I don't typically bash on United, as many of you know. However, this latest episode even has me fuming. I am literally so embarrassed after having read through this.

On twitter yesterday, Zach Honig, a United Million Miler and travel blogger extraordinaire who is partial to United, tweeted about a negative experience he had with the inflight crew on his flight. As if the service he received (or didn't receive) wasn't bad enough, one of United's FAs, @Gianna1809, went on a rant ridiculing Josh (and other customers) and blaming the customer for being too picky, when in fact the FAs were not doing their job. She even went so far as to call him a "drunk", for ordering a drink on board.

As if this isn't bad enough, she then eventually goes into the typical "my job is a safety professional, food service is just a perk", that US FAs seem to carry with them to the grave. It literally makes me sick just reading this.

It would be bad enough saying these things to a normal customer... But to a million miler, and famous industry blogger? Absolutely shameful. The sad thing is that this woman isn't the only FA like this. THIS is the reason why United is getting such a bad rep, and such bad press these days. Something needs to drastically change over on the inflight side of the house. I don't know what that change is, but it needs to start by canning this woman, as she makes all of the good FAs look bad

Here are some of her posts: Sorry about the multiple posts with the same tweets - Unfortunately twitter doesn't have a good way of displaying them all in order. At least not that I've found.

And just to show that she is a United FA (She denied it), she apparently forgot about these gems on her twitter page...

There’s always bad apples. She may need to start looking for a new job.

Man, UA really hasn't recovered from the Glenn and Jeff days.

I will hope that Oscar can turn it around, but when morale is in the dumps and it causes the cranky employees, it's a mark that unfortunately lasts for a while.

KLASM83 wrote:

Man, UA really hasn't recovered from the Glenn and Jeff days.

I will hope that Oscar can turn it around, but when morale is in the dumps and it causes the cranky employees, it's a mark that unfortunately lasts for a while.

It only took 3 replies to blame management.

I think Gina is going to be looking for a new J-O-B very soon.

Forgot to post this one. So the FAs were eating the candied orange peels... Awesome Service!...

I mean, if the FAs are too damn lazy to present the SIGNATURE cocktail in the correct manner, and just eat the garnish themselves as a snack, what's the point of even having a signature cocktail? Why pay for first class, if you're not getting what you paid for and what was advertised to you? Just makes me so damn mad. All of it!




Okay, I'm going to bed now. Maybe, I'll come back to my senses tomorrow. Good night

Wow.. I'm usually pretty pro-employee, and even that they're responsible for safety first before service.

However I just think her tact here is horrible. I don't think shes is horrendously wrong in some of her comments, (especially on the food thing, if an FA hasn't eaten due to a flight delay etc, I want them to eat, period. Having an FA who has eaten properly is a safety issue!)

That being said she's also kindof stupid for doing this under a twitter account that is clearly associated with her identity. If you want to troll customers in this way, do it with a more anonymous account.

jetblastdubai wrote:

KLASM83 wrote:

Man, UA really hasn't recovered from the Glenn and Jeff days.

I will hope that Oscar can turn it around, but when morale is in the dumps and it causes the cranky employees, it's a mark that unfortunately lasts for a while.

It only took 3 replies to blame management.

But it is the job of Management (especially Upper Management) to motivate and encourage proper attitudes from their employees. Oscar has said as much on a podcast. (I think the Cranky Flier Podcast, but I could be wrong.)

They're not literally responsible for every single bad apple, but if the organization as a whole has bad attitudes its management's fault that it is allowed to continue, even if they didn't start it.

USAirKid wrote:

Wow.. I'm usually pretty pro-employee, and even that they're responsible for safety first before service.

However I just think her tact here is horrible. I don't think shes is horrendously wrong in some of her comments, (especially on the food thing, if an FA hasn't eaten due to a flight delay etc, I want them to eat, period. Having an FA who has eaten properly is a safety issue!)

That being said she's also kindof stupid for doing this under a twitter account that is clearly associated with her identity. If you want to troll customers in this way, do it with a more anonymous account.

I agree with you mostly. However, she shouldn't be eating one of the first class salads. I was in first recently, and my first choice of entrée was gone by the time they got to me. If I had figured out that it was because a crew member decided the crew meals weren't good enough for them, so they just took a first class meal during boarding (before people order their meal) I'd be pretty pissed. But, yes I agree that they do need to eat. I just don't think it was handled in the correct manner here at all.

