Airliners.net

intotheair wrote:

I know people hate airlines, and I know people hate United especially, but United is not Blackwater.

In the long run, last week's mishap is nothing compared to everything else United has been through. It'll take a while, but they will be fine.

And what is wrong with Blackwater aka, Presidential Airways?

The UA CO merger has been a tragedy since day one.

United is the bigger brand, but their organization should not have participated in the merged carrier. It should have been a straight Continental outfit. I don't mean a compromise, I meet straight Continental, run from Houston, with zero United people involved, but with United paint.

727200 wrote:

I wouldn't be so sure. UA's been going through a "rough patch" for almost 7 years since the merger was announced, and was a bit of a basket case before then, too. The reason it is making a profit right now is due to less competition, and the economy. Delta has definitely lead the way, and is rightfully doing so. United limps along, copying bits and pieces of Delta.

United's good days were 20+ years ago. It was a total basket case before the merger. I can't think of a way they haven't under-performed in the last 20 years, but help me out if I am wrong.

Still, they have the leading brand in the (US) industry. As shown in the recent millennial brand survey.

They need to acknowledge greatness where it exists in their heritage, and nothing greater than the true pinnacle of excellence -

Rebrand as Texas International Airlines!

The out raged offended internet world forgets has fast has it jumps to conclusions with little evidence so there is no need to have the same knee jerk reation with the brand. UA will be fine in my opinion and prior to the last week or so is was on track and can be again.

jumbojet wrote:

seahawk wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

If it had blown over quickly, we still wouldn't be discussing it today.

It is an aviation forum, in the mainstream media the thing is nearly over and it is surely no longer trending on social media. And to be honest this whole incident was a minor problem blown way out proportion and in the end it might be found that the airport "police" played the biggest part in the whole story.

I just googled United Airlines and came up with lots of negative press that is relatively new, all within 24 hours, its absolutely still alive in the mainstream press. Here you go, I even took the liberty of copy and pasting some interesting ones for you...

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/201 ... damon-feud

http://www.businessinsider.com/united-a ... 411-2017-4

http://www.inquisitr.com/4156269/passen ... -airlines/

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia ... what.htmls

There are plenty, plenty more but I am sure you get the point, or do you?

And the public at large will still be making reservations and flying on United. Other than giving late night TV some fresh material the world goes on.

dtw2hyd wrote:

Both are damaged brands, start another New Airline transfer AOP and all good assets, let the old duo rot

Absurd on so many levels. The United name is toxic now, and unlike Continental, is associated with poor customer service!

Rebrand and rename to Continental. Clean out management and implement the Go-Forward plan again! Get rid of that stupid Polaris class! Hire fresh, motivated employees.

sccutler wrote:

They need to acknowledge greatness where it exists in their heritage, and nothing greater than the true pinnacle of excellence -

Rebrand as Texas International Airlines!

Go the extra mile and do Trans World Airlines and bring back the classiest paint job he world has ever seen.

Flighty wrote:

Still, they have the leading brand in the (US) industry. As shown in the recent millennial brand survey.

As of last week, that particular data point is probably no longer valid...

bmw123 has great points. Furthermore, negative publicity just festers and breeds all kinds of issues. We all have witnessed the pajama wearing idiots acting like a-holes and treating gate agents, flight crew like crap. Now those "types" will think they have even more "power" to complain to get something extra. Seeing articles about "XX percentage of fliers will now take a route twice as long just to avoid UA" is ridiculous. The only reason people would ever take a route twice as long is if it was significantly cheaper (or they are an anet member and want to fly on a specific type:)).

This s*&^ storm for UA will pass, but it will be tough and the media is ready to pounce on anything and everything. The couple on their way to a wedding trying to sit in E Plus comes to mind. DL announcing their new $10k offering was genius on their part and the media just focuses on the $10k amount like it is a briefcase of cash. Somehow me thinks if I get bumped on a TPA-ATL flight that the amount would not be near $10k and rightfully so.

The "I am entitled to xxxxx" sector of society is the problem. Common sense and common courtesy are unfortunately very uncommon these days.

The other issue is all these people saying they will boycott UA, good luck finding a seat on the other carriers. Planes are pretty full these days.

