
Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service - sophmonroe
http://blog.wepay.com/blog/2010/12/01/7-startup-lessons-courtesy-of-united-airlines-crappy-customer-service/
======
edw519
_...I certainly never take to using WePay’s corporate blog as a pulpit for my
attacks._

Then don't. Ever. Here's why:

It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your
first leg. It's been that way for 30 years.

You have just demonstrated your inability to deal with a standard curve ball.
No big deal. As individuals, we all run into that from time to time.

You also complained about customer service (in the airline industry, no less).
That's like complaining about the weather. I suppose you deserve a pass on
that, too.

But your mistake was using your company blog, unintentionally transferring
your ineptness to your company. Big mistake. Now people might think, "If he
can't navigate a weekend trip, can't handle his vendors, and then complains
about it publicly, why should I trust him with my money."

Please do yourself a big favor and delete this blog post before too many of
your potential customers see it. Don't make a bad experience worse by
threatening your business. With all the hard work already invested, it
deserves better.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
> It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss
> your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years.

Really? This is the first time I've ever heard this.

> But your mistake was using your company blog, unintentionally transferring
> your ineptness to your company

I think it makes WePay seem human. Furthermore, whether or not it's true, this
blog post makes me feel like WePay is saying 'we value our customers; we will
never treat you like UAL does, and we will try to act as much like Zappos or
Virgin as possible.'

~~~
btilly
_Really? This is the first time I've ever heard this._

Really. It also ties in to why the airlines want you to show proof of who you
are.

Back before they did both of these it was common for people to buy round trips
and sell the legs individually for well below what the airline was willing to
sell them for.

Why, you ask? The fundamental problem is that airline pricing is insanely
complicated. The principle is simple, put a plane in the air, fill it with
passengers, try to make a profit. The problem is that there are huge fixed
costs to having the flight (time on airplane, fuel, employees, airport fees)
and much lower variable costs (incremental cost of baggage, incremental fuel).
Only a small fraction of people are willing to pay their share of the true
cost of the flight. Some of those are willing to pay much more. Most are
willing to pay less than their share of the total costs (not worth having the
flight for them) but more than the marginal cost (worth letting them on the
flight).

The result is that airline pricing becomes all about pushing people who are
able to pay more into actually paying more, while allowing people who are not
willing to pay more to get on cheaply. For instance if someone does a round
trip and has a layover that includes a weekend, that's probably not a business
trip and so they can pay less. Someone who flies somewhere then flies back the
next day is probably on a business trip and can be charged more.

One way trips are generally bought by someone who is going A to B to C ...
because those are business stops. People flying on business are generally
willing to charge more, so airlines happily charge them more.

------
rdl
I'm curious if he's ever flown much before. Missing the first leg of a
discount coach r/t canceling the entire reservation has been standard since at
least 1980. Yes, their online systems should be better at explaining what
happens once you've missed a flight, but fundamentally the web apps for
airlines are dirty hacks layered on top of mainframe systems, and don't handle
exceptions particularly well.

Airline pricing is incredibly complex because...it is a complex product. It's
a perishable product, and they are trying to price discriminate multiple
classes of people, dealing with competitors, etc. It is very common to have
the case he considers rare (XXX-YYY-XXX costing >2x what YYY-XXX-YYY costs --
especially international, where different currencies, taxes, etc. apply). XXX-
YYY often costs 4-8x the cost of XXX-YYY-XXX or YYY-XXX-YYY r/t, too.

There are certain routes which are run as "air shuttles" -- you can buy a
ticket, and then walk on and get on any available flight. SIN-KUL, IAD-NYC,
etc. Some airlines have very simple routing and fares (Southwest, for
instance) and can more easily be used for flexible travel. First Class or Full
Fare Coach tickets are also used by businesses or other travelers who demand
extreme flexibility -- the $170 r/t SFO-LAX-SFO was a discounted coach fare
where price discrimination in terms of restrictive terms applies.

Additionally, airlines are highly regulated, some by international treaty
(read the back of a ticket jacket sometime).

As for "not screwing a major customer over", a frequent flyer would be 1K or
GS and worth $50k+/yr to the airline, and would probably have been able to
easily get his ticket changed. Yes, price discrimination and market
segmentation sucks when you lose the game, but it maximizes revenue for the
carrier.

Btw, the "hacker news" of "airline hacking" is flyertalk.com. There are people
who craft amazing itineraries and maximize frequent flyer points in ways which
seem absurd (scheduling 4 r/t back to back flights across the US to Hawaii
just to get miles, or flying SFO - Taipei - LAX for the cost of SFO-LAX to get
huge extra miles).

~~~
jcl
Since you seem to know a bit about "airline hacking", I'm wondering... Would
the OP have gotten away with it if he skipped the second leg instead of the
first, in a case where the direct flight is more expensive than round-trip? Or
do the airlines have a way to discourage that?

~~~
rdl
I burn return legs all the time, with no consequences. I believe in the 1970s
if you did that too much, airlines would potentially blacklist you, but it
really isn't a problem now. I've even had airline employees wink wink nudge
nudge encourage purchasing a much cheaper r/t vs o/w when the price
differential was huge.

~~~
ams6110
Especially since, at least on popular flights, they will re-sell that seat to
a standby customer.

------
far33d
It's easy to chalk this up to whining and ignore it since it comes off as a
rant. The problem is that United and its employees don't consider service a
priority, not that they have a policy about canceling flights when you skip
the original leg. I've had this experience multiple times with United and have
found them to be the worst offender of all the legacy airlines.

They are a mess and they are outright hostile to their customers much of the
time. I realize that travelers get stressed out and yell a lot and it can be
frustrating, but laughing at a customer should never be acceptable.

~~~
rayval
I agree. I went through a similar experience with United several years ago,
and I will never fly them again unless the choice is walking.

As the article points out, there are structural problems with their pricing,
their policies (and how they communicate them), and most importantly their
customer service culture (or lack thereof).

~~~
gamble
The problem for the legacy airlines is that they started in the pre-
deregulation era with excellent pay and benefits for their employees.
Deregulation eliminated the financial basis for those salaries, and as a
result the legacies have been engaged in a decades-long war with their
employees to lower costs. It shouldn't be surprising that customer service is
poor when people work in such a hostile environment. There's always a huge
difference in morale between growing and shrinking companies. The post-
deregulation entrants dont even have to pay more than the legacies; the fact
that they're not constantly attacking their own employees is an enormous
advantage.

------
kenjackson
It seems like the airlines could make this experience a LOT better for the
customer and really not cost themselves much money.

Here's what they should do. You miss your first leg, they send you an
email/text/call saying, "Hey you missed your first leg. As you know our policy
is that you must fly all legs. To fly the second leg, please pay $XYZ".

And $XYZ is maximum arbitrage opportunity that existed for the flight (you can
also be more generous and just do it for the time the flight was booked). If
there was no arbitrage opportunity there is no cost, but then the query is
just to see if you're coming to the next leg, otherwise they can use the seat.

This would solve the issue the airlines have with people gaming their game.
And solves the issue that less regular flyers have with getting caught off
guard. And I bet a good amount of the time $XYZ is $0 or very low.

------
jasonkester
United in particular amaze me at how little regard they show for customer
retention. Last time I flew with them I stood in line as _every single
customer_ got into the same fight with them when they sprung their new "$50
extra to check a bag" policy on them with zero notice.

I watched a dozen people in a row vow to never fly United again in the span of
20 minutes. Amazing that they can survive except in a landscape where every
other airline is just as bad.

In our case, we'd actually booked our flight through a different airline with
a sane baggage policy clearly stated on their website, and took extra steps to
make sure we fell within the free allowance. Only on arriving at the airport
did we discover that we were "code sharing" with United and thus subject to
their extra fees.

One day somebody will take Southwest & Virgin's attitude towards customer
service and apply it to a major airline. And they'll dominate.

~~~
rdl
That would be Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Etihad, or to
a lesser extent, Emirates or Asiana. It's really just US flagged airlines that
are incredibly bad (I've flown several million miles internationally, and
aside from Royal Jordanian (which flies to Iraq), Ariana (the Afghan Airline)
and Kam Air (the Southwest of Afghanistan), no one approaches US standards of
quality. Some of the LCCs in Europe (Ryan Air) are kind of painful, but so
cheap that it makes up for it. LCCs in Asia (Tiger, Jetstar, etc.) tend to be
more like Virgin America or Southwest.

~~~
woan
The South American airlines have even worse service than the US discounters. I
was on both LAN Chile and Star Peru earlier this year in Peru... Mysterious
delays abound with virtually no information...

~~~
rdl
That's kind of depressing. From what I've heard TACA and Varig are a little
better, but I haven't flown commercial to South America yet. Maybe Start Up
Chile should convince SQ to fly SF-Santiago as a 5th freedom flight.

------
tomsaffell
I suggest that if anyone else finds themselves in Rich's situation then they
call the airline prior to their first flight: Claim to be ill, tell them
you'll make your own way down to LA in few days, and tell them you'll still
need your return flight home. Sure, it's deceitful, but you have to play the
game you're in..

