Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.
I’d always thought that airlines mislaid guitars and pets, rather than, you know, human beings.
It seems, though, that on occasion humans just disappear when they fly United Airlines.
Ann Miller, for example, became a little concerned last week when a United employee told her that they had no idea where her 92-year-old mom, Eleanor, was.
As far as United was concerned, Eleanor hadn’t got on the flight from Asheville, North Carolina to Newark. (She was due to connect there to Ottawa.)
You might imagine that Ann Miller was a little concerned.
“I thought something very drastic had happened to her. Either she had never made it to the airport or she had been in an accident on the way to the airport or had taken ill at the airport and had been transported to a hospital,” she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
As it happens, it was none of the above.
Eleanor had got on the flight, but it was delayed.
When she got to Newark, she’d missed her connection to Ottawa, so United put her up in a hotel and gave her a new ticket for her destination the next day.
Which seems remarkably decent. And remarkably different from what United’s employees were telling Ann Miller.
While she was beside herself with worry, Eleanor was beside her fellow passengers on a plane.
There was a happy ending when Eleanor finally arrived in Ottawa.
Ann Miller, though, wasn’t exactly complimentary about United’s Asheville employees who told her that her mom was a no-show.
“They offered us no help. They could not assist us in finding people in other airports who might be able to help us locate her. United was unfortunately no ally to my mother in this process. They were a detriment in fact,” she told CBC.
Naturally, United apologized.
“We have since spoken with our customer and her family to apologize for giving them inaccurate information and have provided compensation and upgraded seating for her return flights for this inconvenience,” said an airline statement.
Now here’s where one or two hackles might rise.
Yes, everyone makes mistakes.
You have to wonder, though, how it was possible that a passenger was on a flight, yet United’s employees and/or computer system said she wasn’t.
Moreover, it’s, um, unfortunate that United chooses to describe what happened as an inconvenience.
This rather rings of its CEO Oscar Munoz, when he first described his airline’s actions against dragged and bloodied Dr. David Dao as an attempt to “re-accommodate.”
What happened to Ann Miller seems more like a touch frightening.
Inconvenience is when one of your socks has a hole in it, not when you think something terrible has befallen your 92-year-old mom.