Squeezix wrote:

Flighty wrote:

Still, they have the leading brand in the (US) industry. As shown in the recent millennial brand survey.

As of last week, that particular data point is probably no longer valid...

Agreed. I wonder who will be less popular amongst millennials: United or BP.

Boeing778X wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

Both are damaged brands, start another New Airline transfer AOP and all good assets, let the old duo rot

Absurd on so many levels. The United name is toxic now, and unlike Continental, is associated with poor customer service!

Rebrand and rename to Continental. Clean out management and implement the Go-Forward plan again! Get rid of that stupid Polaris class! Hire fresh, motivated employees.

If CO was a separate airline today, it wouldn't be no different than UA. UA is a product of ripe bad customer service, greed and power trip employees encouraged by post 9/11 security environment. Employees know very well customers cannot open their mouth anywhere from the point they enter airport property until they leave destination airport property, and they are milking it to cover up bad customer service.

I was under the impression UA is run by pmCO management, am I wrong.

I agree with hiring fresh motivated employees. Lufthansa is able to hire lot of young FAs on part time roster. But I think current low wages will not attract any fresh blood.

No doubt that something needs to be done. As for going to the name Continential? No, it's lazy like the merged paint job. United just needs to rebrand, and bring back the tulip. It also needs to seriously change some policies, and allow employees to be empowered to make decisions.

When I worked for United, we were employee owned. We had empowerment. I had tools that helped me fix a problem, and I was never questioned when I used them. I didn't need a supervisors approval to waive a fee, or to get someone a free hotel stay. Nothing. And I mean nothing sucks worse than having policies that tie my hands up. Meaning, I can't stand telling a passenger that I can right a wrong because of a policy. Or, needing to get a supervisor to grant me something to fix something.

Boeing778X wrote:

Squeezix wrote:

Flighty wrote:

Still, they have the leading brand in the (US) industry. As shown in the recent millennial brand survey.

As of last week, that particular data point is probably no longer valid...

Agreed. I wonder who will be less popular amongst millennials: United or BP.

BP, by far. Doesn't even merit a discussion.

F9Animal wrote:

No doubt that something needs to be done. As for going to the name Continential? No, it's lazy like the merged paint job. United just needs to rebrand, and bring back the tulip. It also needs to seriously change some policies, and allow employees to be empowered to make decisions.

When I worked for United, we were employee owned. We had empowerment. I had tools that helped me fix a problem, and I was never questioned when I used them. I didn't need a supervisors approval to waive a fee, or to get someone a free hotel stay. Nothing. And I mean nothing sucks worse than having policies that tie my hands up. Meaning, I can't stand telling a passenger that I can right a wrong because of a policy. Or, needing to get a supervisor to grant me something to fix something.

Most of the United memes I saw in the wake of Dao had the tulip. Not to say some didn't have the globe, but most did in fact have the tulip. And I'm fiends on FB with a meme-loving fear-mongerer.

seahawk wrote:

The jokes will stay with the brand for a long time but the whole thing is so minor that it does not warrant a rebrand.

The internet memes are still pouring in. The negative press is still pouring in. Earnings are down BEFORE this all broke out. From a total market cap of US$24Bn at Christmas, they are down to $21.4Bn and still dropping.

Their public handling of the situation was a study in "how not to do it." In fact, one of the most important things to passengers is not the paint or how fancy the lie-flat suites are, but will the airline take care of me if something goes wrong? Will I get what I paid for and will I get to my destination with reasonable dispatch? United Airlines has shown that again and again they will not take care of their customers and that they could care less about getting their customers and their belongings to their destination with reasonable dispatch when something goes wrong. They instead fall back on the CoC and expect passengers and the public to be sympathetic to the airline. Well, that ain't how it works and UA is CONTINUING to hemorrhage market capitalization as this nightmare of corporate image continues to worsten.

I think you have a problem with your own perception of the situation.

tpaewr wrote:

This Long winded editorial surprised me . In the end it implies the "United" brand is ruined and the company should return to being "Continental".


