Services like operating the walkway and the tugs that push-back the plane from the gate are often outsourced. Perhaps that's the connection... in most of the cases where the people did a terrible job, it's because the role's been outsourced.

I think the article nails this on the head, management doesn't care about it's employees, and the employees pass this on to the customer.

They care so little that they don't even want core pieces of their business done by their own people.

It reminds me of a cable co in canada called Rogers, the entire thing is a bunch of outsourced services glued together with a couple sales people.

It can go further. Caring can be actively dis-incented. If your caring about a problem causes any disruption to your "normal" work, you will be penalized.

That child you rescued and escorted to their destination or a safe location? That's 30 minutes you weren't "doing your job".

And perhaps you're not authorized to escort children. The liability! Sorry, but we are going to have to terminate you.

When it gets to this point of actively "not caring", it's no longer human nature; it is a contrary behavior that has been actively taught and reinforced.

I don't know anything about this situation, but in some cases there can be other factors preventing people from doing the work, even if they want to. Liability, as you mention, is one such.

I recall many years ago, working at a certain phone company (I was a college student on a summer job). I needed to get some information off a circuit board that was sitting in a box on a warehouse shelf -- I could see it from where I was standing, but couldn't read it. Yet I was forced to stand around for 1/2 hour until a warehouse worker could go fetch the box for me. I was told that union rules didn't allow me to walk 50 feet over to pick up a box, and the union would file a grievance if I did so.

I don't mean this as a rant against unions. I just mean to say that there can be other extenuating factors. In the long run, management should be aware of these problems and act to mitigate them. But in the short term -- when there's a problem right now, that I'd like to fix -- both I and management may have our hands tied.

Fair enough. Unions, and their members, can act badly, too.

There is plenty of idiocy and self-serving turf warfare to go around.

I was in a union -- by default -- for a while, one time. It meant that in exchange for a small amount in dues, my wages were 25% - 30% higher than those of other jobs available to me. And, I worked my ass off. With other people who worked their asses off. And who still had the time and energy for some good humor, perhaps in part because there were limits to the amount that management could jerk them around. We were all "blue collar stiffs"; nonetheless, it was one of the happier places I've worked.

I have an uncle who ended up president of his union (in an unrelated field and business). One of the most decent people I know. And he's busted his balls for his folks; it's been necessary, in order to try to counteract some of the very typical, abusive management techniques that have become prevalent -- and increasingly written about -- in the last 20 years.

Unions do bad things. Short-sighted, self-destructive things. But no worse than Management. And often, it seems that the "badness" is symmetric; the worse one side gets, the worse the other becomes in response.

Some of the more compelling arguments of economics occur at the macro level. And there, the decline and destruction of the union workforce has a strong correlation -- if arguments continue over causation -- with the decline of the American workforce and productive industry.

Unions also, at their best, epitomize a characteristic oft lauded as an American ideal: When the chips are down, we "rouged individualist" Americans step up and take care of each other. We're in this together. (A sentiment having significant base in WW II.) It ain't pretty, but it works.

The decline of unions seems to correspond with, symbolize, and perhaps represent the decline of this ideal in the American population and psyche.

These days, to be caustic, we seem to be lauding "ever dog for himself".

P.S. Your story about having to wait 30 minutes to look in a box disgusts me. That definitely is not the way things should be -- I agree with you.

The push-back and walkway are usually managed by the airport, the airline doesn't really have a choice in this particular case.

Ultimately I think it comes down to cost. As airlines predominantly compete on ticket price, they'll do whatever it takes to reduce that (outsource their logistics, operations, flight planning, etc.) Hell, Ryanair in Europe make their pilots pay for their uniform. All about getting the fare as low as possible, consequences be damned.

Except they can't easily reduce labor costs because of the unions. Southwest is not unionized yet almost every employee there seems happy and friendly. Flying on Southwest is almost fun and they have low ticket costs. Southwest knows how to properly hedge against fuel increases and as such they're one of the few profitable airlines around.

Southwest is unionized...

http://www.southwest.com/html/about-southwest/history/fact-s...

My experience is that it's very simple:

- What was previously Continental, works well.

- What was previously United, doesn't.

I'm sure the Continental parts will converge to mediocrity given enough time - but for now, they're still closer to Continental quality than to old-United quality.

The reason Continental part works is because CO systems were chosen as a part of merger and UA agents are not well trained in the mainframe commands. Airlines still use Mainframe systems with green screens for agent use

That's not what I mean.

I'm talking about overall experience - the plane being on time, the agents being clueful, the air crew being competent and accommodating, etc.

I might have accepted your hypothesis about the merger, if it wasn't for the fact that my experience with united for YEARS before the merger had been dismal, whereas my experience with Continental was top notch.

In the last two years, my experience with continental degraded visibly (though not to the pre-merger united levels), and the very little united experience I did have was not really improved.

Note: My dichotomy might be wrong - I used to use continental mostly for international flights (with a few domestic), and only flew united domestically. It's possible that Continental/United is paying more attention to international flights than they do domestic, rather than the "pre merger" status of a flight or terminal.