United has business fliers angry
An influential group of road warriors, better known as business travelers, is joining a push to stop the giant domestic air carriers from systemically mistreating and demeaning passengers — another consequence of United Airlines’ recent customer service debacle.
The furor began this month after passenger Dr. David Dao refused to give up his seat, despite being ordered by airline personnel to get going, and was dragged from the jet by security at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
Now a coalition of business fliers is supporting a congressional effort to pass an air travelers bill of rights. Meanwhile, United’s brass acknowledged during Tuesday’s quarterly earnings call with investors that some of its corporate customers also are pressing for policy changes.
Business travelers, who typically pay the most for tickets, regularly account for nearly 40 percent of annual airline industry revenues, so executives and lawmakers ignore them at their own peril. That’s particularly true right now, when the flying public is angry about United’s behavior toward Dao and generally unhappy about years of encroaching airline fees and uncomfortable, overbooked flights. ‘Such disgust’
“In the 20-plus years that I have been observing the business travel industry, I have never seen such disgust about airline behavior,” says Kevin Mitchell, the Randor, Pa.-based founder of the Business Travel Coalition, a group of more than 300 corporate travel members, in an email to me. “The sense is that this is not a United Airlines problem alone.”
But United is a catalyst for the enormous backlash getting underway against the other “legacy” airlines, American and Delta, which combine to hold a lion’s share of the domestic flying business.
This week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., cited the 69-year-old Dao’s ouster from the United Express flight, bound from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., as a compelling reason for his introducing a new Airline Passenger Bill of Rights. It is the first comprehensive U.S. passenger rights bill to surface in a few years. Other legislative efforts in behalf of airline customers — such as requiring minimum seat sizes — have been introduced on a stand-alone basis.
The Blumenthal bill would restrict the airlines’ ability to bump passengers to accommodate crew members — Dao was asked to deplane to make room for an airline employee — or make way for elite-level fliers, who have enough airline points or special status to demand a seat, which means a less fortunate but paying customer gets the heave-ho.
The measure also would provide fliers, or state attorneys general, the ability to sue airlines for unfair and deceptive practices such as tarmac delays, undisclosed fees, price gouging, chronically late flights or health and safety risks. A Supreme Court ruling currently prevents consumers and states from suing airlines for unfair and deceptive practices in areas like service and fee issues. Basically, it’s up to the U.S. Department of Transportation to handle such consumer matters. ‘The right to sue’
“The right to sue would put desperately needed discipline into the U.S. commercial aviation system,” said Mitchell, who contends Congress never intended to strip consumers of their right to sue over such fundamental issues when it approved airline industry deregulation in 1978.
Mitchell’s coalition is backing Blumenthal’s bill.
His group represents corporate, university and government travel planners and managers, who also air grievances directly to senior managers at the airlines.
When asked by a financial analyst during the Tuesday earnings call if corporate clients reacted to the customer service fiasco, United President Scott Kirby said some had voiced concern and wanted to know what the company was planning to do.
“They want us to fix this and do the right thing,” said Kirby, who added that the airline’s sales team has been out and about talking to corporate clients. He eluded to impending policy changes, on booking and other matters, that United is going to reveal soon.
On April 30, United is expected to tell everyone about plans for remaking itself into a more welcoming airline — another outcome from the Dao incident.