As an ex-COn I find this wildly flattering. But I also totally disagree. Yes the united brand is ruined but frankly something new is needed. I don't think Calling ourselves Continental will fix anything.

http://m.atwonline.com/airlines/editori ... fe-support

Maybe we should buy the rights to Pan Am name? Lol

I believe the Pan Am brand has an owner. Regardless, Pan Am was the pinnacle of customer service; something United and Mr. Munoz don't seem to care about. I recently stated, (another tread) that a United attendant told me horror stories of how they treat customer food and drinks; particularly first class customers that appear "too uppity" because they can afford a first class ticket, or a woman was too well dressed, for the female attendants jealous mind. If only, Mr. Trippe and Pan Am could return, Mr. Munoz and is ill-operated company would be out of business. I'll never set foot on a United operated aircraft again.

Pundits on various news shows, especially the financial news shows, say that people will still fly an airline based on a combination of schedule and price. Service tends to be very low on the list of criteria for selecting an airline.

What may be of concern to UA is the matter of corporate contracts. If you remember the summer of 2000, it was one of the stormiest in Chicago. Couple that with the pilots staging a sick-out, and UA operations were a disaster, especially at the ORD hub. AA picked up a number of corporate contracts within the next few years, particularly in the Midwest, because the people who make corporate flying decisions were hearing complaints about not being able to get from A to B and back.

My wife made it known to someone at her employer that UA is inconsistent with carry-ons. She had no trouble carrying a rollerboard onto a 739, flying ORD-EWR. But, at EWR for the return, on a 739, that gate agent told her, point blank, that she had to check her bag. And she got charged for it, which went on the expense account.

When you see the number of issues that wind up on videos and in newspapers/TV, along with employees complaining to those who get the corporate contracts, UA could be seeing some business go to AA, DL, or WN.

What is also an issue is the fact that ORD's security force has some problems that aren't being addressed in a timely manner. That will be another problem for Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.

I believe that the rights to Pan Am are owned by a railway company called Guilford.

A new name might not be the answer. Look at the combined AOL/Yahoo new name "Oath".........stupid!

ckfred wrote:

Pundits on various news shows, especially the financial news shows, say that people will still fly an airline based on a combination of schedule and price. Service tends to be very low on the list of criteria for selecting an airline.

What may be of concern to UA is the matter of corporate contracts. If you remember the summer of 2000, it was one of the stormiest in Chicago. Couple that with the pilots staging a sick-out, and UA operations were a disaster, especially at the ORD hub. AA picked up a number of corporate contracts within the next few years, particularly in the Midwest, because the people who make corporate flying decisions were hearing complaints about not being able to get from A to B and back.

My wife made it known to someone at her employer that UA is inconsistent with carry-ons. She had no trouble carrying a rollerboard onto a 739, flying ORD-EWR. But, at EWR for the return, on a 739, that gate agent told her, point blank, that she had to check her bag. And she got charged for it, which went on the expense account.

When you see the number of issues that wind up on videos and in newspapers/TV, along with employees complaining to those who get the corporate contracts, UA could be seeing some business go to AA, DL, or WN.

What is also an issue is the fact that ORD's security force has some problems that aren't being addressed in a timely manner. That will be another problem for Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.

What part of your post would be fixed solely by rebranding the company? It's not like your wife would suddenly forget which airline she was on when she had a baggage issue. Or that her company would forget.

I've been saying rebrand as Continental since this happened. The negative press in China was the final dagger. The United brand is beyond repair. I agree that lipstick on a pig is not enough. Real change needs to happen. Leave Chicago and setup a new HQ in Houston. I live in Chicago and can vouch that this city is where kindness and customer service come to die. There's something to the fact that American, Delta and Southwest are all HQ'd in the South. I feel for all the United loyalists but it just didn't work out. That's business.

jumbojet wrote:

seahawk wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

If it had blown over quickly, we still wouldn't be discussing it today.

It is an aviation forum, in the mainstream media the thing is nearly over and it is surely no longer trending on social media. And to be honest this whole incident was a minor problem blown way out proportion and in the end it might be found that the airport "police" played the biggest part in the whole story.

