
How Much Would You Put Up with to Avoid United Airlines? - panarky
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/upshot/how-much-would-people-put-up-with-to-avoid-united-airlines.html
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SerLava
I very recently found out the answer to this question: about 200 bucks.
Luckily I only had to spend 50-60 bucks to avoid them.

The viral doctor beating video did not even factor in -- growing up I was
personally fucked around by United too many times to ever consider
intentionally flying with them as an adult.

I've been told to run literally a mile through an Airport by a United
employee, when I actually needed to go 2 gates down the hall. They are past
not caring - they actually have a strong desire to avoid helping customera.
It's endemic - United employees are an abused and bitter people.

Once my flight was delayed so they transferred me to United and I was pretty
ticked off. This gave United the opportunity to lose my bag, an opportunity
they did NOT squander.

~~~
backpropaganda
Doesn't this information help United? They can now price their flights $200
lower than competition, just so that they continue getting customers, then
surprise everyone with their awesome services, and then increase the price
back to normal.

~~~
mcphage
> then surprise everyone with their awesome services

...if they were at all able, as an organization, to provide awesome services,
then they wouldn't be in the mess that they're in.

------
toephu2
People are blowing this out of proportion.

About 300K people fly United every day [1] and for the most part have 0
problems (that other airlines don't have) whatsoever. This one bad incident
makes the news (the definition of news) and everyone thinks United is horrible
and they will never fly them again. Also remember it was the police who
dragged the guy off the plane not United. Once the police got on the plane it
was out of United's control. All United did was make a phone call to the them
(to boot passengers off for their own employees which was wrong), so I feel
people should be directing more of their anger at the police instead of United
(although some anger can be directed at United too).

[1] extrapolated out of my ass from 2015 data but should be close
[https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/press_releases/bts018_16](https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/press_releases/bts018_16)

~~~
skue
No, it's really not about this one incident. United's customer service record
has just fallen apart over the past several years, and many of us have had
miserable experiences flying United. Every single one of my nightmare travel
stories has been on United. Their CEO took as his mission to improve morale
and build it back up, and ended up throwing gasoline on the smoldering fire
instead.

So when we heard the news, we didn't just say "How could _an_ airline do
that?" Instead we said "An airline knocked out a passenger and dragged him off
a plane so a stewardess could have his seat? Let me guess... was this on
_United? "_

(Spirit would have an equally good guess, but at least they don't pretend to
be on par with the other carriers.)

~~~
toephu2
"many of us have had miserable experiences flying United."

That's just anecdotal evidence, which I also have. I have flown United dozens
of times, along with other carriers, and don't really have any complaints with
any of them since all the issues I have run into were out of their control
(the weather).

I am sure I can find a dozen other people who also had miserable flying
experiences on Delta for example and then claim "many of us".

------
notacoward
While everyone's sharing anecdotes that put United in a bad light compared to
other major US airlines, I might as well share mine. For context, I've been
_very_ critical of United since this incident happened, and I even did my
homework to justify my criticism. Any Johnny-come-lately can check my comment
history to verify. I'm not going to make any apologies for them.

I haven't had any particularly bad experiences with United myself, beyond the
general badness of flying coach domestically. Do you know who _has_ screwed up
my life multiple times? Northworst (now merged with Delta) and even more so
USeless Air (now part of American). So I don't delude myself that the exact
same thing couldn't happen on the other members of the big three. The real bad
actors here were Republic who subcontracts to all three, and the Chicago boyz
who serve literally everyone going through that airport. It could have been
the same cops responding to the same operator, even if the planes and tickets
showed Delta or American.

It just _happened_ to be United, who also _happens_ to have the cheapest
flights at the most convenient times for the route I travel the most. I might
expect something better from JetBlue or Southwest, certainly from Virgin, but
I definitely would have to make a sacrifice of cost and/or convenience to make
either of those switches. I might still do that, but "fly American because
United sucks" (and ditto for Delta) is just absurd. If you're going to switch,
_really_ switch to something that has some real hope of being different.

