United Airlines has had a rough few weeks.
And yet, the days of overbooked commercial flights are likely here to stay. So what’s an airline to do? When crew must get from A to B and all the seats are filled with paying passengers, the options are often limited.
United Airlines recently offered four passengers $800 each – $3,200 in total – to give up their seats on a Louisville, Kentucky-bound flight and be re-booked on another flight. No one accepted the offer, and that’s when things turned ugly.
Why? Because that is how painful airline travel has become.
I’ve been in that situation. I’d hazard a guess many of us have been.
My thought is always, “I need to get where I’m going. If I accept the airline’s offer, who know when I’ll get where I need to be.” The risk isn’t worth the reward.
That’s where the lighter end of aviation could’ve helped avoid the situation.
“For the amount United was willing to compensate their four passengers to make room for their team members, they could have booked travel for this entire crew through FlyOtto.com,” said co-founder Rod Rakic. “We could have booked a comfortable Piper Meridian for just $2,930, with a pick up from Chicago Executive Airport going straight into Louisville International Airport.”
To make the use of FlyOtto more palatable, the first time anyway, Rakic is offering the “next time United is in a jam like this, we are happy to provide this service to them at no charge, to demonstrate better alternates for repositioning crews, or helping their customers get to where they are going.”
That’s mighty generous Rod, but I imagine you’ll charge United real money for future flights.
Which is where it gets difficult for FlyOtto. $3,200 in travel vouchers don’t cost United Airlines $3,200. To book a flight on FlyOtto will cost UAL real money, at least for second and follow-on trips.
It is often said, we don’t know what we don’t know. And in this case, UAL brass likely didn’t know FlyOtto was a viable option for crew “re-accomodating.”
While I’d love to believe that FlyOtto – and other charter operators for that matter – will appear on United’s radar, I won’t hold my breath.
But if you have a business that needs supplemental travel, FlyOtto is something you should take a look at. It is likely you won’t be forcibly “re-accomodated.”
United has a long track record of less than poor PR for their services so this latest episode is nothing new. Back in 1983 I had a vacation trip planned out west with my wife and three sons for a horse back trip into the mountains of Wyoming. Several weeks prior to our trip United pilots went on strike but United would not release me to purchase tickets on American Airlines. Finally a few days before we were to leave, four as I recall, United pilots went back to work but there were no flights on the day I had arranged to go so we had to go one day earlier or one day later. We could not go one day later because of our schedule with the trip into the mountains so I had to cancel and inconvenience a day of patients in order to go one day earlier. We also could not get reservations in our hotel in Cody, Wyoming, so had to stay in a rat trap the first night when we arrived. Like the gentleman who bought the ticket on Delta even though he had to pay $150 more for it, I’ve have never traveled again on United, even though at times it would have been more convenient, and never will. I hope dragging this doctor off the airplane costs them millions in lost revenue. They deserve it.
Ey, Yi, Yi. Maximum Mis Management. Is this the same United Airlines that ?? 8-10-12 years ago took some of there personnel to Disney to train the personnel that had a lot of contact with the public and people. United at one time went to Disney because the Disney group had such a large contact with many people and kept most of them happy and satisfied most of the time. How bad can top Performance Poor Management get. Is there not jump seats on these planes that can by used when necessary. It might be cramped stiff seating for one hour or two, but this would get crews to where the flight is to be worked. A car rental from Chicago to Louisville would have been 5 – 6 hours, at $200.
A car rental outfit could provided a free rental and probably use the vehicle for promotion. Possibly a standby deal could be worked out with Fed Ex on their Cessna Caravans, to fly 1 to 4 crew to a destination airport, to work flights. The Caravan is a large enough plane with a good amount of capacity. Even if you had to rent one, it would be cheaper and easier all the way around to fly 2 to 8 crews to the flight to be worked. Possibly work a deal with Fed Ex to have a Caravan on standby to get crews to flights that need to be staffed. A little slow by plenty of capacity and good safety. Rent the Caravan from Fed Ex for 4 to 5 hours and take the plane back to Fed Ex. Is there not w world wide float of pilots that are available and on flight rosters, that can be requested for flights on the internet. Nuts. Maximum Nuts all the way around. How much do these guys get paid to come up with stuff?
Simple solution(s): 1 Dismiss the President 2. Hire a “problem solving” PR firm?
The $800 was a cash offer to each passenger, not a travel voucher. In your terms, “real money.” Besides being wrong on the facts, your comments reference this gentleman’s suggestion come off as smug and condescending, particularly the ridicule of his free offer. Of course he would charge for future travel. His offer was not charity, it was a free sample to demonstrate his service. Sounds to me like you know absolutely nothing about business.
For the record, 3 passengers took the bait of either $400 or $800. The victim chose not to but there is some chatter that he initially did. In addition, the only United employee involved in this debacle was the gate agent. This was a Republic Airlines flight dba as United Express.
As tempting as Rakic’s offer is and a bolster to the value of GA, I don’t see the airlines or the pilot unions biting on this at all. Even if a charter could be procured within an hour, it would’ve taken longer to get there and could easily have exceeded the Part 117 duty limits of the deadhead crewmembers making them illegal for the current day or the following day’s departure. My pilot’s union for example, would also take issue with us being transported in a single-engine airplane at night with an unknown pilot.
Finally, as mentioned above, getting 5 people, luggage for 4, and any reasonable amount of fuel in a Meridian is laughable. In our old Barons it would work, though!
United and other major airlines do not require employees to travel on general aviation planes. Comfort, reliability, and normal mode of transportation for GA is not cparable with scheduled air carriers. Airline employees also are not required to take a subway or uber to layovers.
GA is best 300-500 mile stage length to places without airline service. KHKY-KMRH for example.
We need to stick with what works.
“We need to stick with what works”???!
You must be a unionized airline employee to claim that this “worked” for United…
Great post except everybody knows you can’t put 5-180 pounds Souls and a piper Meridian without being over gross weight unless you only have about an hour’s worth of fuel
I think if you tried to put 5 people in a piper Meridian you should be over gross weight unless you only have about an hour’s worth of fuel plus Reserves. The full fuel you can only feel about three seats and a little baggage!
UAL (and the whole industry) should take a look at GA aviation. A fleet of small aircraft scattered at airports around the nation (the Cirrus Vision) could be ideal and could be used to ferry crew from home to duty station and back as well as over-booked passengers and such crew as were involved in this incident and be cost-effective. But then passengers might just get the idea that such GA aircraft could be effective for them as well!
The cost to United was hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of dollars in bad PR. I for one had to book a trip to Hartford Ct. the next day after the event of dragging off the passenger and chose Delta over United even though the first class ticket on United was $150 less than Delta. They could have chartered a plane and avoided the bad PR.
Was the $800 per passenger vouchers or a cash payout? My understanding it was cash. Am I wrong? I certainly would never give up a seat for a voucher!
This is a great plug for flyotto, but Ben makes a great point- that $3,200 is not United’s cost for those vouchers. In fact, I have heard from an excellent source that an airline realizes a gain from vouchers, on average, because people tend to apply them to trips they wouldn’t ordinarily take, thus earning the airline.
Incidentally, I take no sides on the United issue. Everyone involved in this incident could have behaved better.