I just googled United Airlines and came up with lots of negative press that is relatively new, all within 24 hours, its absolutely still alive in the mainstream press. Here you go, I even took the liberty of copy and pasting some interesting ones for you...

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/201 ... damon-feud

http://www.businessinsider.com/united-a ... 411-2017-4

http://www.inquisitr.com/4156269/passen ... -airlines/

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia ... what.htmls

There are plenty, plenty more but I am sure you get the point, or do you?

The Airliners.Net Community gets it, JumboJet does not like United. This story will be alive in the media until something else comes along because it is controversial click-bait. The mainstream media has become a complete joke and has always had misinformed opinions on aviation. Bookings are still strong and UA leads the top 4 airlines in D:00 and completion for the month. Moreover, the day before the earnings call, UA's stock was back up to 70 points,1 point below where it was early Monday morning the day after the incident. The stock currently rests at 69.22 which is up 2 points from yesterday when you made a comment on another thread about the stock tanking. Moreover, the dip in stock price had little to do with the 3411 incident as several people explained to you on the earning call thread. Please do us all a favor, walk upstairs to your moms living room and discuss your frustrations with United with her, not us. We're over it.

77H

william wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

seahawk wrote:

It is an aviation forum, in the mainstream media the thing is nearly over and it is surely no longer trending on social media. And to be honest this whole incident was a minor problem blown way out proportion and in the end it might be found that the airport "police" played the biggest part in the whole story.

I just googled United Airlines and came up with lots of negative press that is relatively new, all within 24 hours, its absolutely still alive in the mainstream press. Here you go, I even took the liberty of copy and pasting some interesting ones for you...

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/201 ... damon-feud

http://www.businessinsider.com/united-a ... 411-2017-4

http://www.inquisitr.com/4156269/passen ... -airlines/

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia ... what.htmls

There are plenty, plenty more but I am sure you get the point, or do you?

And the public at large will still be making reservations and flying on United. Other than giving late night TV some fresh material the world goes on.

Its the Click and bait mentality that is in and on the Internet. It's people trying to cash in on the back of UA and tomorrow it will be whatever new outrage or event that is causing a uproar. They will be back to Pick on UA or Airlines in general because there easy targets for outrage. The people want cheap airfares and they have given us just that and seats are tight and its far from easy with security concerns to fly.

77H wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

seahawk wrote:

It is an aviation forum, in the mainstream media the thing is nearly over and it is surely no longer trending on social media. And to be honest this whole incident was a minor problem blown way out proportion and in the end it might be found that the airport "police" played the biggest part in the whole story.

I just googled United Airlines and came up with lots of negative press that is relatively new, all within 24 hours, its absolutely still alive in the mainstream press. Here you go, I even took the liberty of copy and pasting some interesting ones for you...

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/201 ... damon-feud

http://www.businessinsider.com/united-a ... 411-2017-4

http://www.inquisitr.com/4156269/passen ... -airlines/

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia ... what.htmls




There are plenty, plenty more but I am sure you get the point, or do you?

The Airliners.Net Community gets it, JumboJet does not like United. This story will be alive in the media until something else comes along because it is controversial click-bait. The mainstream media has become a complete joke and has always had misinformed opinions on aviation. Bookings are still strong and UA leads the top 4 airlines in D:00 and completion for the month. Moreover, the day before the earnings call, UA's stock was back up to 70 points,1 point below where it was early Monday morning the day after the incident. The stock currently rests at 69.22 which is up 2 points from yesterday when you made a comment on another thread about the stock tanking. Moreover, the dip in stock price had little to do with the 3411 incident as several people explained to you on the earning call thread. Please do us all a favor, walk upstairs to your moms living room and discuss your frustrations with United with her, not us. We're over it.

77H

AMEN 77H Click bait media is the main stream media. Foe him it makes life so much more enjoyable.

dtw2hyd wrote:

I was under the impression UA is run by pmCO management, am I wrong.

Yes you are wrong. The majority of management and key decision makers now are all ex NW, AA, and G4.

B737900ER wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

I was under the impression UA is run by pmCO management, am I wrong.

Yes you are wrong. The majority of management and key decision makers now are all ex NW, AA, and G4.

Yes, trying to clean up the disaster left by the ex-cons.....

