Category: Aviation

Is United’s additional Thanksgiving capacity irresponsible?

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United will be adding 1,400 flights for the week of Thanksgiving and plans to use larger aircraft on some flights. From that same Bloomberg article –

Half of its Thanksgiving customers are buying tickets less than 30 days before the holiday, up from about 40% last year, United said. The airline will monitor bookings “in real-time to swap in larger aircraft when needed to accommodate last-minute demand.”

It seems a bit tone deaf for United to add all of this capacity for a holiday week. Yes, they need revenue but at the same time they are enabling behavior that will unfortunately lead to more Covid-19 infections. More people in airports, more people on planes (where Covid can and does spread), and people in their loved one’s homes in close contact. This is amid the U.S. setting new daily records when it comes to coronavirus cases.

United is a business and they are looking out for themselves but their disregard for public health in the name of money is a bad idea right now. I would hope that CEO Scott Kirby would take a moment to think about the company’s actions and the impact they will have on lives across the country.

United may need a dictionary

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You may remember that I posted about United’s refusal to refund tickets for cancelled flights, instead offering passengers ETCs (electronic travel certificates) for future bookings. During the crazy times we are living, United is trying to preserve as much cash as possible. Their recent earnings call statedearnings call stated a first quarter net loss of $639 million or $7.1 million/day. But, United is still partaking in rather peculiar and misleading behavior. Recently, the airline has skirted Department of Transportation rules for refunds by claiming only cancellations where the customer could not be re-accommodated on another flight within 6 hours of the original were due a refund. The DOT website states the following:

In the following situations, passengers are entitled to a refund of the ticket price and/or associated fees.

Cancelled Flight – A passenger is entitled to a refund if the airline cancelled a flight, regardless of the reason, and the passenger chooses not to travel.

Schedule Change/Significant Delay – A passenger is entitled to a refund if the airline made a significant schedule change and/or significantly delays a flight and the passenger chooses not to travel.

That seems pretty straightforward. If your flight gets cancelled, you get a refund. Full stop. Back to my recent experience, United refused to give a refund for multiple flight cancellations on the same itinerary and the only alternative was to spend the night at O’Hare on my way to Montreal. As a result, I filed a DOT complaint, explaining the situation and giving screenshots of the flight cancellations. A few days later I received a reply from a United representative that my complaint was received and that a refund was being processed. Fast forward 17 business days which is the average refund time with United lately and I received the following in my inbox:

Did you catch that? Here it is as plain text (emphasis mine)

Sometimes forces beyond our control make it hard for us to give you the best experience, and your travel doesn’t go to plan. To thank you for your patience, we’ve gone ahead and refunded your ticket.

The Electronic Travel Certificate may be used for future travel on United – and United Express®-operated flights, and it must be redeemed by the expiration date using the PIN number provided.

I’ve always thought of a refund as a return of my payment back to me. If I pay with cash, the vendor gives me cash back (or a debit card that I can use anywhere). If I pay with a credit card the vendor returns the payment back to the credit card. Apparently, United thinks “refund” means “Electronic Travel Certificate”. Again, they are likely trying to preserve cash but this is not just disingenuous, it’s lying. This is not a refund, it is a credit that you have to use with United. You can’t use that money for something else, like food. All I can think of is a family planning on a taking a vacation when all of the Covid-19 shutdowns begin. Their flights cancel and they call United and are told that they’ll get a refund, then they receive an e-mail like what I got and now they believe they’re out that cash. It is not right that United is playing with words to try and keep as much cash as they can as the airline industry suffers.

All I can think of is Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. United keeps using “refund” in their language but I do not think it means what they think it means.

My advice to you, the traveler, is to be persistent. I followed up with United after receiving this email and after a lengthy back and forth, I clearly explained that I did not cancel the flights voluntarily and that the offered alternative flights were not acceptable. I have since been told that I will receive a refund to my original form of payment in 21 business days… It seems United has a single intern processing all refunds.

