I think another interesting point to note here is that the consumer demands simply do not match the expectations that most airline passengers desire when they get served by an airline.

I also think that we can all agree on this:

Some TA/GA are just plain incompetent, surly, bitter, angry, or unpleasant. That is not the pax fault or even the TA/GA's fault..it is the fault of the airline to keep those people employed. Regardless of what you do for a living, if you don't like it, then quit, or expect to be fired.

On the flipside, however, the market demands that air travel be very inexpensive, and airlines have the upper hand when it comes to hiring these low level positions. I challenge anyone to show me another job title that demands so many character traits, customer service ability, and techinical/industry knowledge that pays as poorly as an entry level TA/GA position. If the market demanded better customer service, people would be wililng to pay an extra $50, $100, whatever for their ticket to fly a "premium" service airline. I have not seen any company start with this business model because consumers currently demand the lowest fare, not great service.

Yeah, it stinks to have someone that doesnt really know what they are doing at your gate or ticket counter when you fly, but what do you expect? Many of them make less than $10 an hour to start...thank their salaries for your cheap ticket, but don't be surprised when some of them are not what you expected. Maybe it's more helpful to think of all the times when you had someone great working your flight, which happens more often than we should all expect because the majority of folks take pride in what they do, IMHO.

Quoting Remcor (Thread starter): A couple weeks ago I was flying UA SAN->SFO->HKG but ended up missing my connection at SFO because of a delay at SAN. At SAN they repeatedly said that the delay was caused by an ATC problem in San Francisco. When we arrived at SFO the ticketing agent told us that the delay was some because of vague "problem with the air" in San Diego. Then, almost immediately after she told me this her supervisor walks by, looks at the computer screen that the ticketing agent was working on, reads it, and says "oh, these are the guys on the plane with the _crew_ problem". I caught it right away and pointed at the ticketing agent and said "It's a crew problem, you lied to us!" (I smiled when I said it, but I was angry). She just stayed quiet, knowing that she just got caught.

What flight number and date? I'll look up the delay reason. SFO has been on GDP's much of the last few weeks due to fog...so it's likely your flight could have been delayed for that...or the crew could have been coming from one of those delayed flights...or any number of other things, but if you give us the flight/date we can all quit speculating.

Quoting USA9195 (Reply 20): Have you ever heard the term "too much information?" You keep rambling on about how us gate agents should do this and do that, but have you ever worked a moment in our shoes? For example, lets say their is a security breach in another part of the airport, yet the ramp and gates are all shut down and the guy is holding a gun to his head...do you pass along this information to the pax?

Yes I have heard of the term and like I said in an earlier post, if it is something that involves sensitive security info, than it should not be divulged. But the point is, if there is a security breach, which is a legitimate reason to delay a flight and one that will probably make the evening news, don't say its due to weather or ATC. You lose credibility when you lie to people and there are many choices for air travel these days.

Quoting SSTsomeday (Reply 18): I have often been lied to about seat selection. After making attempts to get seats on line, at check-in, at the gate, and being told along the way thats seat selection would be available at each of these next checkpoints, I finally found that there WERE seats where I wanted to sit and when I moved there on my own accord, no one showed up with boarding passes to claim the seat I was "squatting" in. I can understand (to a point) that airlines use seating restrictions to reward passengers for paying higher fares, or penalise those who do not, but they do so in a clandestine and dishonest way.

AC blocks a group of seats so they can be given out at the gate for families who have split seating. Also you have to think when flights are overbooked and pax who has seat assigned doesn't show up, it makes the seat available. I will never forget the time a pax was requesting an aisle instead of a window seat. It was full flight. A UA flight was delayed for 3hrs and that ment 45mscnx pax. Flight left with those 45 seats open. The pax might think i didn't want to change the seat which it only takes 5 seconds.

Quoting USA9195 (Reply 20): Also there are things to remember folks about the kind and type and speed of information passed along to us gate agents folks. We are only given the information that is passed along to us via ACARS, FLIFO, scheduling, and even our own supervisors. We are not psychic.

I guess If us (gate agents) where psychic passengers would be happier. In AC we just go by the 3 letter delayed code with no extra info.

Quoting USA9195 (Reply 20): My point is give the gate agents a break, we are only given a finite amount of information. Sometimes we dont tell pax right away because we are trying to work on better things, like better slots and such, and some we just dont say because we are trying to get the full scope of the story before we tell so that way we know what we are talking about. But never fear the info will get to the pax one way or another.

I can second this opinion. Sometimes the delay can change from mechanical to crew timing out. But we mean no evil and announce the pax information we have available in our computer system.

Quoting N917ME (Reply 31): Sometimes you do not want to give passengers the information right away, because there may be some "magic" going on behind the scenes to protect connections, such as aircraft swaps, etc. Once you tell the passengers their flight is delayed, its like the gates of hell opening up

Yes I hate this situation and always a rotten apple in the bunch who just make your life miserable

Quoting LHRBlueSkies (Reply 27): Folks, many airlines ( or their employees) do lie about the reason for delays, in order to make the stats look better, to avoid paying compensation to passengers, or to get on-time performance bonuses...it happens!

There is no reason to avoid paying compensation, We want to keep the passengers business. The bonus comes from Airline which sees if the aircraft left on time so there is no way that we can lie about this info.

well, I'm an agent and working at a big hub. Our standard procedure with delays and the reason for them are [b]not to lie, just telling the truth[/]. As you know aviation is a very big process with several departments including many agents. It starts from ticketing and goes to check-in, possibly in the lounge, then the gate, later the crew onboard, the agents on arrival, lost&found and many many more. These are only the ones the passengers could get in contact personally. We also have many others such as disposition, operations, hub-control, ATC and so on.
As I said above our standard procedure while irregularities is to telling the truth. If it is a crew issue for example due to a late inbound flight with dead-head crew onboard or ATC strike or lack of equipment than please tell this to the customer and don't lie. If it is for example a maintenance issue and we tell the pax at the gate that the plane arrives late and the later the crew onboard tell them the truth that it was a mx issue, you could easily understand why such procedures are included in our working instructions. The customer is entitled to know what went wrong and is more 'happy' about to knowing the truth as a simple lie. This simply avoids misunderstandings.
We have a very sophisticated computer system at our hub. All departments are linked to it, so a reason for a delay is everywhere at any station the same  

Quoting DrTrobridgeMSP (Reply 50): eople would be wililng to pay an extra $50, $100, whatever for their ticket to fly a "premium" service airline.

Sure this exists. But not for 50 USD.......charter a private jet........

Seriously, I find CO to give the most perks, but they aren't any better at controlling the weather than anyone else.

Quoting DrTrobridgeMSP (Reply 50): Many of them make less than $10 an hour to start...thank their salaries for your cheap ticket

Sadly, this is true. And I would suggest this and outsourcing are BOTH questions that need addressing. I feel (personally) that in the rush to the bottom line, we as a society, are overly willing to step/squash/pushout of the way anyone and everyone.

Dave

Quoting OHLHD (Reply 14): I was refering to that not if she wanted to discuss with Remcor or not. I still believe that it was not correct to tell the agent that she was a liar. But that´s my 2 cents.

Actually, I now remember more detail about the story. The supervisor contradicted the agent _twice_. At SFO I didn't ask the reason for the delay because in SAN they said it was a ATC problem in San Fran. But at SFO the supervisor and agent had a low conversation in front of us where I heard the supervisor said something about a crew problem. Many minutes pass and when it became clear that UA wanted to bump us 24 hours with no compensation I brought up that it was a crew problem that caused the delay - so put us on the next CX flight. That's when the agent said no it was some vague problem with the 'air' in San Diego. She wanted to end it right there and gave us vouchers for the Red Roof Inn off Highway 101 in Burlingame. I argued that I overheard her supervisor say that it was a crew problem, and she denied it saying that I heard wrong. I asked to speak to her supervisor, that's when her supervisor came up to her again, looked at the computer and said "oh these were the guys on the flight with the crew problem". That's when i called her out on a lie, and they finally put us on the earlier CX flight.

I actually felt bad for the agent, she seemed stubborn but nice enough. I felt like she was made to fudge because of some policy that encourages it. It's a shame that it took 1.5 hours to resolve a problem that could have been resolved much quicker.

Quoting RDUDDJI (Reply 51): What flight number and date? I'll look up the delay reason. SFO has been on GDP's much of the last few weeks due to fog...so it's likely your flight could have been delayed for that...or the crew could have been coming from one of those delayed flights...or any number of other things, but if you give us the flight/date we can all quit speculating.

It was:
UA 900
SAN -> SFO
October 26, 2007

Quoting Bistro1200 (Reply 15): Besides, any compensation doesn't come out of their pockets, why would the agent care if you receive compensation, as far as it being a cost to the company or not?

Bingo. I am more than happy to issue vouchers/hotel accommodation if you are eligible. My management DOES NOT tell me to lie or deceive pax in order to save money. I am more than willing to assist you if your request is reasonable.

Quoting TinPusher007 (Reply 17): ut I've also seen gate agents rountinely give bad info to pax just to get them out of their faces

Unfortunately thats been known to happen. I can't condone that either: If you become violent and personally attacking me, I can bend the truth tu get you out of my face. After 300 people come up to you with the same questions/bitching, you would do the same.

Quoting DrTrobridgeMSP (Reply 50): challenge anyone to show me another job title that demands so many character traits, customer service ability, and techinical/industry knowledge that pays as poorly as an entry level TA/GA position.

Sadly thats true. As an AAgent, I work ops, gates, check-in/baggage. Lots of highly complex information to process, lots of Sabre commands to learn. Lots of critical decision making on a daily basis. Its not suprising, that most of agents in my station have a college education, some even have an MBA. I have 2 bachelors degrees and I'm currently pursuing my MBA. I love the challenges/rewards of the job.

Quoting TinPusher007 (Reply 52): You lose credibility when you lie to people and there are many choices for air travel these days.

Agreed. However, lower the fares by $5, and they will book you anyway, regardless of past experience.


To OP, I belive that the supervisor was aware of the flight number and the previuos history of the delay, while the CSA was not.

Quoting Remcor (Thread starter): My question is, has it become policy to blatantly lie to the passengers as to the cause of a flight delay?

This subject makes me sick.

Airline employees are people just like you and me. Most of us would not work for any company that required us to lie to our customers as a matter of policy.

Average folks working in extraordinarily stressful situations. Mistakes happen. No respectable company, airline or otherwise, requires its employees to lie to its customers.

Get serious. If it truly happened as you claim, it was a mistake....perhaps a new hire....whatever.

Quoting Remcor (Thread starter): Because we caught this they put on the next CX flight to HKG. Obviously if it's an ATC problem or a 'problem with the air' they could claim it's not their fault and put us on the next UA flight 24 hours later, a crew problem is UA's fault and they'd be forced to put us on the next available flight to HKG regardless of the airline. We were lied to both in SAN and SFO. My question is, has it become policy to blatantly lie to the passengers as to the cause of a flight delay?

As a gate/ticket agent, I assure you we want nothing more than to get all passengers on their way as quick as possible, because it causes less headaches for us. She wasn't lying. If anything, maybe she was confused. Believe you me, I don;t care if it is a United caused or non-United caused delay - I will rebook people to get them out of my hair as soon as humanly possible  

Quoting Remcor (Reply 56): It was: UA 900 SAN -> SFO October 26, 2007

Working on it. After 10 days delay data goes into this large flat file that I'm having trouble manipulating in Excel (it's 300 lines wide and over 30MB) ...I'll enlist the help of some friends tomorrow.

Quoting NorthstarBoy (Reply 49): see, this attitude on the part of airline personnel in general is what annoys me about flying, no one gives passengers any information anymore. I'm a big fan of full disclosure, rather than keeping people in the dark, or giving some vague explanation, tell them exactly what's going on in non-technical terms, it's not hard.

