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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!

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Weak Links in Your Business

Recently I had a funny experience with a Hewlett Packard Webcam Deluxe. The webcam crashed my computer every time I ran their software and when I spoke with the staff at their technical support, they asked me to please read them the serial number on a “big white sticker on the back of the camera.” Perhaps I’m missing something, but I don’t see ANY “big white sticker” on the back of the camera. Take a look for yourself…

They refused to provide any customer service until they got the number, which didn’t exist. Want to learn the lesson in this story as to how it can help your business? Watch our Millionaire Marketing Moment video below: