Customer complaints jump again for United

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United Airlines in July continued to generate more customer complaints than any other U.S. carrier, according to federal transportation data released Monday.

The Chicago-based airline received the most complaints every month this year through July, the month covered in the latest Air Travel Consumer Report. The monthly report is issued by the Aviation Consumer Protection Division in the U.S. Transportation Department's Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings.

United had an average of 11.25 complaints per 100,000 flights boarded for the month. That was highest among 15 U.S. airlines, including regional carrier ExpressJet, which does the lion's share of United's regional flying.

Second on the list was US Airways, with an average of 2.83 complaints per 100,000 flights boarded.

United merged with Houston-based Continental Airlines in 2010.

Trend since March

The number of complaints against United has increased every month since March, when it conducted a massive switchover to Continental's reservation system. The change led to widespread flight delays, booking problems and unusually long phone wait times.

In March, the number of complaints doubled from the previous month, to 260. The total doubled again from May to June, with a total of 585. The total for July, made available Monday, spiked at 995.

The data also showed United's continued trouble getting planes to destinations on schedule.

In July, United ranked last in on-time performance with a 64.1 percent on-time rate, compared with the industry average of about 76 percent.

United has ranked among the bottom in on-time performance, and among the top in number of flight cancellations for most of the year.

Earlier this month, United reported that its on-time performance in August was 72 percent. Its goal is 80 percent.

'A lot has changed'

In a statement, United acknowledged its poor performance but said "a lot has changed in our operations since July" and that it has "taken aggressive action to improve," including adding more ground time between flights.

It has also reversed a decision it made to keep fewer spare planes on hand to use in case of maintenance problems, and it is working to improve its computer system.

But in late August, its entire system, including its website, went offline for several hours, causing 580 flight delays.

"We recognize our performance in July was not what our customers expect, and it was not what we want to deliver," the statement said of the July performance, going on to note that the airline has achieved its 80 percent "arrival target" so far in September.

"We are aggressively addressing the operational issues that contributed to the high number of complaints."

Frequent-flier error

The statement noted that "a third" of the complaints in the report are related to an incident in July it described as "obviously inadvertent, and quickly corrected" in which frequent fliers were able to book first-class tickets to and from Hong Kong by cashing in just four frequent-flier miles. United dropped those reservations.

The majority of the 995 complaints filed against United in July were largely into the categories of flight problems and reservations/ticketing/boarding.

Also in July, more than 200 United fliers were stranded in Shanghai, China, for several days when the carrier was forced to push back a flight to Newark, N.J., twice because of maintenance and other issues.

United also reported this month that per-passenger revenue for August dropped "an estimated 0.5 to 1.5 percent" year over year.

kiah.collier@chron.com

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