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Merger pains for United Airlines leave passengers hurting

CHICAGO — It was an unusually bright, sunny day at Chicago O’Hare airport as passengers at Gate B9 of Terminal 1 waited to board the Boeing 757 that was docked at the gate.

The flight schedule monitor in the terminal said United Airlines Flight 629 to San Francisco would leave on schedule.

The monitor was wrong.

A gate attendant fired up the public address system. “We have a new departure time. They’re taking this plane away,” she said, offering no further explanation. The 12:17 p.m. flight would be delayed to 1:30, she said.

Passengers crammed into seating near the gate let out a collective groan.

The scene is one that has played out time and again on United Airlines flights since United and Continental combined in a $3.2 billion deal to form the world’s largest carrier and especially since it had a trouble-plagued conversion to a new computer system March 3.

United is the most complained-about airline in America by far, according to the latest statistics from U.S. Department of Transportation.

During March, United’s on-time performance was worst among the major legacy airlines in the U.S., according to the DOT. Among large, full-fare airlines, United rates worst in mishandled bags and denied boardings, a term for passengers who hold confirmed reservations but are bumped from a flight because it is oversold.

To see what United’s troubles might portend for the busy summer travel season, I took a two-day excursion from Chicago to San Francisco to Las Vegas to Houston and back to Chicago to witness firsthand the passenger experience at United Airlines. The trip involved 25 hours of flying time and waiting at airports, including three of United’s hub airports.

Overall, the trip was a microcosm of what United passengers say and what the industry statistics suggest: Flights on United Airlines nowadays can go relatively smoothly, but if there’s a problem, things can go wrong in a hurry.

Much of this trip was uneventful, even pleasant, but one flight was frustrating and exhausting. I experienced good and also lousy customer service along the way. Every flight was full, overhead bin space always ran out, and the only bag I checked — and paid $25 for — didn’t show up at the baggage claim. However, on one return flight I basked in a satisfying flying experience after splurging for roomier EconomyPlus seating and in-seat television service.

United officials know the recent industry stats aren’t good and concede the airline is dealing with problems.

“We’ve got to improve,” said Martin Hand, United senior vice president of customer experience. “The last year and a half to two years have been a challenge, no doubt about it.”

Hand pointed out that other carriers had similar problems and poor rankings when they merged, but they later improved.

“I wish I could flip a switch and make it happen overnight,” he said of United’s efforts to fix problems. “This is going to be a journey.”

Rebooking hassles

My journey in mid-May did not start well at O’Hare.

After the delay announcement at Gate B9, a queue immediately formed at the gate agent counter, mostly passengers who would miss their connecting flights in San Francisco and needed to rebook on later flights. Me included.

Among those waiting in line was Carole, a San Francisco-based lawyer and consultant who was en route from Syracuse, N.Y., back to the West Coast. (She didn’t want her last name used because she sometimes works with airlines and didn’t want to jeopardize business, she said.)

“I fly United all the time. I’m very loyal,” Carole said. “But every time in the last six weeks that I’ve flown, the flight has either been canceled or delayed. Every. Single. Flight.”

Patience in the queue, 15 people deep, wore thin as gate agents were slow in rebooking passengers.

My waiting time in line? One hour and 26 minutes.

When it was finally my turn, the gate agent maintained a cheery disposition but clearly was uncomfortable with the new computer system. Her demeanor soured as she fumbled, reaching next to her keyboard for two pages of computer instructions, a mix of typed and handwritten notes.

At long last, I received a boarding pass for the next flight.

Four minutes later came another public announcement. The flight was oversold, the agent said, and United would offer a $250 travel voucher for volunteers who would give up their seats and take a later flight.

In addition to flight delays, so-called bumping on oversold flights is another measure the DOT uses to gauge consumer-friendliness.

United Airlines stats on bumping are not good either. During the first quarter, United’s so-called denied boarding rate was by far the worst among the large, full-fare airlines and nearly double the industry average.

(Although passengers on our flights were asked to volunteer to be bumped, nobody who wanted to fly was denied a flight, a United spokesman said.)

At 2:12 p.m., nearly two hours after the original departure time, the purser aboard Flight 629 announced over the plane’s public address system, “We have finally closed the doors for departure.”

Passengers broke out in a round of applause.

Relatively few affected

Delays and bad customer service might be memorable for passengers, but most United flights are on time. Indeed, 77 percent of United flights in March, a challenging month because of the computer conversion, were on time, meaning they arrived within 15 minutes of the scheduled time. The industry average was about 82 percent.

My experience reflected that; three of four flights arrived on time or early.

United officials don’t relish ranking so poorly in DOT statistics, but they point to the number of passengers affected. For example, United ranked 13th of 15 large airlines in denied boardings. But that’s fewer than two of every 10,000 United passengers involuntarily bumped from a flight.

Similarly, United had the most consumer complaints in March, triple the industry average. But numbers show that’s about three complaints against United for every 100,000 passengers.

After connecting in San Francisco to Las Vegas, I faced one more major problem. At the baggage claim at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, the suitcase conveyor showed no signs of my olive-green roll-aboard. At the nearby lost-baggage desk, an agent said the suitcase was on a later flight and would be delivered to my hotel about 1 a.m., which it was.

United also scores poorly in mishandled bags, ranking 11th out of the largest 15 airlines and worst among the majors. To be fair, its rate of mishandled luggage was 4 per 1,000 passengers. Expressed differently, that’s a 99.6 percent success rate.

The return trip from Las Vegas to Houston to Chicago went much more smoothly. Flights were on time, and a checked bag showed up on the baggage claim carousel at O’Hare. The extra room in EconomyPlus was a joy after two flights jammed in a middle seat. And in-flight television, costing an $8 swipe of a credit card, helped pass the time, allowing me to flip among several baseball games.

On two of my return flights, curiously out-of-date preflight welcome videos played on monitors in the cabin. They featured United CEO Jeff Smisek talking about how great the airline would be once it combined computer systems, something that happened more than two months earlier.

“Everything will work together as a single airline should, so the entire travel experience is seamless for our customers,” Smisek said.

So far, that promise of a better travel experience has not been fully realized.

Business reporter Greg Karp covers the airline industry for the Chicago Tribune.