Complaints against airlines

Posted by Jill Browne Dec 28, 2006

In searching for information about United Airlines' facilities for accommodating disabled and special needs passengers, I found a website called untied.com. This is full of horror stories about people who have complained about United, and how poorly they were treated.

I am completely independent of United but in fairness I want to point out that the website was last updated six years ago. Since then, United has been in and out of bankruptcy and has probably made significant changes to its staff and business.

United's website says they are "committed to meeting the travel needs of all customers, including customers with disabilities and special needs, such as unaccompanied minors". The same page of the website describes the various steps United takes to fulfil this commitment.

They recommend that you tell them of your needs when you make your reservation.

The U.S. government has an office which tracks complaints against airlines. This is the Air Travel Consumer Report issued December 2006, with data up to the end of October 2006. Most of the report is made up of tables.

In October 2006, United Airlines had the most complaints against it of the US-based airlines (80 complaints, or 1.38 complaints per 1,000 emplanements), but its record for disability-based complaints is not so bad. United had 3 disability complaints for the month. Each of Delta Airlines, NorthWest Airlines and SouthWest Airlines had 4; American Airlines had 3. These figures do not take into account the fact that these airlines do not all operate the same number of flights per month.

Every month, I track the Disability category of complaints against airlines in the U.S. in an ongoing series of articles:

• October 2006(reported in December 2006)
• November 2006(reported in January 2007)
• December 2006(reported in February 2007)
• January 2007(reported in March 2007)

The statistics are released about 6 weeks after the end of the month reported on. The January 2007 statistics came out in March 2007, for example.