Can anyone explain why we went to the age of 14 for UM

[PITbull]

Mark,

I would think, that with or without the incentive for an airline that gets $50 lousy dollars, that they would extend the service no matter. Its the human decent thing to do, and should not have a $ attachement. Just a caring airline of employees who do not look to see if someone paid the $50 or not.

Watch.. the poster above is right. Next thing you know, some cheap senior VP will think of charging for folks with disabilities and w/c dependents for the w/c service. Do we draw the line? Or just keep "nickle and diming" the customer just like the employees and PA State?

Where's the incentive to lure folks to fly, vs. drive?

 

[MarkMyWords]

The employees of the airline have always gone above and beyond with customers such as UM's and the elderly that are challeneged with Alzheimers and dementia. My concern comes in those irregular situations where in the heat of a situation, there is no looking out for them. I would prefer to see a customer with Alzheimers treated just like a UM and have the hand off paper work and some one on one interaction/attention then to find them wandering the concourse. With relation to UM's, there is a cost involved for providing the service of tranporting UM's around. There are SAR's that staff a room where the child/young adult is taken and cared for until their flight leaves. If we didn't provide these types of service, then there would be no need for the SAR's at all. Skycaps could be given the responsibility for pushing around wheelchairs and assisting customer with electric carts. We provide those services free of charge. As I said before, paying the 50.00 UM fee is an insurance policy that if there is any irregularity, that your shild/young adult will be taken care of, just like our own child. The younger the child the more care that may be needed, but even a 15 year old that misconnected in a hub station will require some assitance or attention above and beyond what would have been agreed to in the purchase of your ticket. Making the fee optional does what? So when the 14 year old misconnects in PHL, if the fee is not paid we just say hear is your rebooking arrangements see you tomorrow? Heck no. There is not an employee in this company that would ever do that. Do you wait for the flight irregularity and then charge the 50.00 because it is cheaper then getting your own hotel room and meals? Nope. We are providing a service, and there is a fee involved in that service.

 

[PITbull]

Many times, because of custody and visitation rights, 5 year olds and up travel alone because the parent has no choice if the spouse lives out of the area. These are court orders too.

My main point, and I guess I am not getting any empathy with it, is that, really, I do not believe the company should be charging such an exhorbtant fee for UMs. I think that if something happens to the flight and its cancelled, you put them up in a hotel as a service, and perhaps bill the parents, or not, for the hotel. Often times you contact parents when this happens and give them all the particulars and information on where the child will overnight, what flight the next day, etc. and the parents set up the arrangements for that child by calling in their credit card to the hotel reservation center.

Somewhere in this business we have to be unique and realiable. Customers appreciate this extra service and this is how you get "repeat customer business" in such a competitive industry. We need to continue to treat our customers like family...whether they are sitting on our planes flying or on the ground. The customer does remember these things.

Just my take on things... its all about people; I am "people motivated". I think folks not "things" or companies make the world go round.

 

[hopethingswillbeok]

Sorry but my Grandmother has Alzeimers and she should never travel by herself....any Adult that would send someone alone with Alzeimers has got a screw loose....I am glad to know why the age limit changed, I agree you could not as a human stand there and tell a fourteen year old your on your own, find a hotel.....I could never understand how a Parent could send a child of that age alone without any kind of escort.....I don't understand how these Parents can send a five year old alone, we had one the other day that was still sucking a pacifier, he was out of control

 

[tadjr]

Paid escort service for adults over the age of 18 is not policy and is not to be offered. If the person needs assistance, that is offered, but a sign off, paid escort service is not provided for adults. If the adult person traveling is unable to take care of themselves in any situation, then they need to be escorted by someone arranged by the family. I understand the need for assistance and have empathy for people in this situation, but there is no way we can be responsible for everyone who would send grandma off to visit the rest of the family in this condition, especially with the cuts we've had. We barely have enough people some time to man the staffing on a good day without trying to keep track of all the passengers who request assistance. I'm not trying to be mean about it, but we cant do everything for everyone and this is one situation that we should not be getting involved with.

 

[AtlanticBeach]

Some impressive ideas throughout this thread. A recap, in case someone from CCY is paying attention.

1. UMs and WC/assistance adults should not be on the last flight of the day.
2. Originating location may be given authority to deny boarding in case of severe irreg ops. (Delays greater than 2 or 3 hours?)
3. UMs over a certain age must have in their possession one or more of the following; cell phone, phone card, credit card.
4. UMs guardians must provide active emergency phone numbers.
5. Different rules for non-stop vs. connections.

