Can anyone explain why we went to the age of 14 for UM
- Thread starter PITbull
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On 8/4/2003 7
31 PM Atlantic wrote:I fly down to all the Fla. spots and I gotta tell you, the w/c are lined up at many stations. Why can't we grab 20 bucks a pop for those?
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ADA requirements. You have to provide assistance for the chairs, but not for the yunguns. NW has been at 14 for quite some time. I've checked in many 12-14 year olds that are quite competent to travel alone (and do better than some grown ups), however, I'm sure we've had some problems with them getting stranded in hubs due to flight cancellations and misconx and we probably end up taking care of them anyway, even though we arent required to. Now we will be and we will be making a little money out of it.
****** There needs to be something on US.com stating if you are making a reservation for someone under 15, you need to call USAirways to get the proper info taken and that there is a charge for them flying alone. Many people make reservations for kids not even thinking about this. We need to TELL THEM. Also something there for INTL resv that if you are traveling with children under 18 and BOTH parents arent going, you need special documentation to take the kid out of the country. This is a BIG problem and something that needs to be addressed on the website. *****
hopethingswillbeok
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I was just wondering if anyone knows why we went from 12 to 14 for UM''s, does anyone at there know why?
PITbull
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On 8/4/2003 731 PM Atlantic wrote:
I fly down to all the Fla. spots and I gotta tell you, the w/c are lined up at many stations. Why can't we grab 20 bucks a pop for those?
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On 8/4/2003 7
31 PM Atlantic wrote: I fly down to all the Fla. spots and I gotta tell you, the w/c are lined up at many stations. Why can't we grab 20 bucks a pop for those?
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"$20 bucks a pop"...you made me howl laughing.
I'll offer a counter point. I just sent my 13 year old son on UA because of this change, they are still at 12. In his case he is very competent to travel solo and the U/M charge would have come close to 50% of the ticket price (yes it was a decent leisure fare). NW actually had the best fare for the trip but I did not use them either because they are also at >14 for U/M's w/o a fee. The best compromise would probably be to make the special U/M service optional for 13/14 year olds - that is what UA does. The point about communicating changes and policy details from a previous post is a good one. The rules do vary a lot from airline to airline and are not consistent. For example U said it was ok for my two sons to travel together when one was 16 and the other 12, but NW says no, the under age still has to pay even if he is with a 16-17 year old sibling. NW has a restriction of no last flight out connections, which does make sense to me. My main point is that this change to 14 may generate some revenue, but it will also chase some away.
MarkMyWords
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From my personal experience, I think the age should be lifted to age 16. With all of the recent weather and ATC issues, there have been many instances where enroute weather/ATC has caused diversions / cancellations. Imagine you are the parent of a 13, 14, 15 year old young adult and they are stuck in PHL for the night. Paying the UM fee ensures that someone will take care of your child for the duration of their unexpected stay. Without paying the fee we are technically not responsible for doing anything more for them then we would do for any adult customer. (Morally we would do for them as we would for any child traveling alone.) That 50.00 fee should give any parent the piece of mind to know that if an irregularity would occur, we would treat your child as our very own and help provide meals and overnight accomodations that would amount to more then the 50.00 fee. As the parent of a 13, 14, 15 year old young adult, would you be willing to reimburse US for any costs associated with the care of your child during a flight irregularity, or would you prefer to spend the 50.00 for piece of mind?
ClueByFour
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Yeah, and what about the thousands upon thousands of kids who get where they are going with no problem and still end up eating the $50 charge.
Like many things (standby charges, bike boxes, etc) it's a BS fee designed entirely to nickle and dime the customer to death.
"Peace of mind for your kid" is quite Baldanza-ish, if I might say so.
As for the recent "WX and ATC" delays, about 80% of the ones that I've seen are of the "there was weather in CLT about six hours ago and we are so short on crews that we had to cancel your flight from BOS." I can't speak for the UMs, but in those situations I _always_ get accomodated by the offending airline.
The latter problem is not endemic to U, per se. Every major is short staffing and getting burned by it. The trick, as a customer, is to not accept a BS answer.
Like many things (standby charges, bike boxes, etc) it's a BS fee designed entirely to nickle and dime the customer to death.