United Really Doesn’t Want to Give Refunds

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I had a flight scheduled for work travel, heading to Montreal on March 16 and back to Portland on March 19. Due to Covid-19 restrictions I moved that flight to March 30 with a return on April 2. After rebooking, United made a number of route network changes, including get rid of Washington-Dulles to Portland, which made up part of my return from Montreal. I was rebooked via Chicago and thought that was the end of it. I would have a five hour connection and it would be fine.

Yesterday United announced they would stop all flying to Canada on April 1. A few hours later I received another schedule change e-mail from the carrier saying I would now leave Montreal on April 1 at 9:30am and arrive in Portland at 10pm on April 2. This involved a 32 hour connection in Chicago.

To me this type of connection seems unreasonable, so I called United to ask for a refund. I know that their policies have seen a number of changes, including one that said only schedule changes with a 24-hour impact can be refunded. Their latest policy is even more harsh than that.

United International Refunds Policy

So, any flight that is impacted more than six hours can be cancelled but can’t be refunded until after a year has passed. Seems crazy right? I’ve given United money for a flight that no longer flies. So I called United. I was told that there were no options for me to receive a refund. I asked who was going to pay for the hotel bill at O’Hare, or did they expect me to sleep on the floor? This agent was just doing her job and did call a supervisor who also denied my request for a refund.

There is no reason that my money should not be returned to me. Sure, the world is in crisis but if you the airline can’t actually deliver a customer from point A to point B, then it is unreasonable to hold onto their cash until the customer decides to go somewhere else. There is no guarantee that United will be around in a year. What happens to my cash then?

My plan is to dispute the transaction with my credit card provider, file a DOT complaint, and write a note to my Senator. The note will be a summary of the situation and that my belief is that the US government shouldn’t hand out any bailout money to the airlines until this type of stuff is stopped.

If you are facing a similar situation, I’d love for you to comment. Or better yet, write your Senator.

Airlines have still not perfected “spend”

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Ever since a number of airlines have implemented a dollars or “spend” calculation into their elite statuses there have been complaints. The complaints have escalated as the required amount of spending has gone up for most levels over the last couple of years. My complaint is a little different in that I understand a need for dollars spent to be used in the awarding of elite status on the carriers, however, the systems that do the calculation are finicky and you, the traveler, have to be diligent in tracking the amount you have spent and what the airline has awarded you.

A few dollars here or there may not seem like a big impact but when you are traveling every week and maybe live in an area that sees frequent fare wars (lower fares), then those few dollars add up over time. A few of my coworkers are in this exact situation. They live in a location where there is a lot of competition and fares frequently reflect that. They also travel every week but even with easily earning elite status with miles flown, they are struggling to meet their airline’s spend requirements.

I recently had a work trip overseas. I was set to fly Portland-San Francisco-Munich-Prague. After arriving in San Francisco my connection to Munich was delayed and I would miss the final leg to Prague. I asked to be moved to San Francisco-Zurich-Prague and was accommodated, making it to my final destination only a little later than planned. After the trip, I was looking at my account activity on United and noticed that I received significantly fewer PQDs (Premier Qualifying Dollars) than what was on my receipt for the trip. I contacted United and they did “correct” the number but it still does not match what I would have originally earned. Knowing that I will earn the needed spend for elite status, I am not going to pursue this any further with United as it really isn’t worth my time, but without looking closely I would not have noticed that I was shorted.

The systems the airlines use for tracking all of their data are complex and the integration between those systems is even more complex, so as one system receives or creates incorrect data it is sent to other systems and the disparity becomes harder to track. For example, elite spend is calculated without fees or taxes associated to the fare. A $500 ticket may only generate $400 of elite spend. If that is somehow miscalculated as $340 then you missed out on $60 that now has to be reconciled in some manner. In some cases the airlines can manually correct the elite spend directly but in others they have to manipulate the underlying ticket.

