New York Times: Who would miss United Airlines?

What United did this week was criminal. Corporate welfare is now all the rage, and companies can file for bankruptcy while now the poor schmucks who work for them CANNOT discharge their debts anymore. As a poster at an airline forum said best:

"I also find it laughable that during this heightened "Christian" age in American politics, so many apparently have no problem with stripping people of living wages, healthcare options, and now their retirement pensions.

Jesus would be so proud."

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New York Times editorial
May 15, 2005:

In giving United Airlines permission to default on its employee pension plans last week, Chief Judge Eugene R. Wedoff of United States Bankruptcy Court said the action was the "least bad choice" to keep the company in business.

Would United actually fail it were required to meet its pension obligations? The airline's unions say no, and plan to appeal the ruling. United counters that it will never recover if it has to pay $9 billion in pension debts, and that it might very well collapse....

But who would miss United if it just went under?

Its 61,000 employees would be devastated, of course, and they've already seen their wages cut twice, their pension plans disappear and their post-retirement health-care coverage vanish since the airline filed for Chapter 11 protection in December 2002....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/weekinreview/15basics.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print

As long as they think they're being treated fairly, they'll do nothing.

I think the last time I flew them was in 1994. And they are the largest carrier here in Denver.

I think that another carrier would swoop in and serve that route.

Meanwhile, more important than our personal convenience now is protecting what was promised to these workers, some of whom worked 30 and 40 years for the airline and now their pension is decimated.

solidified my, and my husband's, determination to avoid using United at all costs. We fly American and Frontier primarily, and we agree we would drive to Colorado Springs to fly Southwest, rather than give that airline one more hard earned dollar.

I can and am living without UAL. MKJ

When my father died suddenly, my mother wanted to utilize their airline miles to fly my sister home, and they wouldn't allow it. My parents also had miles with American, and they were more than willing to accomodate our needs. I have used American Airlines ever since.

.. the foundation for the decent, middle class existence that has sustained this nation for 70 years ....

It was their goal for decades, and now they are on the brink of success ....

This is awful ....

but would appreciate further information. What little I have heard -- and it is little -- is that the pension was a defined benefits plan, ie, the company put the $$ in and there were no personal contributions. Not sure how the government is bailing the pension plan out.

I am not making light of the employees situation but it is not any worse than what our steelworkers faced, or any company that goes under. I hope the employees can prove their case that the pension promise can be kept.

I had to write United a complaint letter, recently. I got a nice reply, with an apology for the delay because they were just getting so much correspondence! I told them unless I was forced to fly them, I wouldn't again -- 5 clerks for checking baggage, 20+ spaces, over an hour to get to the front of the line and many people missing flights (me). I said then, and I say now: if they can't manage the store properly, they deserve to go under. Someone else will take up the slack.

The pension promises made to contract workers will now go to some federal pension 'guaranty' function (which is also underfunded) and workers stand to lose half the pension of what was promised to them.

the federal pension guaranty program is in deep do!

They got lower pay because of the company contributions to the retirement plan. Same for health insurance.

This true for every company. So the workers gave up pay during the years they worked in order to "invest" it in pensions, by having the company fund pensions instead of paying them more, and now the company is reneging.

And, lest you think this affects executives, think again. They have a different reitrement plan and they made sure that theirs is always fully funded and cannot be canceled.

And, the money that United received after 9-11 was put into their Charter Air-Share business instead of into their airline. That way they got free money to build up their new company but didn't help their airline at all.

They're all crooks.

The taxpayers have dumped billions into them and gotten nothing. The corporation should be eradicated and the assets seized.

I've thought for many years (decades, really) that there are some "industries" that ought to be nationalized anyway -- energy, utilities and transportation. They are too important, IMO, to the basic functioning of a nation to be left to the vagaries of capitalism -- or to capitalist crooks and incompetents.

When I lived on the East Coast, I'd take it in preference over Northwest, even though I had to change planes in Chicago.

No more.

My last experience was in 2002, when I had to fly to San Francisco to catch my plane to Japan. As one of the posters above said, there weren't enough people to check in the passengers, the plane was cramped almost to the limits of endurance, and the flight attendants acted as if they were sorry to see us get on the plane and glad to be rid of us. (I realize that the company doesn't treat them well, but that's not the passengers' fault.)

What a contrast when I transferred to an All Nippon Airways plane. The ground personnel and flight attendants were efficient, courteous, and pleasant, and the plane was roomy.

When I have mentioned things like this, some DUers have come at me and said, "Well, you know, Asian airline personnel aren't paid as much."

So...let me get this straight. Because American airline personnel are paid more than foreign airline personnel, they have the right to treat the passengers with contempt or indidfference? I guess we'd better be glad they aren't paid any more. :sarcasm:

The executives of the entire U.S. airline industry seem determined to grow obscenely wealthy by reneging on their promises to employees and by making the experience of flying as miserable as possible for the passengers.

their governments.

They can afford to have plenty of staff, they don't have to make a profit, etc.

It's the "Avis" to Japan Airlines' "Herz."

the "Free Market" guys are all about handing out welfair help, instead of saying, hey if you can't keep it afloat, sell the business and see if someone else can make it work? They'll break the unions, give them money, allow ditching of pensions, lowering of wages (while raising CEO's wage) etc., but nooooo let it go under and allow the "Free Market" to take care of it, by putting it on the chopping block - well, that just isn't right?

mark my words.

If United is allowed to do this, watch them fall like dominoes. AFTER their CEO's get multi-million $$$$$$ golden parachutes of course.

business forever? It probably would not hurt if we started that with all corporations.

..... even before 9/11. And they have been bailed out for years by the
feds .......
Seize the company and the execs 2nd and third homes and sell all of it
to secure the workers pensions.