"Eating them from the container" As in putting their bare hand in, grabbing a few and putting it in their mouth? Wonder if it was the same FA with the salad.

I agree with you mostly. However, she shouldn't be eating one of the first class salads. I was in first recently, and my first choice of entrée was gone by the time they got to me.

Same here. I thought it odd as they would certainly know how many firsties were booked and checked in. In the end, it wasn't a big issue for me, but now I'm wondering if there wasn't a reason that my United first class cabin literally ran out of food. Hmmm...

We have one huge safety issue here

Dumb & dumber.

Entitled guy who flies too many miles a year ("I am more important than you") and will take Twitter on storm to vent his frustrations.

Not very smart FA who acts as a (bad) community manager for UA even if she is not paid for that (as she mentions before, she is only paid for safety stuff).

They both need a life.

United needs to change the employee contract that puts employees on notice that such behavior on social media like the one that Gianna displays is unacceptable and the basis for termination.

FA's like her are the same ones that will bash you to your face and when you respond in kind, call the pilot and police to have you removed from the flight due to safety. It's easy for people like this to constantly hide behind the safety issue for their lazy incompetent behavior.

Unfortunately she won't be disciplined and will continue to do what she does best...berate the one that pays her salary. Without the passengers she would most likely be working as a waitress somewhere. I'm sure she would suck at that too.

It is common for crew to eat left over first and business meals if there are any spares but I agree on boarding it is slightly unprofessional. However her comments on Twitter, I can’t wrap my head around, are they really worth losing your job or st the very least to get a disciplinary over it? I understand wanting to protect the brand but all that did was damage it further. From both sides I can see the issue but It shouldn’t be broadcasted on social media

United has an Old Fashioned now? How’s it taste?

flyfresno wrote:

United has an Old Fashioned now? How’s it taste?

It’s actually really good, other than the fact that they misspelled whiskey on the bottle. It says Whiskye...

But, first customers don’t notice that, because the FAs pour it into a glass. In economy, you’re just given a plastic cup with ice and the pre-mixed bottle on the side, so you notice it there. But it is really good!

SCQ83 wrote:

Dumb & dumber.

Entitled guy who flies too many miles a year ("I am more important than you") and will take Twitter on storm to vent his frustrations.

Not very smart FA who acts as a (bad) community manager for UA even if she is not paid for that (as she mentions before, she is only paid for safety stuff).

They both need a life.

How is it entitled to expect advertised service and offerings? If UA offered you meal service but then chose not to give you one, should we call you entitled too?

If the FA was only there for safety they wouldn't do drink service at all. So yes, it is part of their job.

USAirKid wrote:

Wow.. I'm usually pretty pro-employee, and even that they're responsible for safety first before service.

However I just think her tact here is horrible. I don't think shes is horrendously wrong in some of her comments, (especially on the food thing, if an FA hasn't eaten due to a flight delay etc, I want them to eat, period. Having an FA who has eaten properly is a safety issue!)

Bullshit. Sorry for the harsh word, but an FA that has skipped a meal is not a safety hazard. Humans ate very irregularly before they got civilized, our bodies are more than capable of skipping a meal or two. And nobody is asking the FAs to skip a meal, but just to wait for a proper moment to munch it down.
Also, nobody complained about the FAs getting proper quality meals, but I highly doubt United serves their crew meals in china. Those FAs, and also the twitter FA, were awful specimens. Period.

Also, yes FAs are there for safety. They are also there for service. Not providing proper service with the excuse that they are there for safety is dumb and poor job performance. Period.

Wow lol not once in my 30+ years of flying up front have I ever seen crew eating a crew meal while boarding and in the ground. Granted don’t fly UA so can’t comment on how often or if it happens normally. But her response..wow just wow. I would definitely send that to UA corporate. I am 100% positive they will not find that acceptable in any way. I hope she finds herself in the unemployment line very soon. Foolish as hell.

I’m fuming that you’re fuming about someone else fuming

This FA needs to go. Inappropriate to be talking to a customer like this and especially on a public medium. I wonder if UA will take notice of their employee. This makes UA look bad. The OP has every right to be upset and even more so how this apparent FA is talking to him. Although, this probably should been addressed via formal means with Customer Relations.

The effort she is putting in to defend the flight attendant and United as a whole is quite amusing in my opinion. Do you not have anything better to do in your spare time?

SocalApproach wrote:

Do you not have anything better to do in your spare time?