I'm a bit hazy on the age rule. My daughter was a US3 and CO Silver by age 14. She figured out a re-route for her school group going to FCO when 20 of them got stuck due to snow at their connection. Should she have been a UM?

Anything else that we're missing?

 

[justanadd]

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On 8/7/2003 720 PM tadjr wrote:


Paid escort service for adults over the age of 18 is not policy and is not to be offered. If the person needs assistance, that is offered, but a sign off, paid escort service is not provided for adults. If the adult person traveling is unable to take care of themselves in any situation, then they need to be escorted by someone arranged by the family. I understand the need for assistance and have empathy for people in this situation, but there is no way we can be responsible for everyone who would send grandma off to visit the rest of the family in this condition, especially with the cuts we've had. We barely have enough people some time to man the staffing on a good day without trying to keep track of all the passengers who request assistance. I'm not trying to be mean about it, but we cant do everything for everyone and this is one situation that we should not be getting involved with.

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Northwest offers optional escort service for adults. There are many older people and disabled adults who can travel alone but may need help transfering planes or who may be scared in irregular operations. The problem with just saying that employees should just provide the service free is that there will always be some who drop the ball. At least with the fee each hand-off of the pax is recorded and that person is responsible for their care.

 

[TomBascom]

Ideally there should be no fees -- like PITbull says, nickle and diming customers all day is dumb.

However -- as fees go this one is 1) somewhat reasonably priced and 2) you actually get something for it. (So I suppose I should get ready for BBB to announce that it will cost $500, only be available with a full Y or B ticket and served in plastic cups...)

If the fee is to stay (and I doubt that it's going away) I would suggest that it should be once per party -- 3 kids traveling together shouldn't be charged $150.

I also agree completely that the communications to the customer about what goes on and what could go on needs a lot of work. And that anyone sending a UM out needs to make sure that the kid (or elderly) is properly prepared for contingencies. The airline could help out a lot in this area by providing parents more guidance and support in plain English rather than airline doublespeak.

 

[thepoohbear]

First of all,the fees are not $50 but 40 & 75.Secondly if we misconnected kids ,adults, etc. we put them in a hotel.
I don't like the whole age raise because i'm the agent at the counter who has to do all the extra work.Lanyards,we are out of them and have asked quite a few cities for some temp stock.We are now using PDQ tie wraps to secure to kids.Why not give the parents a break if the use the darn thing again.Maybe charge $5 less.The whole thing is to make money. The thing with garment boxes.We went through them like water when they were free.EWR was covered in discarded boxes in the baggage area. Since we charge people use them over again or don't ask for them.

 

[PITbull]

Mark,

You bring up some very valid points, in a business sense. But, what you cite, is in rare circumstances, very rare. I have been flying the clear blue sky for 22 years, and have run across these particualar circumstances only once. I don't believe parents would refuse to pay for hotel accomodations if the agent is on the phone and telling the parent how to make the arrangements with the hotel. $45 or 75 doesn't pay for diddly squat, you know it and I know it. So why take it. All we need is policies in place on how to handle these situations and be consistant. Period.

I think it would place U above the rest of the pack, if we start treating our Customrs as family when it comes to these types of situations. As far as paying SARS, they do more than just tend to UMs. And they have been on the property for ever. You guys don't pay that much for a SAR at all..peanuts infact.

If U claims to provide "special services" than provide it. We are a customer based business, and we need to serve the customer from A to Z when it comes to travel. Its tuff out there now. And many folks look for excuses not to fly. We WANT them to fly NOT drive.

I will never look to see if someone paid a fee or not. That's bull xxxx that its like an insurance policy. Its a way to nickle and dime the customer. Raise the fares a little and make everything all inclusive, food and all and make the trip for these folks easy, relaxing, and enjoyable from the beginning to the end of their journey.

PS. Pretty soon some VP Einstein want-a-be, will think to charge exra for the AED use on the airplane, "just in case" they have a heart attack, right? Otherwise, you don't get the use. LOL... "excuse me, sir, but did you check off AED, just in case?" Didn't see that on your ticket price."

How about this one: charging for the "over head bins". Yea, have a lock on them, with $5 sign.

You guys kill me with your excuses.