What was up with that and what happened?

The employees (without the flight attendants) bought the airline and fired Wolf. Then Steve Wolf went to US Airways and worked his "magic" there. Steve Wolf never met an airline he could run. All he knew how to do was sell assets, lease-back the rolling stock, and try like a madman to sell US Airways. Failing that, he tormented his former employees at United by pushing an insane merger between United and US Airways. Debt from that Wolfian merger attempt put both United and US Airways in very shaky financial positions to weather the post-9/11 storms.

There's 150,000 miles in my UAL frequent flier account.

Over the years I've sworn off travelling on American, Southwest, and US Air for various reasons. In my experience UAL is no better or worse than most airlines, although recently they seem to be having some difficulty with baggage handling.

I will say that I took a recent flight on Song, and that was a refreshingly pleasant experience.

With all due respect really, this ain't about baggage handling performance or someone's frequent flyer miles or who serves Coke vs Pepsi and why you like it, it's what these criminals are doing to people's pensions.

you started this thread by posing the question about who will really miss UAL -- to which I indicated that I would miss the airline, although I've noticed recent deterioration in their service. If you were really looking for a collective series of rants about the perfidity of UAL management, then you should have so stated that objective up front.

Yes, it's a rotten thing to happen, and yes it's a reflection of management's incompetence, and yes I'm sympathetic to the employees' situation -- but United has been in financial trouble for quite a few years now, and this resultant situation is something that was not necessarily unanticipated.

I made the horrible mistake of flying United from Sydney, Australia to Troy, New York. It was one of the most harrowing and miserable experiences of my entire life, and I've had some horrendous experiences.

The lack of professionalism at United is shocking, and the contemptuous attitude I was treated with by all but one of the many United employees I encountered was unforgivable.

Among other things, we were left to stand in line for THREE HOURS while checking in for our return flight from Troy to Sydney. All other airlines were checking through people efficiently - the United desk employees made no effort to expedite check in, or find out who was on what flight. At one point, one desk clerk turned to another and asked "have you had lunch yet?" The other responded that he had not, and the first clerk said, "well, let's go", and they walked off and left the desk completely unattended for a half hour, with more than a hundred people waiting in a line that snaked back through the airport. When people protested, another United employee threatened to call security, and told us we would just have to wait. The excuse was that there were delays because of the weather (it was a nice clear sunny day), though all the other airlines in the terminal seemed to have no problems checking in their customers and getting the planes to take off.

Once on the plane, the pilot announced that they would have to wait to be de-iced, and went into a whining diatribe about how it wasn't his fault and that they had to depend on another airline to be de-iced, and he didn't know why that was the case, but it just was and we had to put up with it. At this point, it was two hours after that flight should have left the ground.

Of course we missed our connecting flight in Chicago, and had to arrange for another flight. The United clerks who made the arrangements were rude, and when we tried to explain that we not only were trying to get to San Francisco, but we also needed to catch a flight in SF to Sydney, they literally screamed at us and were verbally abusive. Then they gave us the altered tickets and yelled "Run! Run!" and pointed vaguely in the direction of the gate we needed, which was incredibly far away. No offer to call the gate to say we were coming - just yelled at us to run.

We ran. I have asthma. When we got there, I was wheezing and coughing. The check-in clerk there saw me, and became very hostile. He said "are you going to be all right or do I need to bump you from this flight" very nastily, and when I just stared at him in disbelief, he started to YELL "I'm not an uncompassionate person, you know!" He said he wouldn't allow me to board if I didn't stop panting. When my husband tried to explain that I was asthmatic and just needed a second to get my breath he shouted that I should have a "puffer" with me (I don't use one) and when my husband tried again to explain, he threatened to call security, and said "we know how to take care of you people". My husband appears, superficially, to be of Middle Eastern origin (actually, he has a Gypsy great-grandmother), though he is actually Australian (we had plenty of fun going through airport security during our three weeks in the US, let me tell you).

Thankfully, we were allowed to board, and made San Francisco, but not in time to get our connecting flight to Sydney. The United help desk tried to get around putting us up in a hotel for the night, claiming that United wasn't responsible for our situation, but finally did so. We had to wait 24 hours for the next flight to Sydney, and United would not look into getting us onto a sooner available flight to Sydney with another airline.

When we got to Sydney, we found that all our brand new luggage had been seriously damaged, including an Ovation hardshell guitar case - something that is nearly indestructible. When we tried to make a claim, all the United employees would say is "we're not responsible". We'd heard that a lot in the last few days, during our United saga. It should be their company motto. I've never seen anything so screwed up and unprofessional in my entire life. I was shocked - I have flown United in the somewhat distant past, when they were the "friendly skies" - this entire caper came off as a nightmare - and since I paid over $6000 to fly their crappy airline, being treated like a galley slave was just a bit much.

So do I give a damn that they're going under? Nope. I'm sorry that people who have paid into a pension plan are going to get shafted. I'm also sorry that the government of the USA has put so much into United. It is mismanaged, unprofessional and downright shoddy. If the government hadn't been bailing them out for ages, they would have gone under long ago, considering their business practices. But badly run businesses end up going out of business, and it's time for United Airlines to go bye-bye and let someone who does a better job have a go.

There is a website dedicated to the foibles of United Airlines, and there are literally thousands of stories like mine. Check it out.

http://www.untied.com/

I'll pay more at the last minute, but, at least, I won't be holding useless tickets.

United has huge labor costs and terrible labor relations. Pilots hate the stews, etc. So, either this bankruptcy works or United goes dark, the landing slots re-sold, the planes get repainted and a new low-cost airline, with none of United's costs, get born.