Kind of like how grown adults make posts on here about someone elses outrage?

I think this highlights why US carriers need an onboard manager role FA- CSM,ISN,FSM,ISD,Purser someone who permanently operates in the role, who leads the team, ensures service standards are adheared too, and has additional training to act as an escalation point in case of any customer recovery/management/comma challenges. US carriers seem to be the only ones who don’t have this role...

I can't imagine how itchy persons complained about stupid things before the invention of Twitter

Does "United" actually mean "united against the customers" ?

It’s amusing here to see the comments that are obviously being posted by other flight attendants. This guy did nothing to indicate he was entitled or a difficult customer. All the Twitter comments were entirely professional. The only one here to blame is the FA. Yes there are difficult people everywhere but guess what you’re paid to deal with it. I’m not talking about abusive situations so don’t misunderstand. I run hotels and I’m the first one who would defend an abused associate. I have evicted many guests in my 30 year career for abusing my associates. Great news,
the unemployment rate is such that if your better suited to work at the local landfill (like Gianna) they likely have an opening. I like United and I certainly hope this idiot gets fired tomorrow.

Did the United social media team ever reply?

Do not blame the FA too quick. She is entitled her opinion and express accordingly. We can not blame her for expressing her feelings and opinions.

Whether her feelings or opinions is right or wrong, it is not for us to judge. We may express our own opinions on how we feel about the opinion but we should not judge her based on her expression.

And to be frankly, there is nothing offensive in her remarks. I mean, calling someone drunk is overact, but it is not the sort of behaviour to give her a death penalty in her career. There are far worse behaviours than calling some drunk.

I really hope this FA gets disciplined in some manner, that kind of behavior is simply unacceptable and is just an absolutely poor representation of United. I can also imagine that given the string of poor PR that United has seen lately it would be even less acceptable. Clearly UA has some work to do on training their employees, maybe they should give a call to chick fil a.....

USAirKid wrote:

especially on the food thing, if an FA hasn't eaten due to a flight delay etc, I want them to eat, period. Having an FA who has eaten properly is a safety issue!

if it were indeed a safety issue then the airline should be providing free meals to passengers because you know, they also participate in evacuations and can be slower than normal if they haven't eaten properly

Let's see...

Yes, she is entitled to her opinions.

But...

Calling someone a drunk is an insult, especially if you are a customer who is obviously not. It like calling someone fat, especially when alcoholism is a disease many people struggle with.

Beyond that, her biggest issue is that SHE LIES about being an FA and under that guise goes out of her way to make the customer feel unimportant.

I.e. You have an issue with a product or service. The employee of the company, instead of helping you solve the issues or address your concerns, creates a fake profile instead and calls you an idiot to discredit you.

Don't see ANY issues there?

First of all, no sane travel blogger stans for United. I believe Zach has some sort of financial relationship with them...

Sorry to say, she probably thinks she is immune from punishment because she’s in a union, and would probably claim discrimination.
What would amaze me is if she is not disciplined due to the airline’s social media policy. I’d be shocked if they didn’t have one.
IMHO there is little excuse for being too lazy to do your job. She needs to be held accountable for her actions.
BUT the original FA in the story needs to be retrained at the very least.

That said, with all due respect to the O/P, I do think you’re making too much out of it...but just a little.

I’ve just messaged her and United on Twitter.

Reminds me of one of those movie scenes where a man and woman are arguing with smoke coming out of their ears, then they start making out.

Those two need to get a room

jetblastdubai wrote:

KLASM83 wrote:

Man, UA really hasn't recovered from the Glenn and Jeff days.

I will hope that Oscar can turn it around, but when morale is in the dumps and it causes the cranky employees, it's a mark that unfortunately lasts for a while.

It only took 3 replies to blame management.

I see the ability to count to three is indeed a skillset you have, it is noted lol

Poop rolls downhill, and while there are legions of great people at UA, one can't help but notice how inconsistent the management has been.

I love UA, but they're behind. We're at year 8 since the merger, people. For example, UA still has two separate systems for MX tracking (sUA and sCO), and that's an integration that needed to happen around combined AOC. While it is understood that causation is not correlation, if one can't combine IT systems, how are you going to combine cultures, nevertheless try to make good gestures to bump morale.

I'm just not seeing it, yet. I'll still rack up MilagePlus points, but like an old friend, you've got to call them out when they're getting off the path, and I don't want to see United die a death of a thousand cuts.

chonetsao wrote:

Do not blame the FA too quick. She is entitled her opinion and express accordingly. We can not blame her for expressing her feelings and opinions....

