Why did United neglect to tell parents of a minor she was rerouted?

What is this hysterical nonsense? Fine, UA should have called the mother to let her know what was going on. Someone screwed up. But they obviously went to a lot of effort to take care of the kid, putting her up in a hotel to wait for the next flight, with a UA employee of the same sex chaperoning her.<p>The case was seized upon by what appears to be a professionally outraged busybody trying to "monetize" shrill complaints against big companies, and they get banned. So what?<p>I am no fan of UA but this is a storm in a teacup. The mother should just chill out, and "PublikDemand" should learn that a kid not talking to her mother for a couple of hours does not constitute a national emergency.<p>edit: Just read the "complaint". <a href="http://www.publikdemand.com/blog/letter-to-united-ceo-jeff-smisek-why-did-united-neglect-to-tell-parents-of-a-minor-she-was-rerouted-and-leave-her-in-an-airport-for-ten-hours/" rel="nofollow">http://www.publikdemand.com/blog/letter-to-united-ceo-jeff-s...</a><p>I feel sorry for the kid, yes - because of her irrationally overprotective mother. And the exaggerations amount to lies in my book - at no point was the child "stranded", nor made to stay with an actual stranger. One wonders, if "strangers" are so inherently evil, what the mother was doing sending her precious little angel onto an entire plane full of strangers. Stranding her on the plane, even!<p>Yeah, UA could have done better, but it's not like the kid is dead, for fuck's sake. Can we have some perspective please?

All this reminds me of when I used to fly internationally as an "Unaccompanied Minor" in the early 90s.<p>This clusterfuck would NEVER have happened back then (at least never happened to me..) -- kids travelling alone were treated like royalty.<p>I'd randomly get bumped up to First Class, be able to use the nice lounges in airports, and got put up in really nice hotels when flights were delayed too long. All this amidst a constant stream of little delights (candy, toys, snacks, compliments from the stewardesses for being well-behaved).<p>Ah, those were the days!<p>/end curmudgeonly old fart mode.

I'm somewhat surprised that the regulators are not cracking down on these incidents. This is not the first time we've heard of kids being stranded and not getting the chaperone that parents paid for. Refunding the chaperone fee is a bit like choosing to refund the cost of insurance rather than pay a claim -- the fee is far more expensive than the usual value of the services, and it's only paid to protected against unusual situations like a flight rerouted.<p>This is a bit like a hosting company offering a 24/7 support hotline for a monthly fee but never staffing it, and only refunding it when people complain after failing to get through to the support hotline.

Part of me feels bad for United here.<p>They're bound to make some mistakes when flying millions of people around the planet every day. But thanks to social media, all it takes is one of those mistakes to turn into a viral blog post -- and now you've got a PR crisis.<p>Not defending United or saying they didn't screw up. They did. But dang it, as an entrepreneur, that business seems really f'ing complex and I feel for them.

This reminds me of the issue with Dave Carroll <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars</a>. As a company, you can't afford to get yourself in conflicts with people who have genuine issues and are savvy with social media.

I propose a solution to this and all related problems. It is a law that every legal entity in the United States must maintain a public, permanent record of any and all complaints against it. They may choose to publish individual responses, but this is not required.<p>This would solve the problem of aggregating complaints. The first line of defense of a large entity is information asymmetry: they isolate the customer, make them feel like their problem is unique, or that it's no big deal, no-one else cares, etc. In this case, United (correctly) realized that PublikDemand's twitter account was successfully serving as a de facto complaint database, and acted to remove it.<p>Knowledge of other customer's complaints is a powerful weapon for any customer with a problem. It tells them that they are not alone, that the company has a problem, and opens the possibility of combining forces to take action against the company: the cost-burden of legal action against the company can be shared between plaintiffs, a kind of psuedo class action suit.<p>As it stands, only the most sensational horror stories are seen, and they are not reported in a way that is easily searchable or usable for the next customer that is abused and whose abuse is buried by information asymmetry.

Airlines need to start charging enough for their child chaperone service to operate it with the level of care and communication required. $150 seems low for a high touch personal service with brand/life-threatening failure modes.

We went to Twitter and made sure that we were not blocked for a violation of terms and they confirmed we were not and that a user blocked us.

Was this Tweet the only one made @United from the account before it was blocked, or were there others?<p><a href="https://twitter.com/PublikDemand/status/309093527697104898" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/PublikDemand/status/309093527697104898</a><p>If that's the only one, that's very surprising. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would spur an instant block, even from an overprotective overzealous social media rep.

One could swear to never fly United, if one hadn't already done so for American. Airlines have the worst customer service of any industry. Their horror stories are actual horror stories.

This sucks and United should really get a bunch of bad PR over it, but the real message that I'm taking away is: don't trust a %$&#38;*#! airline company with your kids. I barely trust them with my suitcase.

