United Airlines have the dubious honor of having their own Wikipedia entry detailing what is probably one of the best known social media disasters on record. That event generated millions of views across the globe for singer/songwriter, Dave Carroll whose guitar they broke.
You would have thought, that that incident taught the airline a valuable lesson. Apparently not. They are at it again and this time they have upped their game graduating from breaking guitars and taking a year to even admit culpability to losing 10-year-old girls and behaving like nothing's amiss.
The horror story starts back in June when the Klebahns, a California family, took advantage of an advertised "unaccompanied minor service" United offered on its website to have their 10-year-old daughter fly from San Francisco to a summer camp in Traverse City, Michigan. The service cost and extra $99 on top of the flight ticket and with it came the promise that their child would be accompanied by a United employee every step of the way.
Obviously this is not what happened. When a frantic camp counsellor rang the Klebahns to say that their daughter had not arrived and they, in turn, rang the airline, what happened was a classic case of indifference and "end of shift, cannot help you" attitude that's strongly reminiscent of Dave Carroll's account of what happened to him when he asked the airline about his guitar.
NBC Bay Area reports how Airline staff admitted to the worried parents that they did not know where their daughter was. As it turns out the main ingredients of the story are an outsourced "unescorted minor" service, a missed connection thanks to a no-show by the attendant who would have escorted the girl and the usual chaos that every busy airline has to deal with.
Had that been all a quick phone call and an explanation would have taken care of most of the grief caused. But this did not happen. As a matter of fact, while waiting for over an hour for someone to come and escort her to the next flight, the girl, upon mentioning that she needed to let her parents know was told "we are too busy".
It gets worse. After spending what they think totals over 18 hours on the phone, her father, Perry, who holds a Premier membership with the airline was told by a United employee that she could not help him find his daughter as her shift was ending. It was only after he persevered, pleaded and appealed to her humanity as a mother that she relented and went to find the girl.
The Klebahns' daughter was indeed on the next flight to Michigan but her luggage did not arrive for another three days. A detailed letter of complaint written by the girl's mother, Annie Klebahn, received no reply.
As a matter of fact the airline gave no acknowledgement and made no apology until the incensed parents took their story to NBC. Responding to an email from NBC, directly, United responded with a phone call, followed up by an email and remedial action.
As Annie Klebahn notes: "United has made the travel process and experience unbearable by de-humanizing any and all experiences UNLESS you are a Premier member AND you beg someone to "be a parent" AND they break the rules ONLY then can they maybe help you."
I am tempted to say here, lesson learnt for United but historically the evidence points the other way. So, until next time then.