Them. Okay. All right. Are you able to tell us what they communicated to Law Enforcement regarding the customer on united 3411 . They say this person is disruptive and needs to be removed or did they this person wont take 800 and needs to be removed . The protocol called for asking for assistance from local Law Enforcement. Thats wrong. What changes have been made in records to offering alternative solutions you made your problem the customers problem in this particular case. So i think hearing from you all, how youre not making problems you have about getting your staff somewhere and making it a customer putting the solution on the customer to solve your problem about getting the staff somewhere is important. It goes to everybody. I couldnt agree with you more. This is why our crew members, unless they check in 60 minutes before, it is what triggered this whole event. Can you help me understand what we expect to see from southwest on may 8th or 9th with regards to the upgrade . We had the melt down maybe not as directly to subject of this particular hearing, but it is certainly a Customer Service iss issue what will happen that made it i think you called it bigger and better than what you have now. Yes, sir. Yes have been putting in pieces for almost a year now to ensure they work as they go. There is extensive testing. Well have hundreds. The testing and all have gone flawless so far. I expect some small problems on may 9th when we implement. I think we are extremely well prepared. I expect it to all go very very well. Well, i have found that small problems in the industry when it cops to i. T. Result in delays through an entire system. So what so even seeing small problems doesnt give me a lot of reassurance. Can you give me a little more assurance . We have tested this product more than any i. T. Implementation we have ever done. We have implemented it in phases. You wake up and it doesnt work very well the next morning. Thats usually what goes wrong. We implemented small pieces for literally almost a year now. Second, when we began to add International Destinations they have been running for more than a year. We have been running it in production far long period of time. And thats good. One last question for the record for United Airlines. I just if you guys could get back to us and explain why this particular issue was not an overbooking issue. Can mu the customer and everybody that saw it online saw it as an overbooking issue. Thank you, gentleman. Thank you very much. Much like mr. Hunter. Im a pretty frequent flier. Thats probably just because you dont fly to corpus christi, texas, hint, hint. What im seeing is a growing level of frustration from passengers and from your passenger facing crew in the airport. Everybody is in a rush. We have had to deal with tsa. The fuel costs are down. Were there any plans to check the baggage fees . If you could and let scott thank. So the answer is no. What about american . We put our fees in place to give more options and more choices and to pay for services they intend to consume. Lets talk about southwest. No checked bagged fees. You said you had overbooked flights. I cant remember the last time united fair was lower than a southwest fare. How are yall able to do it at southwest . Just a couple of things. We appreciate your business in corpus christi, by the way. We try to make policies that makes sense for the customer. It makes sense if youre going to travel you can bring your clothes along with you. Regarding the no checked bag fees allows people to check their bags. We have more bin space because they are checking their bags. We strive to keep costs low. It allows us to do things like no bag fees. We believe we get more business overall because we do not charge fees. And mr. Munoz, the reason you had to get people off or trying to move a crew to get to their other airlines, united is my primary carrier. One of the things i see a lot when i when it says awaiting inbound kruchlt why dont you just keep the crew with the airplane . Why couldnt you put the same crew and take that one issue off the table . I think its a great thought. Make sure so the ability to keep crews on the flight is not something thats easily doable. We are seeing reports about having adverse reaction with over 3,000 flight attendants and now with pilots. What is the airline doing . Can you get somebody to give me the info . I am happy to give you information. First i want to make sure to state that the safety of customers and employees is absolutely our top priority. We launched a new uniform last fall and for about 75,000 of our team members. The vast majority of them really liked the product that we launched. Team members were involved in developing it as well. It was to ensure it meets and exceeds stan darsd. We have been working to make sure they have alternative uniforms they can wear. Both different fabrics and also recently we announced an additional manufacturer that can provide uniforms for our employees. Well continue to work with team members. Its an issue we take very seriously and putting a lot of attention on. Thank you. I hear from the tapping that my time has expired. Some times we put rules and laws in place. It is industries across america. We have to pay close attention to the response from the industry is. Thank you, gentlemen for being here. Here is the problem is that the flying experience, and again, we all do it on a regular basis. The truth is my flying experience is reasonable 90 of the time. It has a lot to do with lowered expe expectations. I grew up with a playground that was broken with no swings. Everybody just accepted it. It was the way it was. Now, its not like that anymore. It took us 20 years to change that. People today would never accept that. The level of expectations have been risen. The problem with the flying experience is across the board. We all know its a terrible experience starting from the minute i go in the computer to try to figure out which flight i want to take. I have to go to several different web sites and even when i do that i have to get truly comparable prices because some dont charge fees, some do. Some charge fees for baggage and some charge fees for oxygen. Who knows. I cant get comparable prices. Before i buy the ticket im frustrate. I personally have shut it down for many years. I have to go back to it because i have to fly. You have to go back and dig your way through it. From the very start but we all expect it to be a miserable experience. When you get through the airport we have to get through the tsa lines. Now i go through the express lines but now the express lines are full of people that dont know to take their keys out of their pocket. I get to the gate, planes is late. Plane is not late. I have been bumped on occasion. It has been handled reasonable. By the way, i want to know how to get that 10,000 thing. Believe me, ill be fliying a lt more. You can figure that out. Even with these fees i get the airlines coming and complaining about the airlines we have. We had 3. 