As a long-time "frequent flyer," and as a resident of the San Francisco Bay area -- which is dominated by United Airlines -- I have been keeping a wary eye on that airline and its efforts to emerge from bankruptcy.Like many business travellers, I participate in United's "Mileage Plus" frequent flyer program. Most years I make it to the Premiere Executive level, which means that I'm one of those poor sods who winds up flying at least 50,000 paid miles, or 60 paid segments, per year. That translates, for me at least, into over $30,000 or so per year on air travel.When you depend that much on a supplier of any product or service for your business, it's only natural that you should follow news of that industry. Indeed, I have been watching the latest machinations over United's bankruptcy with increasing anger and frustration. This morning, I was pleased to see columnist and blogger Dan Gillmor give voice to something I have heard from many United customers: United's CEO has gotta go.Just minutes after reading that blog posting, I spotted something in my email inbox: a message from United, letting Premiere Executive customers know about today's agreement. It read:
This week United is pleased to share two important announcements with you. The members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) ratified their tentative agreement. Also, following a constant, good faith engagement, United and the International Association of Machinists (IAM) reached an agreement in principle. Together these actions set the stage for the completion of our restructuring and ability to offer you the very best service for years to come.As always, our employees continue to deliver exceptional service. That's why United ranked #1 in on-time arrivals of the seven major U.S. carriers during the past 12 months ending March 2005, as measured by the U.S. Department of Transportation in their most recent report.Thank you for flying United. We appreciate your business and look forward to welcoming you onboard soon.=====================================WE WELCOME YOUR COMMENTSWhile this e-mail address is unable to accept replies, we welcome your comments, questions or concerns. Please contact us at our dedicated Customer Relations e-mail address: [address removed for spam-related reasons].
This is the first time I'd noticed such a request for feedback. So I joined Dan Gillmor in calling for the CEO to step down. I agree with Gillmor's comments about alienating employees, lack of strategy, and unwarranted pay. But I decided to focus on my own pet peeve, United's multi-billion dollar effort to compete with low-cost carriers known as "TED."
Dear United:As a long-time customer of United, and one who remains loyal to the airline, I must endorse the many calls for the resignation of Glenn Tilton. He has presided over one unnecessary crisis after another, all the while leading United down a path that made no sense to us lowly customers, and has alienated the front-line staff who, despite dire times, still manage to serve us with admirable professionalism, even as management tries to screw them over.I still remain confused why, in the midst of such dire times at United, the company wasted billions for the roll-out and "branding" of TED. You could have slapped some "Economy" stickers on the planes, designated those flights as "no-frills," saved a few billion, and gotten just as many passengers. But the TED stupidity is only one example of a management that appears to many of us in the "cheap seats" to be unable to wrap its mind around the need for real change. Instead, recent decisions have left us all scratching our heads, wondering if anybody in the United front office "gets it."If you don't fix the leadership problems, you won't be able to fix anything else. And those of us who have struggled to stay loyal to United over these difficult times will begin to tire. All it will take is for some airline like American to offer people like me one-for-one frequent flyer points trade in and you'll lose people in droves. Don't risk that. Fix this airline!
Why am I peeved about TED? Because it's emblematic of how clueless United's management is. How does United decide to compete with low-cost carriers? By spending unnecessary truckloads of money on branding campaigns, repainting planes, redecorating terminals, and generally throwing good money after bad.Nobody *ever* bought a ticket on Southwest or ATA or JetBlue because they thought the marketing campaign was cute. The considerations are: Does the plane go where you want to in the general time frame you want to, and is it more or less expensive than the next airline? People could care less if the signs are in orange, or if the planes are painted differently. It's about the money, stupid! Even a buck or two makes a difference. Only "frequent flyer" idiots like me will actually pay a couple bucks extra for the accumulation of additional mileage points.While I hope that United will take the steps needed to pull back from the abyss, I have no faith that United's CEO will do the right thing himself. All we can hope for is that perhaps the Board of Directors will wake up and smell the jet fuel before it's too late to save the airline that so many of us depend on.