As a corporate employee, she is NOT entitled to express her opinions which are in violation of employee social media guidelines.

chonetsao wrote:

Do not blame the FA too quick. She is entitled her opinion and express accordingly. .

The company has a social media policy for all employees and this is a gross violation of that policy.

SCQ83 wrote:

Dumb & dumber.

Entitled guy who flies too many miles a year ("I am more important than you") and will take Twitter on storm to vent his frustrations.

Not very smart FA who acts as a (bad) community manager for UA even if she is not paid for that (as she mentions before, she is only paid for safety stuff).

They both need a life.

Zach is not an "entitled flier", He writes for TPG, arguably the largest travel blog on earth. It is his job to report both positive and negative experiences. Anyone who reads this blog and has United interest know that Zach is essentially their Star Alliance corespondent.

SCQ83 wrote:

Dumb & dumber.

Entitled guy who flies too many miles a year ("I am more important than you") and will take Twitter on storm to vent his frustrations.

Not very smart FA who acts as a (bad) community manager for UA even if she is not paid for that (as she mentions before, she is only paid for safety stuff).

They both need a life.

This is the most dumbest thing i read all day today. If you don't voice the issues at hand...they will never be addressed. And It's not entitlement...It's about the service for premium passengers.

I actually hope someone from United Airlines is snooping around here. Even if she's based out of San Francisco, she created a liability for the airline and should be at least suspended with final warning. This woman may have tried to scrub the information from her Twitter, but screenshots are forever. She definitely lied about Zach Honig, which will get her in trouble.

KLASM83 wrote:

jetblastdubai wrote:

KLASM83 wrote:

Man, UA really hasn't recovered from the Glenn and Jeff days.

I will hope that Oscar can turn it around, but when morale is in the dumps and it causes the cranky employees, it's a mark that unfortunately lasts for a while.

It only took 3 replies to blame management.

I see the ability to count to three is indeed a skillset you have, it is noted lol

Poop rolls downhill, and while there are legions of great people at UA, one can't help but notice how inconsistent the management has been.

I love UA, but they're behind. We're at year 8 since the merger, people. For example, UA still has two separate systems for MX tracking (sUA and sCO), and that's an integration that needed to happen around combined AOC. While it is understood that causation is not correlation, if one can't combine IT systems, how are you going to combine cultures, nevertheless try to make good gestures to bump morale.

I'm just not seeing it, yet. I'll still rack up MilagePlus points, but like an old friend, you've got to call them out when they're getting off the path, and I don't want to see United die a death of a thousand cuts.

When your company leader (KIrby) has a direct, stated, and long-time adversarial relationship with customers, it is only natural that those employees who do not have a clear understanding of what their profession means, begin to engage in behavior that is in keeping with his attitude.

The only stupid I see is someone posting anything about their job on social media. I have no clue why someone would do that. The FA's job is an FAA safety requirement. Service is pretty much secondary to that.

piedmontf284000 wrote:

United needs to change the employee contract that puts employees on notice that such behavior on social media like the one that Gianna displays is unacceptable and the basis for termination.

FA's like her are the same ones that will bash you to your face and when you respond in kind, call the pilot and police to have you removed from the flight due to safety. It's easy for people like this to constantly hide behind the safety issue for their lazy incompetent behavior.

Unfortunately she won't be disciplined and will continue to do what she does best...berate the one that pays her salary. Without the passengers she would most likely be working as a waitress somewhere. I'm sure she would suck at that too.

United won't have the balls to fire her and make it stick. The union will offer to settle a few grievances in order to keep her employed. Employees expect union representation to do whatever it takes to keep each and every employee on staff. That's the sense of entitlement - more so that a few pissy passengers . (And if you don't know how to handle pissy passengers with grace, you're in the wrong field.)

chonetsao wrote:

Do not blame the FA too quick. She is entitled her opinion and express accordingly. We can not blame her for expressing her feelings and opinions.

Whether her feelings or opinions is right or wrong, it is not for us to judge. We may express our own opinions on how we feel about the opinion but we should not judge her based on her expression.

And to be frankly, there is nothing offensive in her remarks. I mean, calling someone drunk is overact, but it is not the sort of behaviour to give her a death penalty in her career. There are far worse behaviours than calling some drunk.

Wrong.

I appreciate her candor.