Sunday, November 30, 2014

United Airlines and their Customers: Loyalty in Decline

It's the end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, a horrible time for traveling and airports. And yet, business needs forced my hand and I'm flying back to the east coast tonight. Perhaps the bigger irony is that, as I opened Jason Hirschorn's @MediaREDEF newsletter this morning, I came across this New Yorker article, Why I Left United Airlines by Tim Wu.

I found it amusing and ironic as he echoed many of my sentiments about United Airlines. As I mentioned in previous posts, done with United meant selecting a different carrier for my trip to Japan in October and for this upcoming trip to Boston. And, while I'm gritting my teeth, nervously anticipating the potential frustrations that JetBlue may put me through, particularly this evening (red-eye flight, currently stuck in front of an exit row in a middle seat in that doesn't recline -- not really what you want on a business trip), deep down I know that I'm already better off than I would have been on a matching United flight.

Nope, United, I'm done.

BTW, the article references Untied.com -- check it out if you want to read more unhappy United experiences. I found this NoFlyNoBuy complaint from MileagePlus members talking about a no-fly no-buy Thursday. For me, every day has become no-fly, no-buy.

But, for every business that isn't United, it's worth noting the power of dissatisfaction. How many of these dissatisfied customers do you think say, "don't fly United"?

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