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

publikdemand.com

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

#21

Post by javajosh »

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

#22

Post by pud »

Part of me feels bad for United here.

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.

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.

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

#25

Post by cmiles74 »

kevinpet wrote: post #19

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 un…

Here's the HN thread on an earlier, equally egregious error on the part of United. This one also involves United taking money for their chaperone service and then failing to follow through.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4379599

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

#26

Post by InclinedPlane »

benologist wrote: post #4

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

It has nothing to do with children, that merely makes the underlying behavior more obvious.

It's the difference between treating customers like cattle and like human beings. It's the difference between a company that assumes it is entitled to the business of its customers and one that believes it has to earn it. Sadly there are far too many of the first category.

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

#27

Post by pavel_lishin »

pud wrote: post #22

Part of me feels bad for United here. 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. 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 th…

I feel bad for the person who's going to have to defend United as a company. I don't feel as bad for the several people who are going to get fired over this.

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

#28

Post by petenixey »

pud wrote: post #22

Part of me feels bad for United here. 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. 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 th…

It is a complex business but this error wasn't caused by complexity. It was caused by a combination of dreadful management, low quality standards and bad reporting.

There are so many examples of people being badly treated by United that as awful as this story is, it's probably also acting as a nucleation point for the general anger and disappointment they have created.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars

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

#29

Post by venus »

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.

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?

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.

edit: Just read the "complaint". http://www.publikdemand.com/blog/letter-to-united-ceo-jeff-s...

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!

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?

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

#30

Post by cmiles74 »

pud wrote: post #22

Part of me feels bad for United here. 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. 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 th…

I might feel some small smidgin' of sympathy if it weren't for (1) the fact that this isn't the first story like this and (2) they charge money to chaperon a minor and simply did not do it.
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