From <a href="http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/specialneeds/minors/faq.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/specialneeds/...</a><p><pre><code> What if my child’s travel is affected by delays, cancellations or other problems? It can be very stressful when flights do not operate as planned, especially for unaccompanied children. In the case of weather or other delays and cancellations, United will contact you or the person designated to meet your child at his or her final destination. You can also track the status of the flight on united.com. Advise your child to remain with a United representative at all times. Consider giving your child a calling card or teaching him or her how to make collect calls so he or she can reach you. </code></pre> In short, someone at United screwed up. The chaperone didn't call. That's bad, and they need to investigate whether this was a one-off or systematic screw-up.<p>That said, flying from Great Falls to Nashville (which is already hairy due to the small regional airports on either end of the journey) on a day where there's a major winter storm forecast to slam the midwest. This including a foot of snow on Chicago, which ruins United's system for the day (is this not a well known fact)? If you don't want to entertain the possibility that your child might be stranded without you? Fly yourself to Great Falls, meet your child, and fly back together. Alternatively, driving to Atlanta or Memphis will up your odds considerably of a successful venture.<p><pre><code> Instead of sending her on the next flight to Nashville, they have routed her across the country on three connections and is staying overnight in Houston with a complete stranger! </code></pre> United probably thought there was a pretty good chance "the next flight to Nashville" wouldn't exist (It was delayed 5 hours, arriving in Nashville at 2am).<p>This doesn't excuse United's behavior, but Ms. Neff-Aguilar could have prepared better.

Blocking you on twitter was a bad move. Have you got any results since?

My sister (several years ago) was flying United solo (minor, 17, first solo flight) from CA to ME, connecting in LGA. Her flight came in late and she missed the connecting flight (late at night). There were no United employees on staff (at all!) in LGA at that hour. My mom spent several hours trying to get someone at United to help her out and they couldn't get ahold of their "on call" staff member to assist her. They ended up telling her to "sleep on a bench" and wait till the staff came in some 4-5 hours later in the morning and someone could get her set up with a new connecting flight. They eventually offered a $150 coupon for her "next" flight, which will never happen.

The important thing is they're building a new lounge and smisek wore a hardhat to tell us about it.<p>Where is the line between civil and criminal when it comes to caring for children?

Not necessarily related to this incident, but United really have become my least favorite airline in many ways. There's just something about dealing with them that constantly leaves me with this weird feeling, like nobody there knows what the f%!# is going on. When I've had flights delayed with other airlines, the process has at least felt organized, and while the delay was annoying, it never felt like a total clusterfuck. OTOH, with United, it seems like every time there is a delay, things get, well, weird. There will be 3 or 4 gate changes; airport monitors with information that doesn't match what is on my phone via their mobile app, neither of which matches the screen behind the gate agent stand; gate agents who seem totally clueless and so on. At times, when I fly United, I wonder if I'm ever actually going to get where I'm going at all.<p>American, Southwest and Delta all seem to do a much better job of organizing things, from what I can see. The only thing United really has going for them is Economy Plus seating, and American is adding a similar feature. Honestly, I try to avoid United these days.

<i>"As a result, no one has ownership of the minor."</i> Maybe no one <i>by name</i> has ownership, but someone <i>by role</i> has ownership. So whoever is filling the role for the airline/airport at that time/on that flight/for that airline at that airport (however the process is defined) has ownership. So there <i>is</i> an individual with ownership at all times. I agree though, that training may be sorely lacking for those situations that are exceptions to the normal process. None of that changes the fact that ultimately, the <i>airline</i> has ownership.

This sounds much like my family's experience with United as well. I will never patronize them again in my life. Blocking on Twitter is taking it to a whole new level.

This is more worrying than the typical HN post about having to turn off an electronic gadget on the plane.<p>I'm not necessarily saying that United did something wrong though. Planes can have mechanical issues and there are a bunch of reasons why the mother may not have been contacted in time. But not knowing where your child is should definitely get more attention than the typical "they told me to turn off my iPhone" kind of complaint.

One more reason I avoid flying them whenever possible.

My client is their biggest US competitor. I've seen operations across many business units and can say, sadly this does not surprise me at all. The employees I spoke with told me that the other airlines they've worked at are similar. The employees generally, across this particular company are generally very angry, feel screwed by their employer and simply don't care.

Is there any market sizing or business intelligence data available for the manufactured internet controversy industry?<p>It seems to be booming.

And now Continental's just as bad. Almost makes me want to move to Singapore.

I feel like this is the norm with airlines these days. They're saving pennies, pushing customers around, delaying almost every flight... It's hard to justify flying for small trips.

UPDATE: I was able to email Jeff Smisek and the SVP of Customer Experience directly a moment ago. I will post their response publicly if I hear back.

Why post it to a blog? I mailed Jeff Smisek directly l about a problem I had at SFO and he responded in two minutes. On a Saturday.

I flew united this week, and had zero problems. The TSA on the other hand...

And with a single click, United loses the goodwill they generated when they delayed a flight so a man could see his dying mother.<p>Bravo, social media team, Bravo.