Dear United Airlines,
I am writing you today to share my story of flight 238, from San Diego to Washington DC on July 30, 2010. It was a red-eye flight, packed from what I could tell, and I knew it was going to be a pain to deal with pretty much from the moment I walked down the Jetway. But my grim forecast aside, I didn't count on it actually being as lousy a flight as it was.
The finger is pointed at you, United. Your customer service sucks somethin' fierce.
My seat is in row 30. I boarded as soon as group 2 was summoned to the gate, so I got to watch the greater majority of the plane fill up from my vantage point. Whoever your main flight attendant was on that flight, she was a "first class" jerk. Not a single smile or kind word came out of her mouth at any point. I understand that she's essentially playing the role of an usher / law enforcement officer in very tight quarters, but she was derogatory and illogical in the way she was attempting to herd your paying customers to their seat. I only got more ticked off when I saw what role she was determined to take on for the night.
Your flight attendant that ran the show that night got on the PA multiple times to openly chastise people, plenty of sass in her voice. I've seen this done with tact on other airlines, but it was rude and out of line in all cases on this flight. One older gentleman was standing in the aisle during boarding waiting to move into his row because there was another older couple, one of them with an arm brace on, trying to get situated in your ridiculously uncomfortable chairs. Your less than charming attendant kept on prodding, calling people out by what they were wearing and repeating her commands over and over again, even when she was acknowledged by the weary travelers.
People don't like to be singled out like that. The guy sitting next to me agreed; she was out line. She should have been helping, and not commanding.
Thinking I'd get to avoid her once we got up in the air, I was fooled rather quickly. There was a woman that sat in the row directly in front of me who had a crying baby, also annoying but part of life. I didn't hold any ill will towards her. The other adult in the row, a stranger, was very understanding and helpful in trying to sooth this kid. I saw this, and they were genuine and kind by my observation. Between the lot of them, they rang up the attendant if she could get a cup of water for the baby.
"Yeah, well, you're going to have to wait," she says.
It caught us all off guard. The mother said it wasn't a problem and that they could wait, and the attendant snapped back with her hand up, "I've got other things I need to do, so just let me do my job, thank you." All we could do was look at each other with jaw dropped. They actually turned around and looked at us to see if we witnessed all this.
I mean, what exactly are we supposed to say to that? And it didn't stop there! She got on the PA at one point in the middle of the flight (mind you, the middle of the night, lots of people sleeping already) and declared, "We have no pillows; please stop asking for pillows, thank you." As if the "thank you" makes it any more polite of a message. And this of course wakes everyone up, the babies all start screaming, etc...
Five hours of this bullshit.
I'm not sure what sort of psych screening you do or don't do, but someone in HR should probably look into talking to some of these people that have face-to-face interaction with your customers. I'm resolute in never flying on United again after this.
Annoyed,
Daniel