~~~
kenjackson
And there's probably a decent chance that you'll show up to the airport and
still not be able to fly. I've been screwed by airlines more times than I can
count.

------
jwegan
I'm always astounded why so many companies seem more willing to lose a loyal
repeat customer than take a small hit on the bottom line for a particular
transaction. Companies like NewEgg, Costco, and Zappos have demonstrated how
being willing to take a small hit on some transactions can engender a
fanatical customer base, but it seems most companies still prefer to be penny
wise and pound foolish.

~~~
gabrielroth
This works differently for retail businesses than it does for airlines. If I'm
looking to buy a pair of shoes online, I have multiple options that are all
roughly the same price. But I always buy them from Zappo's because I know I'll
get good customer service.

When I buy a plane ticket, I have a specific route I need to fly on a
particular date. I want the flight with the fewest stops. The price difference
is often hundreds of dollars. I've had good experiences with Virgin and
JetBlue, but I often wind up flying United or Delta anyway, even though I hate
them.

In that circumstance, it's rational for large carriers with monopolies on
important routes to cut costs on customer service.

~~~
kingkilr
I'm not sure, I've passed up moderate savings ($70 on a $400 flight or so) to
go on an airline I prefered. Delta has been a PITA every time I've flown with
them, where Southwest has been my airline of choice for over a decade, it's an
easy decision to give my money to the people who don't cause pain for me every
time.

~~~
megablast
Cool, most people aren't like you, and if they ever do end up like you, then
we will have the situation improve. It does not matter what you do, or your
friends do, until a lot of people do it.

~~~
kingkilr
Sure, it's an anecdote, note a statistic. But people purchase favored brands
in everything else, I hardly see a reason airlines should be different;
particularly given a carrier like United makes most of their money on business
class seats, and they do treat those passengers well.

------
srgseg
I fly United a lot, domestic and international. I've screwed up a lot in terms
of missing flights.

When I miss a flight I stand in line waiting for someone to help me.

Every single time, I'm shocked at how rude the people ahead of me in line are.
They've missed their flights, and _they're_ being rude to the United rep.

I'm really not surprised when I read stories of horrific customer services any
more. I know how rude people are, and they often deserve how unaccommodating
customer services may be.

Be nice. Or even, just don't be rude, and you'll get good customer service and
they'll do all sorts of awesome stuff for you.

------
dangrover
The thing that gets me isn't any one specific policy, but the general
sentiment companies like United project to their customers. It's pretty much
"We hate your guts and think you're dumb enough to fall for any number of ways
that we're going to try to fuck you over."

A lot of these companies, if they were a person and not an entity, would
probably be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.

They spend a lot of money on loyalty programs, but I think the best way to
engender loyalty is to actually treat people like human beings.

Companies like JetBlue, Virgin, and Southwest are equally conniving, but they
certainly work a LOT harder to hide it. And for that reason, I'll always take
a flight from one of them, even if it's a little bit pricier. I know there
will be less surprises and things that piss me off. I feel like they're
actually _working_ to try to earn my business.

------
URSpider94
My first thought, like many of you, was that everyone knows (or at least all
frequent fliers know) that missing a leg will usually result in cancellation
of your flight, and that you have to let the airline know BEFORE the first
flight departs that you don't plan on taking it. The OP could have saved
himself a lot of trouble by simply calling United before he left and canceling
his departure.

After mulling it over, my second thought was that air travel is a BIG DEAL to
most people -- it's stressful and expensive, and the rules are opaque. I agree
that United could have made this MUCH better by sending the OP a notice
within, say, 12 hours of missing his first flight explaining the situation and
his future options.

Straying from the customer experience, on a systems side, airline yield
management is a TERRIFIC problem to think about. By forbidding passengers from
skipping flights in an itinerary, you effectively remove the restriction that
the total itinerary price must be the sum of the legs that it comprises. This
opens up all kinds of new possibilities to use economics to balance load
across the system.

------
michaelfairley
> Customer support should be called “delayed sales”

Money line from the article.

------
alain94040
I disagree.

First, I'm very surprised that you were not aware of the policy that if you
don't take the first part of an itinerary, you won't be able to catch up half-
way. I guess it's something everyone learns very quickly.

Second, your proposal that United should fix their prices is disingenuous.
They would if it didn't mean bankruptcy for them. The reason they do that is
that most of their income comes from business travelers who can expense
expensive tickets in economy class. The way to detect a business traveler
versus a tourist is whether they spend the Saturday at their destination. The
business traveler flys on a Tuesday and return the next day or so, never stays
over. So they get charged 3X more.

If United just "fixed" their prices, it would be a complete collapse. A
handful of airlines have chosen the "per-segment" price approach (Southwest,
JetBlue, Virgin).

So recognize the cool hack for what it is: Saturday night stay equals deep
discount.

~~~
jackowayed
He didn't mean fix as in "Every person on this plane paid exactly $300". He
meant fix as in "If your prices are gameable, either fix the pricing algorithm
so that they're not gameable or deal with the occasional person who games it
(airline's choice--whichever costs them less). Don't implement a policy that
traps tons of your loyal, well-meaning customers in the crossfire"

------
swombat
If you would like the European equivalent of this customer experience, I
warmly recommend you try out Air France.

If you want even worse, try Ryanair. They actually pride themselves on
treating their customers like cattle, dumb-ass sheep to be fleeced at every
opportunity.

~~~
arethuza
Ryanair's website is truly _evil_ \- who would have guessed that "No I don't
want insurance" is half way down the list of countries.

However, the flight experience is OK - comparable with your usual charter
flight carriers and the value for money is exceptional.

~~~
patrickk
Around the turn of the millennium two students built a prototype Ryanair
website and asked for IR£15,000 (at the time) for it. Ryanair bargained them
down to IR£12,000.

Their booking process is held up as a textbook 'how not to do usability' case
study. The amount of money they can potentially milk from you in the
"services" section of the booking process (stuff listed by default as €0.00
like the SMS booking confirmation) is almost funny.

------
arethuza
Why not send an email/text to you saying that they noticed that he missed the
first part of the flight and:

1) Is he OK?

2) Does he still want to use the second leg of the flight (and maybe check in
now)? With the default being that he _will_ want to use it?

With a simple bit of communication, that could have been completely automated,
they managed to annoy a paying customer.

~~~
jackowayed
Well, in their mind, he's an evil guy that's trying to game the pricing system
that they broke by allowing it to be cheaper to buy a round-trip than to buy
one half of that round trip.

So if they let him keep his return flight, they wouldn't really be preventing
anyone from doing that.

~~~
dkersten
Well, even a simple text/email like "You have missed the first trip in a round
trip flight, so your return flight has been cancelled as outlined in our terms
of service" would have cleared everything up before he got to the airport.
Yes, he would still need to find his own way bac, but at least he is made
aware of the circumstances instead of being jerked around.

------
ryanwanger
He's been flying his whole life and never knew this. Why? Because it had never
happened to him before. Why? Because booking a round-trip ticket, then finding
an alternate way to get to your destination, and still wanting to come back on
the return flight is an edge case.

They should have sent him an email letting him know the return flight had been
canceled, so he had more advanced warning. End of story.

------
alec
"after all, how much can you _actually_ save by [skipping a flight]"?

Many airlines have complicated pricing models that attempt to capture market
demand.

For example, I just looked up flights from Portland, ME to Los Angeles,
departing on Jan 19 and returning Jan 26. If you take US and connect through
Philadelphia, the cheapest price is $309. If you were to fly from Philadelphia
to Los Angeles non-stop on that same day, it's $399 - 30% more expensive! If
US were to allow you to skip the first and last part of the Portland-Los
Angeles trip and get on and off at Philadelphia, they would receive
substantially less revenue.