Quoting NorthstarBoy (Reply 49): for some reason, since 9/11 the airlines seem to have taken the attitude that the less people know, the better

The last couple of years flying CO and WN I have had good experience with pilots, etc. keeping us informed. In Sep. 2006 at IAH, as our CO 737 was being pushed back from the gate, we heard a loud "bang"... caused by a broken tow bar. The pilot immediately explained what happened, and explained that the aircraft would need a landing gear inspection, and it would probably take half an hour to get a mechanic over to check (we were on our way in about 20 minutes).

In Dec. 2006, flying WN OAK-SAN, the plane took off, the pilot stated that we were immediately returning to the airport, then explained after we landed that we had sucked a bird. WN crew immediately brought out the snack packs, and kept us up to date. We left two hours later, but all the pax were calm, as we had been well informed. I even had a nice chat with the FO who came back to the cabin. I thought WN handled the situation very well. Gave us free snack packs right away even though it "wasn't their fault".

Last month, on WN OAK-HOU, we had some weather delays getting into HOU. We had to take the grand tour around the Houston area getting around weather. Again, the pilot kept us updated as to what was going on.

HOWEVER, US Airways in PHX in Feb. 2007... missed connection to IAH (last flight of the day, of course), the customer service agent (after an hour wait) checked other airlines and said everything was booked, had to wait for a US flight the next afternoon. Fortunately had a friend in Phoenix who put me up for the night, checked CO on the web from there... yep, showed availability for all flights to IAH the next day, including 6:30am. By this time, was 20 miles from Sky Harbor, and locked into my friend's schedule.

Quoting Davescj (Reply 48): On the other hand, as a pax, you want some hope that "your" situation will be resolved.

This is when you can get the passenger on your side despite a delay. A little acting will get you at least a few smiles despite a delay.

Quoting NorthstarBoy (Reply 49): see, this attitude on the part of airline personnel in general is what annoys me about flying, no one gives passengers any information anymore.

Don´t get to much annoyed. Otherwise you won´t have fun flying anymore, and that´s it what it is all about.  

Quoting Remcor (Reply 56): "oh these were the guys on the flight with the crew problem".

That is really strange by the supervisor. This attitude shows me that it is really their fault. Now everything makes more sense to me.

Quoting Jetdeltamsy (Reply 58): This subject makes me sick. Airline employees are people just like you and me. Most of us would not work for any company that required us to lie to our customers as a matter of policy.

Because people like you an me and all of us here would never lie? Lying in customer service happens all the time, not just in the airline industry. After I got over my jetlag I remembered more about the situation - read post #56. If people weren't lying they were certainly giving us the impression that they were. Like I mention, I don't really blame the agent, per se, I blame whatever mechanism that caused her to want to do that.

I should say, though, on the return flight UA gave us exceptional service.

Quoting FlagshipAZ (Reply 2): And as for them lying to you...don't take it too personally. It happens every day of the year at any given airline, and at any given airport.

What kind of BS is that. As a very frequently UA flier, if I find I was blatantly lied to it would be bye-bye UA. You don't treat your clients like that.

Quoting Remcor (Thread starter): At SAN they repeatedly said that the delay was caused by an ATC problem in San Francisco.

Quoting Remcor (Thread starter): When we arrived at SFO the ticketing agent told us that the delay was some because of vague "problem with the air" in San Diego.

Quoting Remcor (Thread starter): and says "oh, these are the guys on the plane with the _crew_ problem".

Maybe an ATC problem caused the crew to go illegal, in which case, they were all true statements. Happens all the time. Doesn't mean you were lied to.

In my experience with delayed flights all the passengers are asking the same questions over and over again, even when I announce everything over the loudspeaker. Passengers only hear what they want to hear ... so you can tell them the absolute truth and they won't believe you because it isn't what they want to hear. They also think there is some sort of conspiracy happening if we don't update every 2 minutes.