For my ticket, what I believe happened is that when I was moved to San Francisco-Zurich, my ticket had to be refared, meaning they had to recalculate the value of the ticket and in doing so, moved me to a lower fare than my original ticket. I doubt this was intentional, they were just trying to get me on the flight, but the point is, in changing the ticket, the amount I paid for the ticket was no longer calculated correctly.

The moral of the story: pay attention to your accounts and don’t hesitate to contact the airlines when you see a discrepancy. If the airlines want to enforce spend as an elite qualifying criteria then you need to be diligent in making sure the values are correct.

Something doesn’t add up with this unaccompanied minor story

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United at Newark
There is a story coming out today on a number of different news sites stating that United put a 14-year-old passenger on the wrong connecting flight. He was set to go to Stockholm on SAS but ended up on a Eurowings flight to Düsseldorf. Those two flights board next to each other and the gate agents are the same contract staff for both airlines

However, when I read through them, something does not add up.

From the Yahoo News! story:

A parent is blaming “the idiots” at United Airlines for putting his 14-year-old son on the wrong international flight, which would have taken him to Germany, instead of his intended destination, Sweden.

The young boy, Anton Berg, flew as an “unaccompanied minor” on June 30 with United Airlines from Raleigh, Durham, N.C. to Newark, N.J. From there, his connecting flight was supposed to take him directly to his destination, Stockholm, with Scandinavian Airlines, but he got on a flight to Dusseldorf, operated by Eurowings, instead.

So a 14-year-old traveling alone as an unaccompanied minor was put on the wrong connecting flight. Per the same article, United has apologized:

United Airlines has since refunded the $150 fee charged for directing the unaccompanied minor. In a statement provided to Yahoo Lifestyle, a representative said that the airline has “been in frequent contact with the young man’s family to confirm his safety and to apologize for this issue.”

What doesn’t add up is that the story and United’s unaccompanied minor policy don’t match. Add on top of that, the child was connecting onto a partner flight that was being serviced by a contract set of agents and things really get complicated.

From United’s website:

Our unaccompanied minor service is for children who are 5-14 years old and traveling without a parent, legal guardian or someone who is at least 18 years old. These young travelers also need to follow certain requirements for their safety:

  • Unaccompanied minors can only travel on nonstop United or United Express® flights. They can’t use our unaccompanied minor service on codeshare flights and other flights operated by our partner airlines.
  • United does not offer unaccompanied minor service connecting to or from other airlines’ flights.
  • Children younger than 5 can’t travel as unaccompanied minors, even if they’re flying with an older unaccompanied child.
  • Unaccompanied minor service is not available for children older than 14. Young adults ages 15 to 17 can travel alone on any United- or United Express®-operated flight.
  • It costs $150 each way for every two children traveling using the unaccompanied minor service.

The unaccompanied minor “service” is really a fee to make sure that your child makes it from your care to the care of whoever is picking them up from their destination. It is not an escort/babysitting service making sure your kid gets on the correct flight. In this particular case, it sounds like the parents skirted the rules of the program to try and get United to connect their son onto an SAS flight, which is not permitted for an unaccompanied minor (it says so directly in the policy). In fact, part of the reason the airlines don’t offer connections anymore is exactly this scenario, a potentially lost child somewhere in the process.

Once the minor was in the care of the contract agents for SAS and Eurowings, there was another breakdown where it was not understood what flight the child should be on. He was inadvertently directed to the Eurowings flight by their staff, not United’s.

The whole story comes down to the parents trying to be slick and skirt the unaccompanied minor rules and having it backfire. Rather than just roll with the punches they blame the airlines (and really focus on the wrong one in my opinion). The contract staff for the two European carriers screwed up and they need to fix whatever flaw they have that let them issue a boarding pass for the wrong flight.

Turkish Airlines’ new 787-9 damaged during a photo shoot

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In case you missed it, Seth reported that Turkish Airlines’ brand new 787-9 was damaged during a photo shoot.

Reports suggest that the aircraft window melted out of its mount in the fuselage. How did it get so hot? Seems that the company was filming inside the plane and had it fitted inside and out with studio lighting to make that work. The heat from those lights caused the window to melt.

