Act One:
Let’s start at the beginning -- before I ever got on the plane(s). Let’s start at the check-in counter.
I was in Indianapolis, and I was flying home to Norfolk Friday, May 7 after a week-long trip. I was not particularly late, but I felt late because I wasn’t at the airport the recommended two days early.
(I didn’t find any direct flights. I had to fly from Indianapolis to Chicago, then back over Indianapolis to go to Norfolk. That kind of sums up the rest of this story in one sentence.)
So, I walked quickly to the self-serve check-in counter. I had one big bag to check because I had been gone for a week
Now, every other self-serve counter in every other airport I have ever used allows you to check a piece of luggage.
This one, however, was only for checking in with only carry-on bags. It even said so, in a little bitty sign above and out of sight from the screens on the check-in kiosk.
So, I was oblivious to this as I completed my check-in. I saw the little sign something like .5 seconds after I was done. This meant I had to go to the counter.
There were two people in line in front of me, usually not a problem.
Now, it has been said before by Mark Evanier here, and probably said better than I will say this, United Airlines is not very service-oriented. Most of my experiences with United are awfully similar to his.
The salient quote:
But the ones who might have had time didn't deal with my situation, either. The subtext was like, "Well, we're not responsible for the weather and we certainly aren't responsible if you were late...so you'll get there when you get there and it really isn't our problem!" The most I could get out of any of them was a directive to go to Customer Service, a misnamed department if ever there was one.
So, I walked up to the counter, where there were two employees, who didn’t seem terribly interested in customer service.
One woman was taking care of the priority prestige customers who apparently rated attentive service because paid a lot more for their tickets than I did.
The other employee was taking care of everyone else, including those of us who flew United because it was the cheapest flight.
(There was a third employee. This is a customer service technique United uses a lot, in my experience: the third employee, who you hope desperately will open another counter to speed the process and make sure the customers can get through security in time for their flights, walks up to the second employee, says something that make both groan, and then walks off. This happens several times during your wait in line. Often, just to tease people in line a little more, the third employee will even begin typing on a keyboard.)
The woman taking care of the nameless rabble who didn’t pay enough for their tickets to justify attentive service, was answering a question from the person in front of me. He wanted to go on standby for an earlier flight.
Before I got there, she had taken his ID card and began walking aimlessly behind the counter. When I arrived, she was still doing so. By aimlessly, I mean up to the first class employee, into a door behind the counter, and just randomly stopping at other keyboard stations which were not open.
If I had the sense she either: knew what she was doing, or was trying diligently to find out, I wouldn’t have minded.
But, amidst all this cogitating, there appeared to be no progress. At one point, she disappeared for a while and came back with no more information, or interest in us customers, than before.
The guy in line in front of me still had to check in and check a bag. He told me he had only about a half hour before his plane took off.
So, we commenced to discussing our experiences with United Airlines.
While we were talking, in an attempt to encourage the employee who was helping the person in front of us, I said things like, “This always happens to me when I fly United,” and “I avoid United at all costs,” and “United is the worst airline I have ever flown,” finally, “If I had to buy my own ticket for this flight, I’d have picked anything but United.”
I knew she could hear me because her blank stare turned into a glower for a moment.
After what seemed like a really long time, she found a way to let the customer ahead of us fly standby, but told him it would cost him $50.
So, naturally, because we were tired of waiting, he started to argue.
“That guy over there is flying standby, and he said it didn’t cost him $50,” the man told her.
So, this went back and forth for a while until the employee decided to resolve the problem, she had to had to kill some more time wandering around the counter, cogitating some more. After this, she finally asked the other clerk what to do about this.
Finally, she came back and said she’d let him fly standby with no fee, adding, “We’re really not supposed to do this.”
Naturally, this sparked some further discussion, but finally he left.
By this time, there was something like five or six people in line, of which I was second.
The guy in front of me checked his bag in record time, sprinted off to the security line, and then I was up.
Of course, after saying all sorts of bad things about United, I had to go up and say I needed to add a checked bag to my ticket because I hadn’t seen the sign on their kiosk. It made me feel dumb, especially after complaining so much about their service while I was standing in line.
She added my bag quickly. She was polite, but very cold. It dawned on me that I should have shut up because now my one bag would never make it anywhere near Norfolk.
After getting that resolved, I made it through security and went to the gate.
(More tomorrow.)
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