Often with a mechanical delay in particular the gate staff do not know any sooner than the passengers. Or we might know the reason it has been delayed, but have no time frame to tell the passengers. Also if it is a mechanical issue it is not always wise to say exactly what has gone wrong because pax scare as easy as a herd of wildebeest.

In a lot of cases, not all the information is given to gate agents. A cancellation or delay could easily be mistaken for another flight if someone confuses one delay/cancellation for another. You have to keep in you mind as well that in a lot of situations limited information is given to gate agents related to reasoning so sometimes they deserve the benefit of the doubt. If one person confuses a delay or delay code on their screen for another delayed flight it sometimes is an honest mistake, and can't be helped. Since there are more than a few delays/cancellations a day, mistakes can easily be made. Also remember that being in their position, that a lot of times agents get very stressed. When this happens there are more mistakes that can be made. Amongst dealing with angry pax and the delayed flights, they have to deal with reacommidating those whos planes have been interupted. I don't think in most cases, that agents are trying to lie or trick you into thinking one thing. What's to hide? What do they gain by lying? As you said they can claim one instance is not their fault and another is, but to the gate agents themselves the reasons are not to matter as much as doing their job and dealing with the annoyed and angry pax in front of them to reaccomidate.

  

Quoting VANGUARD737 (Reply 59): As a gate/ticket agent, I assure you we want nothing more than to get all passengers on their way as quick as possible, because it causes less headaches for us. She wasn't lying. If anything, maybe she was confused. Believe you me, I don;t care if it is a United caused or non-United caused delay - I will rebook people to get them out of my hair as soon as humanly possible

This is so true. We want the costumer to be happy and on their way.

[quote=AerorobNZ,reply=66]In my experience with delayed flights all the passengers are asking the same questions over and over again, even when I announce everything over the loudspeaker. Passengers only hear what they want to hear ... so you can tell them the absolute truth and they won't believe you because it isn't what they want to hear. They also think there is some sort of conspiracy happening if we don't update every 2 minutes.

True.

youve obviously never flown Ryanair...

The only airline never to have had a technical problem, staff problem, resource problem or planning problem.

Even when their aircraft blew it's tires blocking the entire KRK airport... the flight was delayed due to ATC delays.

I'd say what probably happened is that the crew operating your flight was delayed on another flight into SAN due to weather, and therefore the SAN - SFO flight was delayed waiting for this crew.
Happens all the time, at least here in Europe..
Is it then a crew related delay or weather?? Who can tell...

Probably the gate agent looked at this as weather related, and the manager called it "crew problem" cause is some way it was..

SKA380

Quoting Remcor (Thread starter): has it become policy to blatantly lie to the passengers as to the cause of a flight delay

There are issues in the UK at the moment regarding airlines cheating us the customers by giving false info.


It is suggested that they are wrongly classifying technical failures as "unforeseen circumstances" to get round the law which would incur compensation costs etc to the passengers. Since 2005, under European law, airlines must provide passengers with refreshments, and in some cases hotel accommodation, when their plane is delayed by more than two hours. Travellers whose flights are cancelled altogether are entitled to compensation. Depending on the flight's duration that could be between 250 euros (£175) and 600 euros (£400). But airlines do not have to pay out if the cancellation was due to unforeseen circumstances or so-called "force majeure".

Quoting VANGUARD737 (Reply 59): As a gate/ticket agent, I assure you we want nothing more than to get all passengers on their way as quick as possible, because it causes less headaches for us. She wasn't lying. If anything, maybe she was confused. Believe you me, I don;t care if it is a United caused or non-United caused delay - I will rebook people to get them out of my hair as soon as humanly possible

Very true.

Also, my airline would NEVER try to cheat the passenger out of compensation, meals voucher, etc. In fact, I think my airline is VERY liberal when it comes to compensation for delayed, cancelled flights.

