You Can't Get There From Here

By TAD BARTIMUS

Say you already have a $403 roundtrip airline ticket to visit a friend. Then she suddenly decides to get married and you want to go to her wedding, but your ticket will get you there six days too late. So you ask to change your ticket: same airline, same flight, same departure point, same destination.

"That's no problem, we have plenty of seats," the United Airlines ticket agent says. "The additional one-way change fee will be $1,078."

What do you say about that? Fahgeddaboutit!
United Airlines is in the midst of the largest bankruptcy in aviation history. It constantly cries poor mouth to the government for financial subsidies, bailouts and tax breaks. It pleads for passengers by running full-page ads proclaiming "WE ARE UNITED." It sends e-mails to tempt us with $119 New York-to-London fares.

It is also an airline that will not allow a longtime customer to change an existing ticket for a reasonable fee because it operates under an archaic fare structure its own agents don't understand and can't override, a fare structure that keeps it from being competitive in the current marketplace.

One-fare, no-frills carriers like JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines are running the red-taped-riddled, route-heavy and equipment-laden competition right into mothballs.

United has been my carrier of choice since 1968, when it flew me to Hawaii as a 19-year-old cub reporter on my first "overseas" assignment. Flying aboard a jet across the Pacific was the most glamorous, exotic experience in my young life. There were real orchids on my real china plate, large seats with starched pillowcases on the headrests, and attentive stewardesses. All while soaring magically above the clouds.
I tried to explain to the ticket agent that my memories inspired loyalty. I pointed out that in the intervening 35 years since my first United flight I'd flown more than 500,000 miles on the airline, had a low Mileage Plus frequent flyer number, was a premier member, and could get a one-way ticket on another carrier for $175 but hadn't yet done so. Didn't that count for anything?

My young friends laugh at such brand reverence as they surf the Internet for the cheapest fare and most convenient route. Brand loyalty died with the advent of plastic forks and e-tickets, they say.

As for the ticket agent, she explained: "There's really nothing I can do. I know it doesn't make sense, but the computer is telling me that's the current price to change this seat. These fare structures drive us crazy, too. Call back tomorrow, maybe it will be cheaper."

Why should tomorrow be any different than today? Is tomorrow the day United's unions give up even more salary and benefit concessions, creditors write off billions of debt, the government waives millions in taxes?

Recently hired United CEO Glenn Tilton is supposed to make tomorrow different. Tilton is a fix-it man brought over from Chevron-Texaco to clean house, wring more concessions from the unions, slash the work force and start up a no frills airline within United, a proposal hated by pilots because it creates a two-tiered labor system.

Last week, a bankruptcy judge OK'd payment of a multi-million dollar wage and benefits package to Tilton, rejecting a challenge by flight attendants outraged at the amount being paid to a CEO who wants the airline's union members to give up $2.56 billion more in annual cost cuts.

Beyond Tilton's annual salary ($845,000), employees complain about his $3 million "signing bonus" and generous benefits and pension package. Thousands of United employees' retirement nest eggs evaporated with the value of the company's stock. It's selling at about $1 a share.

I have a lot more history with United Airlines than Glenn Tilton does. I did not fly its airplanes for 35 years because of its CEOs, but because of its great service, safety record and rank-and-file employees. But even I, a die-hard romantic about flight, have to concede that those days are gone. I'll only fly United Airlines from now on if it gives me a reasonably priced ticket to where I want to go, when I want to get there.

Tilton cannot save United Airlines as I have always known it. But maybe he can salvage some of its best attributes to create a more modern, passenger-responsive carrier. He can help himself do this by really sharing the same sacrifices he is asking of his fellow employees. Tilton should turn his signing bonus into a performance bonus and pay himself a $1 annual salary until United turns a profit. Only then will the company's employees and passengers believe "WE ARE UNITED."

© 2003 The Women Syndicate

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