"Peace of mind for your kid" is quite Baldanza-ish, if I might say so.
As for the recent "WX and ATC" delays, about 80% of the ones that I've seen are of the "there was weather in CLT about six hours ago and we are so short on crews that we had to cancel your flight from BOS." I can't speak for the UMs, but in those situations I _always_ get accomodated by the offending airline.
The latter problem is not endemic to U, per se. Every major is short staffing and getting burned by it. The trick, as a customer, is to not accept a BS answer.
MarkMyWords
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Clue -
And each of those "thousands" of kids that make it safely to their destination, many require assistance from gate to gate. The service fee helps to pay to keep people like the SARS (the employees, not the disease) employeed by US. If it weren't for those fees they would have been replaced by skycaps to push wheel chairs and drive the carts.
Again, to me it is worth the 50.00 to have the piece of mind that if something were to go wrong with my childs flight, there would be someone there with them the entire time. This includes employees accompanying them to overnight stays, food, hotel accomodations - regardless of the event, transportation, etc. Those types of services are not provided for your child in their 198.00 round trip ticket to Gramma's house in FL. In this case we are providing a service and the fee is warranted.
As for your weather and ATC experience, I would say that you have no idea how difficuly it is to recover an airline from a single weather/atc event. Closing a station like PHL or CLT for even just a 1/2 hour can have a ripple effect throughout the airline. Just because the thunderstorm event may only last 30 minutes, doesn't mean that the ATC system returns to normal immediately after that. Severe weather events don't even have to happen at the originating or terminating stations. Enroute weather and ATC route adjustments also have a tremendous effect on our operation. Once a ground delay program is started, it will generally roll to the end of the day to evenly push the flow of traffic to what the airport can handle.
And each of those "thousands" of kids that make it safely to their destination, many require assistance from gate to gate. The service fee helps to pay to keep people like the SARS (the employees, not the disease) employeed by US. If it weren't for those fees they would have been replaced by skycaps to push wheel chairs and drive the carts.
Again, to me it is worth the 50.00 to have the piece of mind that if something were to go wrong with my childs flight, there would be someone there with them the entire time. This includes employees accompanying them to overnight stays, food, hotel accomodations - regardless of the event, transportation, etc. Those types of services are not provided for your child in their 198.00 round trip ticket to Gramma's house in FL. In this case we are providing a service and the fee is warranted.
As for your weather and ATC experience, I would say that you have no idea how difficuly it is to recover an airline from a single weather/atc event. Closing a station like PHL or CLT for even just a 1/2 hour can have a ripple effect throughout the airline. Just because the thunderstorm event may only last 30 minutes, doesn't mean that the ATC system returns to normal immediately after that. Severe weather events don't even have to happen at the originating or terminating stations. Enroute weather and ATC route adjustments also have a tremendous effect on our operation. Once a ground delay program is started, it will generally roll to the end of the day to evenly push the flow of traffic to what the airport can handle.
PSA1979
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Perfect example of this is Aug 1. PHL wasn't even officially closed, but was experiencing major delays due to tstorms. We were coming in from LGW on an A330. We were diverted to BDL for a fuel stop and ended up landing in PHL 3 hours late. We had some minors on the airplane with their older siblings that were going to DFW. They did not pay the fee as the oldest was 19 years old. These poor kids were so upset, they had no extra money for a hotel and didn't know what to do. We let them borrow a cell phone to make calls and hooked them up with a woman on her way to DFW also. Lucky for these kids the DFW flight was also over 3 hours late. If it wasn't they would have been stuck in PHL and had no way to pay for a hotel. ( As there were 5 of them, I'm not sure the woman we hooked them up with could have gotten them all rooms) It happens more than once in a blue moon and the 50 dollar fee more than covers the peace of mind it gives.
I agree with PSA1979 that in a case like that example it was foolish for the parents not to pay the U/M fee and just as foolish not to have given the 19 year old the means ($, Credit card info, etc) to take care of something unexpected.