 

[MarkMyWords]

Pity -

It isn't even an issue of just putting UM's up overnight in a hotel. now you ahve to pay a SAR or an Agent to stay with the child too. In cases where we have misconnected or had flights cancel with UM's and they require overnight accomodations, it is a costly ordeal. Once again we get stuck paying for meals, hotel, transportation and the Agent/SAR that will ahve to overnight with them. If the event were beyond US Airways control, we wouldn't offer those same amenities to any of the other customers. Can you imagine trying to get a customer to pay for their childs hotel and meal expenses after the fact? I can almost tell you with 100% certainty that we would never be able to get most parents to pay and morally we would still do the right thing and take care of the child. Like if the parent said no, then we would just leave them in an airport alone? No way!

AtlanticBeach -

While I am impressed with your daughters ability to reroute her school class of 20 (and God help her if she wants a job in this industry), I still think she should have to pay the fee. Let's say that the flight they take diverts into MAD due to weather or an ATC strike in FCO. The crew becomes illegal and the flight is canceled and an extra section is put in for the next day to move them to FCO. These events are beyond our control so we would not be paying for hotels or meals. Would your 14 year old be able to fend for herself? Would she be abel to find and get a hotel room? Meals? Transportation? Can a 14 year old check into a hotel alone?

Tadjr -

I agree wholeheartedly with what you say. But the sad reality is that people will put Gramma on an airplane alone and hope nothing happens before they will spend the money to escort her to her destination. It happens almost everyday. I am sure being in TPA you have seen it 100 times. Physically and mentally challenged customers that should have an escort being boarded because the family will continue to insist that they can take care of themselves. Just recently here in PIT we had a 70+ year old man that drove his car to RIC and became disoriented and was stopped by the police. The police contacted the family and they paid for a ticket for him to travel RIC-BOS via PIT. Instead of someone flying to where he was and driving him back to BOS, they just opted to fly him to BOS. When the man arrived in PIT he was extremely disoriented, confrontational and refused to board the flight to BOS. So what do we do? Walk away and say buh bye? Turn him over to social services? No we try and try to persuade him to board the airplane, eventually tricking him into it. In this case the family should have flown to him and escorted him home, but they didn't want to pay the expense or the time to fly and drive to him. They insisted he was capable of traveling alone. In this case even the 50.00 fee would not be appropriate, the customer should have had family escort.

 

[MarkMyWords]

While I agree that we are a service industry, and we should do everything we can for each customer that flies, I am also a realist and know that there are limits to what we can provide. On average it costs the company over 300.00 everytime an UM misconnects and has to spend the night in a connecting station. In 5 out of the last 7 days we have had several occassions where UM"s were accomodated in PIT, PHL and CLT due to ATC, WEX cancellations and diversions.

As for SAR's, yes they have been around a long time, and they do provide a valuable service to our customers that require their service. But if it were not for the issues such as UM's, they could easily be replaced with SkyCaps at no cost to US. They would work off of tips instead of us paying an employee full wages and benefits. We continue to provide SAR assistance because it is a service our customers have come to expect and value.

Unfortunately I see more and more businesses taking a fee based stance similar to the banking industry. There are certain transactions that a customer will have to pay extra for. We are no different. UM's create a cost within the company and the fee helps to recoup those costs. And I am not talking about costs associated with flight irregularities.

The examples that I gave are not as rare as you would like to think. Everyday there is an incident somewhere in the system that reinforces the examples that I gave you above. You have been very fortunate to have not encountered very many in the last 22 years. In my 12 years at the ATO, I spent many nights with UM's and customers with imparied mental statuses during irregular operations.

 

[MarkMyWords]

OK LavMan, let me rephrase that.....with less of a cost to US.

 

[tadjr]

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On 8/8/2003 7:31:24 AM TomBascom wrote:

I also agree completely that the communications to the customer about what goes on and what could go on needs a lot of work. And that anyone sending a UM out needs to make sure that the kid (or elderly) is properly prepared for contingencies. The airline could help out a lot in this area by providing parents more guidance and support in plain English rather than airline doublespeak.


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US does publish a pamphlet for parents of unaccompanied children that explains what happens and what they should do to make the kids flying experience more enjoyable, but with all the computer booking and phone stuff, its very seldom given out until its too late. We have them at the airport. I also checked the website and its online there too.
[url="http://www.usairways.com/customers/customer_commitment/appendix4.htm"]http://www.usairways.com/customers/custome...t/appendix4.htm[/URL]

 

[LavMan]

Mark, US does pay for skycaps, they have a contract with their employers, for example in CLT US pays ITS for the skycap service.