It seems like the back light was way too close to the fuselage and melted one of the electrochromatic windows. The photos are kind of crazy.

It is still not clear whether the actual carbon fiber fuselage was damaged in any way or if it was just the window.

Paint Me Unimpressed

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Images of United’s new livery hit the internet last night before the official “reveal” today in Chicago. The new paint scheme drops the gold elements from the look and replaces them with different blues.


For all the hype that United was trying to generate around the new livery, overall it appears like a very minor change done poorly. Here are some quick thoughts:

  1. The “logo” is still the globe, just simplified. United and their partners in this branding had a chance to re-imagine the globe and give us something new, but for whatever reason, they doubled down on it.
  2. The blue looks “cheap”. The particular blue that United chose for their name and around the engines has a tone to it that looks odd. Maybe it is the light in the hanger, but the color seems like something I’d see on a bad ad for hair care products.
  3. There is a ton of white. The look is minimalist but it seems overly so.
  4. There is nothing that stands out. I think this is the thing that bothers me the most. There was a real opportunity to do something interesting and new but United went the opposite direction, playing it as safe as they could while getting a “new” look.

There was a large release by United a while back on new uniforms, onboard amenities, etc. that incorporated plum and other hues of purple and it is disappointing that with the new livery they steered clear of including those colors. At the end of the day though, it is just paint. I fly inside of the plane. What I would really like to see is United focus on their soft product and customer service. Start delivering on those things and I think people will forget what colors are painted on the plane and just remember it by the name and the service they receive.

What do you think?

The Madrid Ghost Plane

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From CNN:

Officials from the Adolfo Suárez-Madrid Barajas airport are trying to find the owners of a plane that has been parked on the tarmac, without moving, for years.
Airport director Elena Mayoral submitted an official notice to the Boletín Oficial del Estado, the official gazette of the Kingdom of Spain, informing the nation of a plane in an “obvious state of abandonment” at the airport.

Once the official notice goes out, the owner has three months to get in touch with the airport otherwise the plane will be sold off at auction.

United unveils new uniforms

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From Today in the Sky:

United Airlines employees will get their first look Wednesday at new uniforms that will soon roll out to all 70,000 of the carrier’s frontline workers.

The new line comes with a distinct look that includes colors like “Pacific Blue,” “Premium Purple,” and “Atlantic Amethyst” — all among a half-dozen hues that United first teased this past August.

I don’t quite understand the aquamarine color scheme and to be honest I am not a huge fan of the rest of the options either. The one style of men’s sports coat is strange, with silver stitching at the pockets, really makes it look dated.

What do you think?

American Airlines Considers Ending Ticket Changes If Congress Limits Fees

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From Bloomberg:

American Airlines Group Inc. would consider barring passengers from changing nonrefundable tickets if Congress limits what carriers can charge for the adjustments, Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker said Tuesday.

This is coming from some legislation making its way through Congress:

Doing away with changes to nonrefundable fares would make airline flights more like baseball games or concerts, where customers aren’t typically reimbursed if they buy tickets and can’t use them. Carriers currently consider the ability to change a nonrefundable ticket as a service that carries a cost. Such fees, which run up to $200, anger many passengers.

The language limiting what carriers can charge for ticket changes is being supported by consumer groups as a bipartisan provision. It is in a version of an aviation-policy bill sponsored by Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota, who is chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Parker called the proposal “really bad for consumers” last week.

I can’t say I blame American Airlines. Change fees have been around since the days of regulated aviation in the U.S. and the only reason I can think of to change the rules now is to appease some percentage of the voting public.

Is a limitation on the cost of change fees good for the consumer? On the surface, it’s easy to say yes, but when you dig into how airlines oversell flights and offer last minute seats or adapt to weather situations, I think the answer becomes a more complex “no”. Maybe Congress should simply focus on the transparency of the fares and underlying fare rules. If it becomes clear what consumers can and cannot do on a fare, rather than having to dig through pages and pages of fare rules, it becomes easier to make decisions.