all seem to do a much better job of organizing things, from what I can see. The only thing United really has going for them is Economy Plus seating, and American is adding a similar feature. Honestly, I try to avoid United these days.
[+] [-] RougeFemme|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brentledent|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajasmin|13 years ago|reply
I'm not necessarily saying that United did something wrong though. Planes can have mechanical issues and there are a bunch of reasons why the mother may not have been contacted in time. But not knowing where your child is should definitely get more attention than the typical "they told me to turn off my iPhone" kind of complaint.
[+] [-] anti-pattern|13 years ago|reply