~~~
joelhaasnoot
Flying internationally just amplifies this: was looking for tickets during the
Christmas season and it was 50% cheaper to fly Brussels - Amsterdam - Kampala
than Amsterdam - Kampala.

~~~
dalore
It was cheaper for us to fly to San Francisco from London by first flying to
Amsertdam and then catching the same flight that we would have caught but
starting at Amsterdam which then connects through Heathrow.

------
cloudbrain
It is worth remembering how airlines price tickets:

Pricing is not based on how much it costs the airline to get you to your
destination (i.e. distance and fuel). Airlines long ago figured out how to
extract the most money for various flights based on where they fit in the big
picture of WHY someone is traveling.

This is why a round trip that includes a Saturday stay over is usually cheaper
than a round trip leaving on Monday and returning Wednesday. Airlines know the
second traveling is most likely a business person and willing to pay more.

I was recently planning two trips. I needed to go to Las Vegas on one trip and
to Atlanta on another (both from Virginia). On the same day, the Las Vegas
trip was twice as expensive as the round trip to Atlanta and back, EVEN
THOUGH, the Las Vegas flight had a layover in Atlanta. Could I have just
booked a flight to Las Vegas when I wanted to go to Atlanta and just not
gotten on my second flight? I could, but then the airline would cancel my
return trip. They would say its because they assume I never made it to my
final destination and didn't need my return flights, but really, it is because
they want to prevent this sort of thing.

Airline prices are not logical (to us). They are based on extracting the most
amount of money from a schedule.

(of course, this doesn't excuse crappy treatment, but, just so we're all
clear...)

------
iandanforth
I want to add my support for the author. I didn't know about this policy
before reading his blog and I've been flying for years. I've never missed a
flight so this has never come up.

Secondly I think there can't be a more appropriate place to criticize a
business than on a business blog. I've had interactions with businesses in
high throughput high stress situations that have been great and ones that have
been terrible. If your business strives to give good customer service it's
valuable to demonstrate your awareness of bad practices and make a public
commitment to do better.

------
ghshephard
I stopped reading here:

"I ended up skipping my the flight from SFO to LAX because a friend of mine
was driving down the night before; I figured I would keep him company on the
drive, and I would get to spend an extra night in LA."

In my experience, that basically canceled his set of flights ,and he was no
longer a customer. That's been my experience for at least 10 years of flying.

I didn't read the rest of the article, but I presume he discovered, the hard
way, on a thanksgiving weekend - that he had no ticket whatsoever and was SOL.

That's really nothing to do with United, and to call it Customer Service, when
you aren't actually a customer, is stretching it.

Now - My story of Taking a Greyhound Bus from Reno (Amtrak was sold out), (I
had a ticket for the 9:50 AM, but they oversold it, and I didn't get on until
12:45 - after arriving at the Greyhound station at 9:00 AM in the morning)
could have been negative, but, I'm traveling freaking thanksgiving weekend! I
figure it's even odd's I don't even make it back home Sunday, so anything
better than that is an Epic Victory. :-)

~~~
swombat
If he was no longer a customer, I assume they refunded his money?

If they did not refund his money, he was still a customer - a customer who was
denied his product, certainly, but a customer nonetheless.

If you buy my product, and I don't deliver it to you for reason X, that
doesn't mean you're not my customer. It just means I suck at delivering my
product.

~~~
stanleydrew
What if I choose not to pick up the product at the time we agreed upon without
notifying you, causing you to make decisions about inventory and perhaps
selling the product to someone else, and then return to you demanding the
product at a later date?

~~~
jasonlotito
Poor example. Implies you being forced to do things you would otherwise not
have to do, which wasn't in the original example.

