12

United Airlines Needs to Crash & Burn

For those of you know know me or have read my Blog posts, you will know I’m no big fan of airlines, specficially United Airlines. Their customer service is deplorable, their rates are not competative, their frequent-flier program is terrible, and they clearly are at least two decades behind the times in everything they do. I fly with them out of necessity, not out of choice. Currently I have logged over 50,000 miles with United in just the last 60 days and I wish it were with Virgin, Southwest, or Jet Blue but regretfully, neither of those airlines fly international where I have needed to go recently.

So yesterday, I had yet another horrible experience with United that topped all others. I was flying home from Australia where I was speaking at an awesome SEO seminar in the Gold Coast. It was a great few days and yet I was ready to be home with the wife, the dogs, and my own bed and shower. I had already been traveling for 18 hours and this was my final leg of the trip…Los Angeles to Las Vegas. I had a short layover and I was ready to get it over with. I went through customs, got my bags transferred, and had to go through the security checkpoint again. No big deal.

The checkpoint I was at was surprisingly slow. I’m used to waiting in line for 20 minutes or longer in Vegas so it was refreshing to see just a few people in front of me. A new line opened up and I walked over. There was one person in front of me and you could tell he wasn’t a frequent traveler. He muddled about with his carry on bag, his laptop, his coat, his shoes (which you have to remove to go through X-Ray in the states) and so on. I, however, was ready to go through. Laptop, watch, shoes and cell phone in a trays, bag ready to go through the X-Ray machine, et. The man in front of me said I could go ahead of him while he was getting organized and I told him it was OK, I’d wait.

So just at the moment he put his items on the conveyor belt to go through the X-Ray machine, a very interesting thing happened. Three United Airlines flight attendants stepped in, pulled the man’s items off the conveyor belt and started unloading their items on to it. They went behind me and grabbed some trays, put their purses, luggage, jewelry, and other personal items on the belt in front of the two of us, all the while they were busy chatting away among themselves as if the man in front of me and myself were invisible. They started to walk through the personal X-Ray machine and I looked at the man in front of me and said, “Did I just miss something, or did those three just blatantly cut in front of us?” He nodded yes. So, not being one who likes to sit there and take it, I shouted at them. “Excuse me”, I said, “Am I in the wrong line or something? Is this the line for crew only?” knowing full well that the security agents all waived us over to this line. One of the three women responded, “No, you’re in the right line.” Dumbfounded, I asked back, “Well can you please explain to me why you just cut in front of the two of us? It doesn’t seem like you’re in any big hurry or anything?” This is when I got a real whopper of an answer.

With the other two flight attendants still ignoring us, she states, “Well, there are a lot of poeple in the other lines and by cutting in front of you two, there are less people to verbally complain about us doing what we’re doing. Cya!” I looked at the person in front of me and both of us just stood there with our jaws on the ground. I was so fuming with anger I didn’t even think to get their name badges. I looked at the TSA security agent behind the X-Ray machine and he said, “Sorry about that. It’s so embarrassing when they do that. It’s only the United crew who is ever that obnoxious. I don’t know what’s with them but we see that type of behavior from them all the time. Again, so sorry, that’s just obnoxious.”

I’ve been saying for years that you can always tell a successful airline versus a failing one based on the overall attitude of their flight attendants. I’ve held the theory for years now that United actually teaches classes to their crew that they need to treat customers like dirt, give them no respect, and do everything to create a terrible travel experience for them. This incident just confirmed it. I can assure you that from this day forward I will always look for an alternative to flying with anyone other than United.

This yet another example that when companies spend thousands or even millions of dollars in advertising and marketing, it all comes down to the point of interraction with the customer which will either amplify, balance, or counterbalance all the marketing efforts put forward. United Airlines makes brilliant commericals. They really do. They work hard to target business customers (even though their FF program stinks) and in spite of always looking like a tired, old airline, they do try to market their product. Even if they spent billions of dollars instead of millions, it wouldn’t matter. United is just broken. So when I hear sob stories about how some companies are failing, like United, I say let ‘em die. It helps pave the way for their competition, who actually gives a damn, to take their place.