------
abawany
In recent searches on Google Flights, I took the trouble to eliminate United
from the results to avoid ~30% 'savings'. Even prior to this incident, my
opinion of United was extremely low (due to my prior horrifying experiences
with them); I haven't flown this airline in 10+ years.

~~~
dawnerd
I actually just booked a flight the other day for a fairly last minute
vacation and round trip PDX to MCO was 244 on united, but almost 800 with
Delta. It was tempting to fly United purely because of price, but since I have
nice status with Delta I ate the cost. Only other airline that was as cheap as
United was Spirit, and no way in hell am I flying them.

~~~
ComradeTaco
I took a red eye flight that boarded only about 45 minutes after the security
checkpoint for the terminal reopened for the morning. I sat right next to the
Spirit Airlines counter, where I watched dozens of people place their bags on
the spirit airlines baggage pricing stand. I tallied up the extra fees and
Spirit just got away with an extra $4,000 that morning.

One of the only times I could say that I was thankful for flying American.

------
technofiend
I will happily take Southwest every time over UA. If that results in a small
premium so I'm not hassled at every turn to spend more money (better seat, buy
miles, buy WiFi, buy a lounge pass, etc), have an easier boarding process and
a larger seat to boot? There's no comparison.

Don't get me wrong: there are purchasing options on SWA also, but they are
less pushy about it and last time I checked their prices were lower.

The only reason I have United miles is because they're the best direct choice
for business class travel to South America and at that fare class most items
are bundled but still no free wifi. And just like their vouchers their miles
are essentially unusable.

I recently priced Houston to London with an eye to using miles to upgrade to
business. It required $2000 in fees for two people plus the miles on top of
the higher airfare required to get an upgradable seat. British Airways could
ask me to sing Hail, Brittania every hour and I'd still take them over UA
because​ they're so much cheaper.

------
skue
How much? Well, those of us living in the Pacific Northwest just went through
the wettest, cloudiest, gloomiest winter in our history.[1]

But if someone gave us perennial sunshine and all we had to do was become a
United hub instead of Alaska? Pretty sure I wouldn't be the only one begging
to bring the rain back instead.

[1] [http://www.startribune.com/soggy-seattle-lives-up-to-name-
br...](http://www.startribune.com/soggy-seattle-lives-up-to-name-breaks-
another-rain-record/420375073/)

------
theprop
If United's fare is more than 20% lower than the otherwise lowest fare, I'd
probably risk it...but until there's a big change in management, I wouldn't
feel good about it.

~~~
maxerickson
The odds of being involved in an incident are essentially 0 (especially right
after the big negative publicity). Someone analyzing just that risk should
take United anytime it is cheaper or more convenient.

~~~
ryandrake
...and, this is how change doesn't happen.

~~~
maxerickson
Read both sentences.

Focus on the phrase "analyzing just that risk" in the second one.

Think about what I might have meant.

Think about whether what I meant really should have prompted your snide
remark.

~~~
ryandrake
I think we are in agreement--people who are only picking who to buy from using
that mentality (It won't happen to me) are why companies can get away with
shenanigans on a once-in-a-million cadence.

------
ilamont
My family travels regularly from Boston to Asia, usually once every two years.
A $150 difference in ticket prices for a single person makes a big difference
when multiplied for several family members, and UA consistently is the lowest
priced.

My wife and son went for Lunar New Year a few months ago and paid $780/ticket
on UA, which was not only far cheaper than the competition, it was the
cheapest I had seen it at any time for decades (I have heard that the new
international routes enabled by the 787, including direct flights from Logan
to Japan and Dubai, as well as new carriers flying to Logan have changed the
pricing dynamics).

Yes, UA service blows. It's really quite bad. But we are willing to put up
with it based on the savings for our family, and can sometimes wrangle the
trans-Pacific leg on a codeshare with ANA.