77H wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

seahawk wrote:

It is an aviation forum, in the mainstream media the thing is nearly over and it is surely no longer trending on social media. And to be honest this whole incident was a minor problem blown way out proportion and in the end it might be found that the airport "police" played the biggest part in the whole story.

I just googled United Airlines and came up with lots of negative press that is relatively new, all within 24 hours, its absolutely still alive in the mainstream press. Here you go, I even took the liberty of copy and pasting some interesting ones for you...

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/201 ... damon-feud

http://www.businessinsider.com/united-a ... 411-2017-4

http://www.inquisitr.com/4156269/passen ... -airlines/

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia ... what.htmls

There are plenty, plenty more but I am sure you get the point, or do you?

The Airliners.Net Community gets it, JumboJet does not like United. This story will be alive in the media until something else comes along because it is controversial click-bait. The mainstream media has become a complete joke and has always had misinformed opinions on aviation. Bookings are still strong and UA leads the top 4 airlines in D:00 and completion for the month. Moreover, the day before the earnings call, UA's stock was back up to 70 points,1 point below where it was early Monday morning the day after the incident. The stock currently rests at 69.22 which is up 2 points from yesterday when you made a comment on another thread about the stock tanking. Moreover, the dip in stock price had little to do with the 3411 incident as several people explained to you on the earning call thread. Please do us all a favor, walk upstairs to your moms living room and discuss your frustrations with United with her, not us. We're over it.

77H

77H, your comment to another user to "walk upstairs to [their] moms living room" is beyond rude and completely unrelated to the topic at hand.

Your profile says you've been a member for 7 months. Your comment is not funny, it's disrespectful. All of this simply makes you a new member who has written a personal attack on another member because you disagree with them. You do not speak for the community here.

You might want to check your aggression before write here. This is a civilized forum, not a United flight.

People get outraged for two seconds, comment something nasty on Uniteds facebook page, feel that they've done their part to uphold the #powerofthepeople, and then forget about it all two weeks later. You think American's have that long of a memory? Take a look at our politics and figure it out. Hating airlines is fun right now, it wont be in a month, America will find something else to hate--hopefully another kid falls into a gorilla enclosure.

All United has to do is validate the Facebook comment hacks with a rebrand, and a surface level commitment to "doing better". Repaint the planes, edit the social media, give the masses snacks, avoid overbooking, etc. If United successfully rebrands within the next three years and does an adequate restructuring of service, the same morons that demanded Munoz's head are gonna say "Wow, just had a great flight on United..BIG change from three years ago!".

If United is truly serious about its commitment to a better airline, and finds that their are unfixable institutional problems, then we'll see some corporate restructuring. But as far as getting people on planes, that's a simple fix.

These changes are more than likely already being discussed in the Sears Tower, it's not like investors are gonna let one of the worlds biggest airlines go bankrupt over an isolated incident caught on video.

exunited wrote:

B737900ER wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

I was under the impression UA is run by pmCO management, am I wrong.

Yes you are wrong. The majority of management and key decision makers now are all ex NW, AA, and G4.

Yes, trying to clean up the disaster left by the ex-cons.....

EX CO management nearly destroyed the combined airline. While there are issues remaining, the direction of the company is positive.
No one at UA expected the CDA Security staff to manhandle the customer.

dtw2hyd wrote:

I was under the impression UA is run by pmCO management, am I wrong.

No longer the case with the exception of their Chief Operating Officer:

CEO: Oscar Munoz (no previous affiliation)
President: Scott Kirby (pmUS, AA)
COO: Greg Hart (pmCO)
CIO: Linda Jojo (no previous affiliation)
CFO: Andrew Levy (G4)
CRO: Andrew Nocella (pmUS, AA)

Interestingly enough, a sizable swath of the pmCO crowd have ended up at Delta. Outside of their President, I believe virtually the entire senior chain of departments like Corporate Real Estate and others are pmCO.