Quoting Flybynight (Reply 64): What kind of BS is that. As a very frequently UA flier, if I find I was blatantly lied to it would be bye-bye UA. You don't treat your clients like that

lol, you know wha, i am too... but look at their website when they put the reasons for the delay. one time i was on flight 903 from IAD to DEN, and we were delayed by 20 min. the reason was that a family flying from international got separaed and not all of them made it, and since we were still at te gate, they were going to deplane, before they got reunited with the teenager who got lost. the flight attendants actually announced it as the reason and because i was on seat 8J on the 777 i could actually see all the activity at the door. 20 min was not that big of a deal.

ok, so i get home and i check the flight status out of curiosity and the reason for the delay was "Flight time changed due to crew scheduling" i was like "WHAT!!!" i mean the door was closed and we were good to go if itwasnt for the famly realizing that their teenag son was not on board.

i am really not bashing airlines for stuff like that, but it is a norm that we don't get the right information from the airline employees all the time. gate agents are just doing their jobs and what they tell us (most of the time) is what they see infront of them on the screen. yeah lots of them are total b***ches, and i wish i could smack them in the face with whatever infront of me due to the attitude and the nasty way they treat customers, but they are just doing their jobs. and lots of the airlines if they did something about this nastiness and attitude, they would be much nicer. for example i traveled on lufthansa, Emirates, and KLM's business. those employees (at least from my experience) go way out of their way to be nice to you. try for example, delta, or northwest economy i got lots of nasty attitude, and nasty treatment on those... one time in 2004 i was boarding a flight from STL to DTW, and the gate agent was in the jetway announcing that we need to board, so we start walking , not even before reaching the scanner, she extend her arm and block me from walking forward to the machine and says "you need to wait" well, i am sorry, who gave her the right to touch me? if i was the one who did that, i would be in deep trouble.

[Edited 2007-11-13 10:21:56]

Quoting LAXAgent (Reply 53): there is no way that we can lie about this info.

Of course there is, and it happens on a daily basis. Crwes are late, but to stop getting flak from the Captain next time round, delay goes to ATC. The pushback tug is late, but we'll call it ATC.

And yes, airlines do change the delay codes to avoid paying compensation...

Sorry, it's a sad fact, but it's true.

Quoting Remcor (Thread starter): Then, almost immediately after she told me this her supervisor walks by, looks at the computer screen that the ticketing agent was working on, reads it, and says "oh, these are the guys on the plane with the _crew_ problem"

Quoting Remcor (Reply 3): The agent first said that it was a problem that was not their fault, the supervisor then looked at that same computer screen shortly thereafter and read that it was a problem that was their fault.

Those two statements are inconsistent. In the second you say the agent and supervisor had the same information, but in the first your quote of the supervisor clearly shows that he had more detailed information - probably from a different source and probably from a greater understanding of airline operations - than the gate agent.

All your statements indicate is that when the supervisor read the screen - he recognized the flight as being a 'problem' flight - not that anything on the screen indicated the reason for the problem.

Quoting Remcor (Thread starter): has it become policy to blatantly lie to the passengers as to the cause of a flight delay?

I don't know about anyone purposely lying - but being misinformed or not understanding the whole story / picture - yes - it's been very common since I started flying commercially in the 1960's - put the blame on anyone except the airline.

quoting Hamad "i am really not bashing airlines for stuff like that, but it is a norm that we don't get the right information from the airline employees all the time. gate agents are just doing their jobs and what they tell us (most of the time) is what they see infront of them on the screen. yeah lots of them are total b***ches, and i wish i could smack them in the face with whatever infront of me due to the attitude and the nasty way they treat customers, but they are just doing their jobs. and lots of the airlines if they did something about this nastiness and attitude, they would be much nicer. for example i traveled on lufthansa, Emirates, and KLM's business. those employees (at least from my experience) go way out of their way to be nice to you. try for example, delta, or northwest economy i got lots of nasty attitude, and nasty treatment on those..

Hamad,
hmmmmmmmmm then you must not have ever flown out of Dubai or London. The EK staff there are some of the nastiest that I've ever observed or had the misfortune of running into

Quoting Remcor (Reply 63): Lying in customer service happens all the time, not just in the airline industry.

Ugh.

Quoting Remcor (Reply 63): I don't really blame the agent, per se, I blame whatever mechanism that caused her to want to do that.