This whole thread started with a comment that info on the U/M program needs to be better disseminated. I agree. I thought that I understood the program but now read here that U would actually put up my U/M for the night at their cost as part of the services under the fee even for a weather related delay? If that is true then it is more like insurance than babysitting and I could better justify it. The policy,IMO should still be more flexible however. Let the parent decide based on the particular circumstances if the U/M coverage makes sense or not for a 13/14/15 year old. For example, a morning flight to a destination with many more flights on that route later that day would not cause me much concern even if there might be a delay. As an example - the UA flight that my 13 year old just took was in fact delayed due to ATC. On the front end I helped him by making sure that the gate agent rebooked him on a later flight. In this case there were three later flights one hour apart to his final destination from the transfer hub. When he got to ORD he actually noticed that his original flight was also delayed and still there, he stood by at the gate and was boarded. I mentioned to him to check on that, but did not really think that he would remember to do so - he is getting to be a junior road warrior...
As a US1 for 7 years I do apprecate the common theme by U employees in this thread that they will and do take it upon themselves to go the extra mile for kids, or I would suspect for those adults who need extra help even when it is not a requirment or an obligation. Firstly - congratulations on doing the right thing for a fellow human being in need,in this day and age many just look the other way. Secondly - it is a caring attitude like this that both makes your airline better than the others and which hopefully also gives each of you who pitch in like this some extra job satisfaction.
This whole thread started with a comment that info on the U/M program needs to be better disseminated. I agree. I thought that I understood the program but now read here that U would actually put up my U/M for the night at their cost as part of the services under the fee even for a weather related delay? If that is true then it is more like insurance than babysitting and I could better justify it. The policy,IMO should still be more flexible however. Let the parent decide based on the particular circumstances if the U/M coverage makes sense or not for a 13/14/15 year old. For example, a morning flight to a destination with many more flights on that route later that day would not cause me much concern even if there might be a delay. As an example - the UA flight that my 13 year old just took was in fact delayed due to ATC. On the front end I helped him by making sure that the gate agent rebooked him on a later flight. In this case there were three later flights one hour apart to his final destination from the transfer hub. When he got to ORD he actually noticed that his original flight was also delayed and still there, he stood by at the gate and was boarded. I mentioned to him to check on that, but did not really think that he would remember to do so - he is getting to be a junior road warrior...
As a US1 for 7 years I do apprecate the common theme by U employees in this thread that they will and do take it upon themselves to go the extra mile for kids, or I would suspect for those adults who need extra help even when it is not a requirment or an obligation. Firstly - congratulations on doing the right thing for a fellow human being in need,in this day and age many just look the other way. Secondly - it is a caring attitude like this that both makes your airline better than the others and which hopefully also gives each of you who pitch in like this some extra job satisfaction.
MarkMyWords
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MDMUS1
While I agree that sometimes you need to offer flexibility with policies that we have, it is tough to make exemptions and maintain any consistency. Once you start to make an expemtion for this or that, it just starts to cloud the policy and the customer expectations. Do I pay the fee this time, or I didn't have to pay a fee last time. Setting the expectation that if your child/young adult is going to fly alone with us then there is a fee involved. It is tough to say where the cut off should be age wise. Some 13 year olds are like your jr. road warrior and need little help in easy connections and minor mishaps like misconnecting. Then there are 19-20 (heck, even 40) year olds that probably don't have that kind of travel knowledge or savy and need to have their hand held through the entire process. My concern always comes in when the irregularity involves overnight stays in strange cities. How would a 13 year old get/pay for a hotel room? Get a cab to a hotel? Even in a morning flight you could end up with circumstances such as multiple diversions/cancellations due to severe weather.
Safe and happy travels to you and the Jr Road Warrior.......train him well.
While I agree that sometimes you need to offer flexibility with policies that we have, it is tough to make exemptions and maintain any consistency. Once you start to make an expemtion for this or that, it just starts to cloud the policy and the customer expectations. Do I pay the fee this time, or I didn't have to pay a fee last time. Setting the expectation that if your child/young adult is going to fly alone with us then there is a fee involved. It is tough to say where the cut off should be age wise. Some 13 year olds are like your jr. road warrior and need little help in easy connections and minor mishaps like misconnecting. Then there are 19-20 (heck, even 40) year olds that probably don't have that kind of travel knowledge or savy and need to have their hand held through the entire process. My concern always comes in when the irregularity involves overnight stays in strange cities. How would a 13 year old get/pay for a hotel room? Get a cab to a hotel? Even in a morning flight you could end up with circumstances such as multiple diversions/cancellations due to severe weather.