They should launch a major ad campaign where this summer bags fly free on United. Then it's up to United to make sure customers see a brand new attitude at the airline so when the promo is over, people want to continue to fly them.

dtw2hyd wrote:

UA is a product of ripe bad customer service, greed and power trip employees encouraged by post 9/11 security environment. Employees know very well customers cannot open their mouth anywhere from the point they enter airport property until they leave destination airport property

Actually United was a very progressive airline in this regard. I remember hearing in the late 90s a story of a United FA telling a First Class passenger who was denied a reasonable request that she would have him arrested upon landing if he argued with her.

afcjets wrote:

They should launch a major ad campaign where this summer bags fly free on United. Then it's up to United to make sure customers see a brand new attitude at the airline so when the promo is over, people want to continue to fly them.

I don't think forgoing a major source of revenue would be smart. But they should look at other fees to help make the passenger experience better. Change fees and unaccompanied minor fees. They also need to work on seat reaccoms when aircraft are swapped, as they receive a high number of complaints for this as well.

Maybe everyone should use the power of the wallet, and fly other airlines. Sorry to my friends who are there.

dtw2hyd wrote:

Boeing778X wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

Both are damaged brands, start another New Airline transfer AOP and all good assets, let the old duo rot

Absurd on so many levels. The United name is toxic now, and unlike Continental, is associated with poor customer service!

Rebrand and rename to Continental. Clean out management and implement the Go-Forward plan again! Get rid of that stupid Polaris class! Hire fresh, motivated employees.

If CO was a separate airline today, it wouldn't be no different than UA. UA is a product of ripe bad customer service, greed and power trip employees encouraged by post 9/11 security environment.

Hmmm...In one hand, we have an award winning airline (Consistantly won awards from J.D. Powers for Customer Service), who was named in Fortune's Top 100 Most Admired Companies multiple years in a row, that was brought from the ashes to become one of the most innovative airlines in the industry and was breaking ground on alternative fuels and technology ...In the other, pure unadulterated sewage who knocks out and drags doctors out by their arms, breaks guitars, and practically spits on everyone including yours truly, who is currently still in a civil war, if you will, then has the audacity to have a motto like "Come Fly The Friendly Skies"...I think you're full of it, to be frank.

exunited wrote:

B737900ER wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

I was under the impression UA is run by pmCO management, am I wrong.

Yes you are wrong. The majority of management and key decision makers now are all ex NW, AA, and G4.

Yes, trying to clean up the disaster left by the ex-cons.....

FWIW, a UA employee I talked to a week or so ago compared Glenn Tilton to, literally, not joking, the Anti-Christ.

I feel bad for you. UA is now a place of unending shame.

planemechanic wrote:

This too shall pass, and all the social media ding dongs can go rage on another issue. My last ten flights on UA were basically 100% full, with several looking for, and getting, volunteers to take a later flight.

This doesn't make me want to fly United though. If several of my last 10 flights with them were looking for and getting volunteers to take a later flight, I'd just book a different airline my 11th time. I think the general (non-aviation enthusiast) public would agree with me. Flying is already stressful to a lot of people. The last thing people want is more hassle with their itineraries.

filipair wrote:

77H wrote:

jumbojet wrote:

I just googled United Airlines and came up with lots of negative press that is relatively new, all within 24 hours, its absolutely still alive in the mainstream press. Here you go, I even took the liberty of copy and pasting some interesting ones for you...

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/201 ... damon-feud

http://www.businessinsider.com/united-a ... 411-2017-4

http://www.inquisitr.com/4156269/passen ... -airlines/

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia ... what.htmls

There are plenty, plenty more but I am sure you get the point, or do you?

The Airliners.Net Community gets it, JumboJet does not like United. This story will be alive in the media until something else comes along because it is controversial click-bait. The mainstream media has become a complete joke and has always had misinformed opinions on aviation. Bookings are still strong and UA leads the top 4 airlines in D:00 and completion for the month. Moreover, the day before the earnings call, UA's stock was back up to 70 points,1 point below where it was early Monday morning the day after the incident. The stock currently rests at 69.22 which is up 2 points from yesterday when you made a comment on another thread about the stock tanking. Moreover, the dip in stock price had little to do with the 3411 incident as several people explained to you on the earning call thread. Please do us all a favor, walk upstairs to your moms living room and discuss your frustrations with United with her, not us. We're over it.