The law requires airline companies to be honest about reasons for delays.

Last winter there was a huge uproar about airlines claiming "weather" when delays were caused by mechanical or other "on us" problems. The government firmly warned all airlines that to lie about such things is to subject the company to a significant fine.

So does lying ever happen? Probably. But the average employee, like average folks in any business, would not work for a company that required them to lie.

I think you just got yourself all whipped up over a mistake.

Quoting LHRBlueSkies (Reply 74): Of course there is, and it happens on a daily basis. Crwes are late, but to stop getting flak from the Captain next time round, delay goes to ATC. The pushback tug is late, but we'll call it ATC. And yes, airlines do change the delay codes to avoid paying compensation... Sorry, it's a sad fact, but it's true. flying is the safest form of transport - until humans

What is your experience that tells you this and that has convinced you of this. Also your proof? Any of the airlines I worked with will only give the actual reason and a lot of the time mistakes are made due to limited information given to gate agents. No gate agents that I have ever heard of have been told to lie about the situation to warrant non compensation.

However if there is a number of problems factoring to the issue such as ATC, weather and A/C servicing then it does happen on occasion that the agents are only told one of the above and in a lot of circumstances if not all, they are given the delay code that is the largest factor in that delay.

Quoting Aerofan (Reply 76): Hamad, hmmmmmmmmm then you must not have ever flown out of Dubai or London. The EK staff there are some of the nastiest that I've ever observed or had the misfortune of running into

i did fly out of dubai on Emirates but not out of london, however i never flown Emirates economy. what i was trying to say is that they are always nice to you when you are on business class, didnt say anything about them being on economy. and my flights on Emirates are basically limited to Doha, Kuwait, or JFK.

Quoting RFields5421 (Reply 75): Those two statements are inconsistent. In the second you say the agent and supervisor had the same information, but in the first your quote of the supervisor clearly shows that he had more detailed information - probably from a different source and probably from a greater understanding of airline operations - than the gate agent. All your statements indicate is that when the supervisor read the screen - he recognized the flight as being a 'problem' flight - not that anything on the screen indicated the reason for the problem.

My first post was written at 5am in a jet-lag no-sleep haze... both posts are fairly consistent, but in the second post the details are clearer. Anyway, the gist of it is that she certainly seemed like she were trying to force us to accept flying 24 hours later with no compensation because of a fault that was not the airline. And, based on what I saw (and I had nothing to do for 1.5 hours standing there other than look at what the United employees were doing) the supervisor and the agent were concluding two different things by looking at the same computer screen. The agent and I argued about it and then when the supervisor contradicted her she offered no explanation, or didn't ask her supervisor to clarify or didn't say "oops, I didn't notice that". Her words and body language indicated deception to me.

The airlines certainly have a financial reason to hide the reason for a missed connection from customers if it is the airline's fault. As posters mention above this has been shown to happen before. So why am I being so controversial? UA is in financial distress and it's conceivable that their employees are under some pressure to discourage revenue-loss activities such as rebooking a customer on a competing airline.

Quoting Remcor (Reply 80): As posters mention above this has been shown to happen before. So why am I being so controversial?

If I wrote why you are being so controversial, i would probably get deleted. It's clear why your posts don't hold water.

You have no way of knowing if the agent and supervisor looked at the same screen. You have no way of know what the agent's "body language" meant. You have no way of knowing if it was a mistake or a "lie".

Quoting Jetdeltamsy (Reply 81): If I wrote why you are being so controversial, i would probably get deleted. It's clear why your posts don't hold water. You have no way of knowing if the agent and supervisor looked at the same screen. You have no way of know what the agent's "body language" meant. You have no way of knowing if it was a mistake or a "lie".

You're straying off the topic of the post. The topic was whether it is implicitly or explicitly encouraged for agents to lie (in some airlines) when it is financially beneficial to the company. As far as I'm concerned, I believe I'm correct in my analysis of the situation I was in. Since you weren't there, I believe your assessment of the situation doesn't hold much water.