Safe and happy travels to you and the Jr Road Warrior.......train him well.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the policy issue. Yes the policy should be consistently applied, but if for example the U/M status was optional for 13/14/15 year olds then a choice could be made - yes or no - when booking.
One more chapter that makes your point that some adults can't figure air travel out.
On his connecting flight out of ORD there was an elderly asian man sitting behind him. They sit on the taxiway for a long time in the take off queue and are almost #1 when this guy jumps up out of his seat, runs up the aisle and starts telling the F/A that he is on the wrong flight. The F/A of course is very unhappy about him being up,and probably just as concerned that he is up to no good. They return to the gate and this guy is greeted by TSA who search him and escort him away. I asked - Why did they return to the gate instead of just making the guy sit down and dealing with him at the destination? My son says - "Maybe it was because he had one of those Assisted Adult Tags/Stickers (I don't know what you call them) and a UA employee had actually put him on the wrong flight." So...even with the fee/special handling things can go wrong. There are just too many variables for air travel to be reliable. The thoughtful traveller, of any age, needs to recognize that things can go wrong. I almost never travel the same day that I need to be somewhere anymore. I usually go the day before just so that I'll be able to recover from the unexpected. I'm sure that the folks at UA were up to their eye balls with delays and misconnects that night, but someone dropped the ball with this gentelman. He should have known better than to get up while the plane was taxiing, but I'm sure that the whole ordeal really ruined his day.
One more chapter that makes your point that some adults can't figure air travel out.
On his connecting flight out of ORD there was an elderly asian man sitting behind him. They sit on the taxiway for a long time in the take off queue and are almost #1 when this guy jumps up out of his seat, runs up the aisle and starts telling the F/A that he is on the wrong flight. The F/A of course is very unhappy about him being up,and probably just as concerned that he is up to no good. They return to the gate and this guy is greeted by TSA who search him and escort him away. I asked - Why did they return to the gate instead of just making the guy sit down and dealing with him at the destination? My son says - "Maybe it was because he had one of those Assisted Adult Tags/Stickers (I don't know what you call them) and a UA employee had actually put him on the wrong flight." So...even with the fee/special handling things can go wrong. There are just too many variables for air travel to be reliable. The thoughtful traveller, of any age, needs to recognize that things can go wrong. I almost never travel the same day that I need to be somewhere anymore. I usually go the day before just so that I'll be able to recover from the unexpected. I'm sure that the folks at UA were up to their eye balls with delays and misconnects that night, but someone dropped the ball with this gentelman. He should have known better than to get up while the plane was taxiing, but I'm sure that the whole ordeal really ruined his day.
I am a U emp and I have a 13 year old and beleave me he is qualified to travel alone but I would never put him on a plane alone I see more nuts out there and if 50 bucks is to much for you I say stay on UA because if something goes wrong I would rather them get the bad press not USAirways.
MarkMyWords
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MDMUS1 -
In a situation such as the man you described, I think they should be treated the same as the UM's. The fee will be paid, the paperwork filled out and the same level of service provided. I can't begin to tell you the number of times people will send relatives with Alzheimers or Dementia from one relative to another and do so unaccompanied. There is nothing more sad and disheartening then to stumble across an elderly person wandering aimlessly down the concourse not knowing where they are or where they are going. It absolutely breaks your heart. What happens in this circumstance if the elderly customer misses the last flight? As an employee I could never send them to a hotel (even at their expense) unaccompanied. These are situations where the 50.00 would be the insurance policy that someone would assist your family member in the event something happened.
In a situation such as the man you described, I think they should be treated the same as the UM's. The fee will be paid, the paperwork filled out and the same level of service provided. I can't begin to tell you the number of times people will send relatives with Alzheimers or Dementia from one relative to another and do so unaccompanied. There is nothing more sad and disheartening then to stumble across an elderly person wandering aimlessly down the concourse not knowing where they are or where they are going. It absolutely breaks your heart. What happens in this circumstance if the elderly customer misses the last flight? As an employee I could never send them to a hotel (even at their expense) unaccompanied. These are situations where the 50.00 would be the insurance policy that someone would assist your family member in the event something happened.