77H

77H, your comment to another user to "walk upstairs to [their] moms living room" is beyond rude and completely unrelated to the topic at hand.

Your profile says you've been a member for 7 months. Your comment is not funny, it's disrespectful. All of this simply makes you a new member who has written a personal attack on another member because you disagree with them. You do not speak for the community here.

You might want to check your aggression before write here. This is a civilized forum, not a United flight.

To me, it is disrespectful to continuously use a civil aviation forum to air out your personal dislike of a company. A company that employees tens of thousands of good, hard working employees and gets millions of people where the need to be safely every year, just like most airlines around the world. Sure I have been a "member" for 7 months, I have been reading the forums and looking at photos for 10+ years. Good of you to be so welcoming. You'd like me to check my "aggression" if you call it that, I'd like him to check his hate-mongering at the log-in page.

77H

VC10er wrote:

From a professional branding POV, they should NOT change the name to Continental or some other dumb new name like "Avialux" - (which a branding company would love to be paid $350,000 to do). I

I hear that Allegis is available

DocLightning wrote:

seahawk wrote:

The jokes will stay with the brand for a long time but the whole thing is so minor that it does not warrant a rebrand.

The internet memes are still pouring in. The negative press is still pouring in. Earnings are down BEFORE this all broke out. From a total market cap of US$24Bn at Christmas, they are down to $21.4Bn and still dropping.

Their public handling of the situation was a study in "how not to do it." In fact, one of the most important things to passengers is not the paint or how fancy the lie-flat suites are, but will the airline take care of me if something goes wrong? Will I get what I paid for and will I get to my destination with reasonable dispatch? United Airlines has shown that again and again they will not take care of their customers and that they could care less about getting their customers and their belongings to their destination with reasonable dispatch when something goes wrong. They instead fall back on the CoC and expect passengers and the public to be sympathetic to the airline. Well, that ain't how it works and UA is CONTINUING to hemorrhage market capitalization as this nightmare of corporate image continues to worsten.

I think you have a problem with your own perception of the situation.

People are not that stupid, that a rebrand will make them forget what the company did while operating under the old brand. UA needs to change the way they treat their customers, if they do, they will recover, if they don´t a rebrand won´t help. The worst idea would be a rebrand before you have made the changes and are really better at customer services. If they make the changes and the whole story still haunts them in 18-24 months, a rebrand becomes something that could be discussed, but I doubt that the story will still matter at that point.

UAL777UK wrote:

Yep. Pretty stupid idea to change the name. As vanguard737 stated you don't simply change the company name because you have had bad press. You ride it out and come out the other end wiser and stronger for it. Take Volkswagon for example, they took a hammering, massive fines, totally discredited......but today VW are as strong as ever. Just one case in point. UA has a lot to learn from this mess and it wont be easy but changing the name is a ridiculous idea.

ValuJet bought AirTran and kept the AirTran name, because they knew the ValuJet name was toxic.

bgm wrote:

I wouldn't be so sure. UA's been going through a "rough patch" for almost 7 years since the merger was announced, and was a bit of a basket case before then, too.

7 years? Are you kidding? There was the pilot slow taxi events in the very early 90s, IIRC. The ESOP members (everybody but the FAs?) were mad at the FAs because they got a raise and the ESOP members got equity and a 12% pay cut. The pilots had a slow down in 2000 again and got a big pay raise. Then the ESOP folded and all those pay cuts were worthless. Then the airline went bankrupt and more paycuts were issued and pensions were cut. Then the airline parked 100 737s, kinda replaced by CR7s. Then finally the merger.

Except for a couple of years after the ESOP in the late 90s, United employees have been kind of grumpy for over a generation.

I think the airline could use a rebranding, but only if things change. Why bother otherwise? The brand is not 'ruined' - it can be turned around. No one has died and while it looked like the planes would fall apart (crappy paint jobs and repaint cycles extended seemingly forever) at one point - United has seemingly run a safe operation.

Too late to change the name now.

The United name and brand should have been dropped with the merger, Continental had a far better reputation and rightly so, customer service, punctuality,
newer aircraft, you name it we were just a significantly better airline.