Better would be: If you rented me an apartment and I didn't move in right
away. It would be unfair for me to demand a refund for the time I didn't move
in, but it would also be unfair for you to rent the apartment to someone else
if I already paid you for it.

~~~
faboo
Multiple leases I've signed had provisions about failure to take possession.
If I didn't move in right away, or moved out early, I still owed the full rent
for the lease period, but the owner could rent the place out to somebody else.
(whether or not that's enforceable in a particular municipality is an entirely
different matter)

------
rexreed
The reason why airlines have this policy of canceling the roundtrip if you
miss the outbound flight is because it used to be (maybe it still is) that
you'd get a lower cost rate if your itinerary included a Saturday night stay
(weekend fare). If you booked the roundtrip to get advantage of the lower
fare, but only intended to use the return segment(to travel on a Monday), then
you'd get a lower price than if you booked a one-way on Monday.

Also, people would start the ticket from a low-cost city hub so they can take
advantage of the cheap return fare.

Pricing probably doesn't work that way anymore, but the policy still exists.
Any seasoned traveler should already have experience with this. To avoid the
problem, you can call the airlines BEFORE you miss your outbound flight and
they will provide options for you if you are nice.

------
leelin
The most tragic goof from the airline's standpoint seems to be the "you may
check in online" email, implicitly confirming the 2nd leg was still on.

I'm guessing the moment he booked his flight, a script somewhere inserted two
rows into a database, and a daily cron slurped up each one to send the
automated emails. So few people miss the first legs these days that they
haven't bothered to make the "cancel entire itinerary" cron stop the return
leg email from sending.

I still think that complaining to customer service might get him a flight
voucher if he plays his cards properly.

------
teye
My blog comment to the effect of, "This is policy everywhere, and while
customer service could have been friendlier, this is your bad," was deleted.
Classy.

------
Lewisham
This is another great example of United treating it as if it is a privilege
that you get to fly. They don't realize that you flying with them is _their_
privilege. This is the difference shown at Virgin America.

A bunch of US airlines are just as bad. That tag line of "we know you have
lots of choices, and we're pleased you chose us" shouldn't be empty words, it
should govern the experience from end-to-end.

------
davidbalbert
The same thing happened to me on Delta/North West last winter: I missed my
flight and booked a new one without telling customer service. Seems pretty par
for the course overall. The difference is I was able to apply what I had spent
on the canceled round trip to book my flight home once I found out that they
had booted me.

------
smarterchild
_And, thanks to United Airlines, I now have an additional 4 hours in the
airport (the Virgin America terminal, to be exact) – the perfect setting for
an enraged blogger._

I wonder if airlines have ever put seriously delayed passengers up in a first
class or other special lounge, to distract them from potential stewing.

------
lisper
Worst part: the policy of canceling the second leg of a round trip does NOT
prevent anyone from gaming the system. All you have to do is buy a round trip
where the FIRST leg is the one you want to fly and skip the second leg.

------
Macsenour
I think if I was writing that post, I would have led with the lessons, how my
company applies them or does better and THEN related the story detailing what
happens when you don't follow them.

------
barmstrong
Added it to my running list of Airline horror stories:

<http://buyersvote.com/categories/the-best-airlines>

------
mcculley
There's a lot of comments on this post remarking that the guy who lost his
flight just didn't understand how airlines work. This is indeed a mistake only
the inexperienced would make.

But it really is a problem that the thing we buy from airlines is called a
"ticket". This noun conjures up what you purchase for a bus or a train, a
right to a seat on a segment, an anonymous token which should be transferable
to somebody else. That is not what you get from an airline these days. You
enter instead into a complicated agreement that only applies to you.

So I think it is fair to expect the inexperienced to be confused by this
terminology.

------
pmorici
United recently bought Continental for whom horrendous service is their trade
mark looks like they got their monies worth in that merger.

------
charlesju
How much was the Virgin flight?

------
tedunangst
"Or, even better, don’t piss off 10% of your customers because you may get
gamed by .001% of them"

fake stat is fake.

------
buzzblog
Those who are blaming the victim here illustrate the problem perfectly: some
of them either do or will get to run their own businesses and their screw-the-
guy-he-didn't-read-the-fine-print attitudes will surely result in similar
customer experiences. And business failures.

------
CERTIORARI
I am _so_ starving. [http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-am-so-starving-vs-i-
am-so...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-am-so-starving-vs-i-am-so-
starving,11541/)

We get it, flying is frustrating. Sometimes you have to wait _four hours_ in
an airport. Sometimes, the airlines don't treat you like the important person
you are convinced you are. Write your rant, and delete it. Just don't publish
it under the color of "advice", it makes you look like a whiney little kid.

~~~
zacharycohn
He wasn't complaining about having to wait 4 hours. He was complaining about
the lack of respect they have for customers (not specifically him, but in
general), and he was comparing his experience between Virgin and United.

With one, he was surprised by an unfortunate, not-well-known policy and
OFFERED NO HELP, versus the other where they went above and beyond what he
expected from them (sell him a ticket to get home).

I think this is a great example of how some companies "get it" and are going
to keep and grow their customers, while other companies don't "get it" and it
will lead to their demise.

~~~
stanleydrew
Since when is selling you a ticket "above and beyond" expectations for an
airline?

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InnocentB
I think the parent is indicating that selling you a ticket is the expectation,
and that Virgin went above and beyond that baseline.

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jpwagner
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_largest_airlines>

Notice that a search for "Virgin" on this page yields zero results.

Being the David and being the Goliath involve completely different strategies.

*edit: HN trims the apostrophe from "World's". Manually add it if you want to visit the page.

~~~
hvs
That article doesn't exist.

~~~
jpwagner
see edit. HN trims the apostrophe from "World's".

and thanks for putting in the effort to comment, but not search for the page
that DOES exist.

~~~
hvs
The fact that it does exist doesn't strengthen your argument that large
companies should be allowed to act like assholes to their customers.

~~~
jpwagner
allowed???