Another thing I have to say about UA: It's much easier to redeem points for
goods than other American carriers. This helps us, as my kids and wife get a
bunch of miles for the transpacific flights but don't fly frequently enough to
exchange them for free tickets. I've been able to cash their Mileage Plus
points for tools, luggage, and gifts, including a really nice Citizen Eco-
Drive watch. Yes, I know the exchange rate for the miles isn't great, but they
cost money to transfer or extend and would likely be abandoned if we didn't
use them for purchases.

------
AndrewKemendo
I used to fly exclusively Continental, but after the merger with United, the
entire brand just started cutting every corner possible and I bailed for Delta
about three years ago.

Well before this issue, they were already flagging IMO and one of the biggest
changes was the changes to their seats. They are thin and uncomfortable, have
limited recline and their back pocket size is not large enough for a thin
laptop anymore.

Their customer support and mileage program were also relatively bad up until
recently - now everyone's FF plan is about as bad.

Also DeltaOne from JFK to SFO is amazing - no domestic carrier can beat it.

------
egwynn
It seems like a central conceit of this article is that market forces may end
up being substantial punishment for UAL’s recent bad press. Maybe it’ll make
an impact for consumers, but what about business travel? I’d wager that it
makes up a big chunk of UAL’s bottom line, and it all comes from entities that
care almost none at all about UAL’s bad PR. What large company is gonna uproot
their business travel workflow because of their airline’s bad publicity?

------
bohemianr
Call me cynic, but being bullied, overcharged, and incovenient is somehting I
learend to expect when travelling by plane.

I also know that if I don't follow the directions/orders of anyone with a bit
of authority I will not allowed to fly the specific day in the best case, not
be allowed to fly again, or even worst in the worst case.

I don't think that changing airline will affect my whole flying experience too
much.

~~~
lokedhs
> I don't think that changing airline will affect my whole flying experience
> too much.

It would, if you switch to a good airline. Just pick anyone in the top-10 and
you'll be good:

[http://www.airlinequality.com/review-
pages/top-10-airlines/](http://www.airlinequality.com/review-
pages/top-10-airlines/)

~~~
Zanni
You have to go a long way down that list, well outside the top 10, to find an
airline that offers domestic flights in the U.S.

~~~
lokedhs
Yes, I know that, but there seems to be little reason to use one of these
airlines when travelling abroad.

This is all because of lack of competition, and one would think that a place
like the US wouldn't put up barriers to competition, but that's what they
apparently do.

------
muninn_
This probably won't be popular, but frankly if the price was the lowest for
where I was heading I'd just take UA. The incident is beyond stupid but also
incredibly rare. If it was like a $5 difference or something and the flight
was exactly the same in all aspects I guess I'd take another airline, but meh.

~~~
primitivesuave
I actually agree with you on this, I'm mortified by what they did but that
doesn't make me a less rational consumer.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
I'd argue that continuing to take the lowest fare when the operator behaves
like this is a sign of irrational behavior -- you're ignoring second order
effects because they're computationally hard and don't cater to emotive needs
like base resource conservation does.

So you're mortified, but not enough to jog you out of irrational spending
habits.

~~~
bohemianr
Am I missing something? How is going for the cheapest ticket an "irrational
spending habit"?

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
Did you read the rest of the sentence?

There are second order effects that come from the pricing pressure and the way
the business operates which have a negative utility spread across the rest of
your life.

My contention is that the price delta now (what you save) is worth less than
the negative value (eg, from societal harm), so the total value difference,
when you account for the more subtle effects, is negative. (That is, you'd be
better off paying more now and not influencing things that way.)

That's computationally hard to account for and doesn't give the emotional high
of "fuck yeah, good deal!", so people tend to do the irrational thing that
costs them more in the long run but feels good now and they don't have to
think too hard about.

------
dvcrn
We all have these airlines that we try to avoid. For me it's AirAsia. I would
without hesitation pay 100 USD more (depending on the distance) just to NOT
take them. I had so many bad experiences with this one airline that you'll
have to force me into a AirAsia flight.

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chomp
I'm bound by my credit card rewards. As much as I don't like how United
handled the issue, I'll still fly United.

------
shiven
I just booked a return flight for two and paid a $200 premium to avoid United.