UA had been going down hill for years and they were never that great to begin with, just big, like Aeroflot. I never understood the argument for keeping the United name, supposedly it was 'better known'


It certainly was, as a really average or worse operation, without the merger with Cal they would not have survived.


But you can't change the name now, what you need is really good management to fix the problems, many airlines
have done this in the past.

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I don't get the obsession with the heyday of CO or UA. Both eras are long gone. Even CO was not the same airline at the time of the merger. There is no past to go back to for either airline. The only path is forward and the name of the airline has very little to do with it. Not a single argument In this thread makes the case for a brand change as the solution to United's problems.

Most of the following is probably influenced by my being located in the Chicago area for about half of my years, and I still have immediate family there as well as business ties.

I don't think the CO name carries the shine that ATW thinks. Whatever magic PMCO used to have, a lot of North America missed out on it due to their route structure. CO was an unknown to many major markets. Kind of like in the 1960s, when Delta was the airline you took to fly to the Southeast. People my age may also remember Lorenzo. I liked CO a lot pre-Lorenzo but he brought turbulent times and CO pretty much vanished from ORD, so I switched to UA which handled almost anything you needed out of ORD.

After 1980, I only took one trip on the new CO, and the only reason I was willing to take CO was the regard that a.netters had for it, because I had written CO off after Lorenzo. The flight was good and the crew was nice during flight, but we could hear griping CO crews in the terminal at ORD and IAH. This was early days of the merger so I get it.

Rebranding to CO would be a backward step. This trial by Social Media already is dying down and the counterpunch against Dr Dao is becoming more prominent. People are getting tired of Fake News and biased news, so they are open to more thorough explanations.

The memo to employees from OM ended with a paragraph about needing to take a look at what happened, and improving how it was handled if needed.

I do, however, believe there are lessons we can learn from this experience, and we are taking a close look at the circumstances surrounding this incident. Treating our customers and each other with respect and dignity is at the core of who we are, and we must always remember this no matter how challenging the situation.

With all that in mind... the Globe livery is stale and it would be hard to say a still independent CO would still be on that branding. A new post merger branding is overdue.

The problem for United is surely that there are so many previous examples of this, United broke my guitar, the leggings incident, the last CEO resigning in a corruption scandal, now this. It might be they were misreported, but that's the world we live in. UA are inept at handling these incidents and after a while mud sticks. The terrible initial statement with the CEO's name on it begins to discredit his credentials to turn around the culture, which is a need that was already understood.

It looks to me that there are genuine cultural problems which would simply transfer to a new trading name. The ATW article is somewhat naive in that regard.

seahawk wrote:

I doubt the brand is really damaged. this is a social media storm that will blow over quickly.

The House Transportation Committee is holding a hearing where United representatives will testify. The story dominated the news cycle for days. It is more than a social media storm.

seahawk wrote:

People are not that stupid, that a rebrand will make them forget what the company did while operating under the old brand. UA needs to change the way they treat their customers, if they do, they will recover, if they don´t a rebrand won´t help. The worst idea would be a rebrand before you have made the changes and are really better at customer services. If they make the changes and the whole story still haunts them in 18-24 months, a rebrand becomes something that could be discussed, but I doubt that the story will still matter at that point.

Much better. But I suspect people will remember this in two years. *IF* UA can get it's customer service act together by then, a rebrand may help people forget the bad old days.

tpaewr wrote:

This Long winded editorial surprised me .

Same pig, different lipstick.

Max Q wrote:

Too late to change the name now.

The United name and brand should have been dropped with the merger, Continental had a far better reputation and rightly so, customer service, punctuality,
newer aircraft, you name it we were just a significantly better airline.

UA had been going down hill for years and they were never that great to begin with, just big, like Aeroflot. I never understood the argument for keeping the United name, supposedly it was 'better known'


It certainly was, as a really average or worse operation, without the merger with Cal they would not have survived.


But you can't change the name now, what you need is really good management to fix the problems, many airlines
have done this in the past.

Blah, blah, blah again. So conveniently you once again spout the same lines of untruth. Please respond to this testimony given by the CEO of co about their inability to survive:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4005674/smisek-congress