United breaks guitars, loses kids

[Beowulf]

Bob Sutton writes about a horrible ordeal his friends Annie and Perry Klebahn had in late June and early July when United Airlines "lost" their 10 year-old daughter, who was traveling as an unaccompanied minor.

Here is the headline: United was flying Phoebe as an unaccompanied minor on June 30th, from San Francisco to Chicago, with a transfer to Grand Rapids. No one showed-up in Chicago to help her transfer, so although her plane made it, she missed the connection. Most crucially, United employees consistently refused to take action to help assist or comfort Phoebe or to help her parents locate her despite their cries for help to numerous United employees.

The most shocking bit isn't that the airline failed miserably on the day of the incident, but failed to do anything at all until the press got involved. Oh, wait, nevermind. Organizations only start to care when the press gets involved. Carry on.

[Thanas]

United airlines - proudly setting new standards for scumbaggery each day.

I hope they get sued.

[Fiji_Fury]

This is surprising poor conduct, although I've never had an experience with a US based airline that I wouldn't call patronizing, uncomfortable and inept service. I have to ask: are there any good airlines in the US? Or just a bunch of point-A to point-B carriers of misery and contempt?

[General Zod]

This is surprising poor conduct, although I've never had an experience with a US based airline that I wouldn't call patronizing, uncomfortable and inept service. I have to ask: are there any good airlines in the US? Or just a bunch of point-A to point-B carriers of misery and contempt?

Aside from getting the zipper strap on my checked luggage broken off, I haven't had any problems with Southwest, they don't even try and gouge you on baggage fees.

[Skgoa]

I have flown dozens of times as an UM with an wide variety of (admittedly: european) air-lines. It should be practically impossible to "loose" a child. You have a pouch around you neck at all times (yes, they do insist) that is very obviously market "UM". You are (supposed to be) handled by a flight attendant at all times you aren't stationary in a specific location that has flight attendants around to stop you from wandering off, anyways. (Or alternatively the 50k feet drop outside the airplane will keep you from from getting to far. ) I remember explicitely that both KLM and Lufthansa made a pretty big deal out of checking all the boarding passes, flight plans etc. - they even put you on an electric vehicle and rush you anywhere you might need to go. Even if both the plane and its replacement breaks, as happened to KLM during one awesome (due to high-speed back and forth between UM 'daycare' and the gate ) night. And I even got to sit in the front row window seat in most occassions.
So I repeat it should be impossible to loose a child in this, unless two people just didn't care enough to bother with a little child and should be fired on the spot. And their supervisor.

And yes, what you should take from this is post is that UM flying is the best way. (Other than being the pilot.)

edit: "airplain"?
edit2: And BTW I never got manhandled or had to submit to any kind of security test. Seriously, airport security... you are going to worry about a mother bringing down a plane with a milk bottle that is a little to big. But you are going to let a child large and heavy enough to conceal a hefty amount of drugs or explosives be rushed around every security check-point and even hold the plane at the gate to get it there. Are you guys that stupid? (A: Yes they are.)

[Enigma]

Here's United's statement after the kid was found.

We reached out directly to the Klebahns to apologize and we are reviewing this matter. What the Klebahns describe is not the service we aim to deliver to our customers. We are redepositing the miles used to purchase the ticket back into Mr. Klebahn’s account in addition to refunding the unaccompanied minor charge. We certainly appreciate their business and would like the opportunity to provide them a better travel experience in the future.

If this was a service they did not want to deliver then why have it at all? They didn't even put the effort in keeping UMs safe.

[RogueIce]

Here's United's statement after the kid was found.

We reached out directly to the Klebahns to apologize and we are reviewing this matter. What the Klebahns describe is not the service we aim to deliver to our customers. We are redepositing the miles used to purchase the ticket back into Mr. Klebahn’s account in addition to refunding the unaccompanied minor charge. We certainly appreciate their business and would like the opportunity to provide them a better travel experience in the future.

If this was a service they did not want to deliver then why have it at all? They didn't even put the effort in keeping UMs safe.

I think you're reading it wrong. They're not saying they don't want to deal with unaccompanied minors at all, they're saying that what happened is far below the standards they expect of their employees in terms of handling UMs.

[Enigma]

Ahh, I see. Herp derp.

[Dalton]

From what I've read, they outsourced the UM program to a third-party contractor who "forgot to show up".

[Todeswind]

My personal favorite experience with United was when, upon clearing customs, I was informed that my carry on luggage would have to be checked for an additional $450. I, not unreasonably, requested an explanation for why my baggage magically stopped being a carry on in the space of time it took me to walk from the incoming flight to the check in desk. She informed me that my bag was oversized, and that a bag had to be a set number of linear inches large. ("L+W+H" I think it was 50 but I won't swear to that.)

As it was my carry on bag of warhammer supplies I pulled out my tape measure to show her that it was, in fact, five inches undersized. She more or less forced me to pay the bag charge for disagreeing with her, then proceeded to give me a ticket listed under the wrong name in her hurry to get rid of me, damn near getting me arrested by the TSA employee incapable of speaking English who became convinced it was a terrorist plot rather than a clerical error.

After just barely managing not to get arrested due to her incompetence and having a less than cordial discussion with a supervisor I ended up getting given a first class seat on an earlier flight (thus apparently granting me to have the third suitcase for no charge). But given the forty five minutes of agonizing headache it caused me to get that seat after a ten hour flight from Japan, I would have preferred to swim the distance from Japan to the USA than suffer another second of their incompetence.