As of the time of my posting this article, United Airlines stock (UAUA) is down by nearly 7% for the day. That’s a good thing!

14

Stop Whining, Start DOING!

I got a call from an old friend this evening and he was asking me to look at a post on Craigslist that was particularly funny. While I wish I was able to quote it directly, it has since been flagged and removed for being inappropriate to the area so I will have to paraphrase. The post was made in the “gigs” area, where people who have events and need staffing for them post job offers for potential employees or contractors to apply. The posting in question was just a rant, and was not relevant to the topic of the area at all which is what made it so interesting and it was titled, “Why is it so hard to make money?”. The ranting was from a woman who was mad at the world because, short of having sex for money, there were no opportunities for women to make any money in the world. She went on to say that nobody would give her a chance and she was upset that her dead-end job had no room for advancement and the world owed her something in life for her talents and the world wasn’t delivering.

Now, normally I would just laugh at such a posting and go about my business, and yet this time I felt compelled to write an email to the author.  This is what it said:

Interesting rant. I’m not sure what your point is but if you’ve got
talent in anything, you can make money. I don’t care what the current
economic state is. Making money is the easiest thing I’ve ever figured
out how to do in my entire life. All you need is a little creativity, a little elbow-grease, and a lot of tanacity and you can be successful in anything you set your mind to. So rather than taking a reactionary response to your life, you should consider a PROactive look at where you are and where you want to go. With some focus, a little coaching, and a creative idea, you truly can take charge of your life and never have to worry about money ever again!

She argued back, claiming that the only way she could make money is to become a prostitute and she wouldn’t do that.  After a lengthy dialog with her via email, I explained that the world is full of opportunities for her, especailly in this country, where people all over the world risk their lives to come here looking for a better way of life that many people who were born here take for granted. Her replies were frequented with insults and denial. She responded to me with such revelations as, “it’s all crap and costs money”, “i
dont have the TIME to sit n wait to build a business save money for it n blah blah i need it NOW and that’s what im doing” and, “You sound like one of those work from home scam people lol.”

Wow.

I couldn’t help but think about how this related to my life right now and the difference between being reactive and proactive. For a considerable amount of time, my closest friend, Timothy Noonan, and I have been saying we should start some new venture together. So earlier in the week I called him and said that this week we were going to pick a day, meet at Starbucks and iron out an entire new business idea. He agreed and today we worked dilligently at Einstein’s Bagles (was next door to the Starbucks) and did just that. In just a few short hours, we had a concept, a product, a business outline, some tentative names
for the company, website domain names researched, a structure
on how our partnership would work out in the company, how we were going
to delegate the work, and even how we were going to market and sell it
with a short and long term forecast. This was all done over a
few cups of coffee and bagels. When we were done, we shaked hands with a vision for the future which we both know will launch in a HUGE way.

The lesson here is that successful people think proactively. They brainstorm, they create, and most importantly, they take action on their ideas. Anyone can sit and whine about how bad the economy is, how the job market sucks, and how the stock market is in utter turmoil. While it is always important to understand the surroundings we are in, ultimately I choose to just ignore all the negative news the media loves to spew out like ash from an active volcano. Instead, I am making a conscious decision to start moving forward, creating new ideas and concepts and launching new business ideas all the time because I know it is this positive mindset which is what ultimate success is all about.

The interesting thing about this woman on Craigslist is that she has a choice. She can sit and whine about where she is in life with a welfare mentality or she can take action and stop relying on others to control her destiny. She may not realize it but she truly has more control of her life than she realizes. Now, it may take some time before she comes to this conclusion or it may be never. The point is, with a victim mentality she will always be at the mercy of others who control her. With a victor mentality, she is in the driver’s seat of wherever she wants to steer her life. So the question is, which are you? Are you a victim or a victor? And if you are a victor, what are YOU doing right now to take your life to the next level right now…this weekend? Talk is cheap, what are you going to DO?!