8 billion in fees which dont pay the ticket tax which means almost 300 million that could have been put into improving those to facilities didnt because you dont want to tell us what your tickets cost. We have kind of sick of it as the consuming americans. We have got to fly. Youve got us. If you want to keep treating us, fine. I guess we can only do so much. But there will come a day and Congress Wont accept it anymore on behalf of the american people. That shouldnt happen. You had an apology last week. I think its genuine. I think you mean it. The policies seem reasonable, the ones you have now. Its your turn. The problem is every year i say you know what . Im going to the gym. I will lose 5 pounds. I will get in shape again. By february im kind of out of it. I give up on it. Every person i know that ever committed a crime has basically apologized for it, didnt mean to. The apology is good. Again, i do accept it. I believe its sincere today. I hope you all know that this doesnt stop today and you will be judged on how it is implemented. It happens to be you today but it could be any one of you tomorrow. I presume you have rechecked about how you do it. Im sure you dont want to be in the hot seat the next time. The truth is i dont really have any questions because again, i do think i addressed the immediate situation. If you walked out thinking it is the only problem the American Public has you would have missed the point. We have a problem that shouldnt be as bad and unpleasant as it is. Youre the only people that can fix it. I encourage you to do so so that we can get back to the point of nobody is against you making money. I just want to be able to get from point a to point b with a more pleasant experience. If i do believe me, ill go back more often when that happens. I apologize but i think all of the questions i have have been answered. My response to that is well said. Thank you. With that i yield to mr. Gibbs. Thank you. You really have cultural problems for that to happen on united with a doctor. It is unbelievable to me that the pilot or crew would have let that happen when you had it is positives. I think also one big positive helps keep fares down for everybody. When overbooking happens we all let the Market Forces work. I think the 10,000 deal, there will be a stampede. They have another issue. It will be a positive issue. The cultural issue, i think as leaders of the republicanspecte airlines i think its a cultural issue. I fly basically weekly. There are times well be out on the tarmac. It is really nice when the pilot says we just heard from air traffic control. Well with delayed because of issues here in d. C. Or whatever. They say its already to f you have to go to the restroom use the restroom. Well tell you when to turn your phone back off versus some places you cant do anything. Im glad to see, you know, the market has to function, has to work. My question i have and i dont know the answer, do airlines still have resip kosty agreements or not . At United Airlines we have agreements to carry customers on most of our competing airlines. Certainly with american, delta. I know in years past when issues come up you they say we can get you on x, y, z congressman, can i address that . Prior to the regulation in 1978 agreements were ubiquitous so that the burden was on the airline, not the passenger so the passenger would be acome bait dat dated with another carrier. Those were sustained on the part of the airlines in some cases and not in others. When there was an influx of low Cost Carriers . 1990s they started using them as a competitive tool as the expense of passengers by not int interlining. Even some Major Airlines dont interline with each other. Their feuds are one thing. This effects passengers in a very negative way. Anybody else want to respond . Go ahead. I would say broad generalizations are one thing but i think most all Major Airlines have airline agreements. Thats certainly the case with ak alaska airlines. Yeah. I think Competitive Pressures need competition. When the situation arises its completely out of your control. Thats how you Keep Congress off your back, make sure youre expounding a culture that puts customers first. If the culture was right and coming from the top i dont believe it would have happened. It would have been you didnt cant tell me theres not other paying customers that wouldnt jump at a chance to take the flight a couple of hours later. Its hard to believe thats the case. I guess thats where my criticism is. Theres definitely a cultural problem. Im glad to see in your written and oral testimony youre fixing to address that. I think thats really where it starts. I think if all of your team members understand that the customers come first and make it work the best this is how we solve this problem. I yield back. Thank you, gentlemen. I will have to step out far little bit. I think ill be back before this is over. I just want to make sure i say this because i think its so important. In every bad situation thats Silver Lining. If the Airline Industry doesnt find a Silver Lining this is to get together collectively. If you dont, we are going to act. If we act its going to be one size fits all. It might be okay for united and american but it wont be good for alaskan or jet blue or whoever the case is. That should be the take away from today is to seize this opportunity because if you dont were going to come and youre not going to like it. So with that i hand the gavel over to mr. And i recognize you for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. One of the things that you recognize, the selfregulation that youre going to ensure that you Pay Attention to it. But i would wonder whether its going to be a irregularly or inconsistent. How often would you you review yourself to be sure there are problems being address. I think in a regular course for united internally, through our board . How often . Our boards meet five times a year. So, at least that many times. Internally to the open public, we have 186 million customers out there every day. To everyones concerns and thoughts, we hear from them very frequently, with regards to this. So, i have an old saying from a long time ago. That its about proof and not promises. So what youve seen from united, in the 18 months ive been there anyway, everything we said we were going to do, we delivered upon. So, it will be a constant stream of new announcements that enhance what weve talked about. And a followup on the issues. With regard to the policies we put in place, everyone will have to be a judgment. To the rest of you. Congresswoman, in the case of alaska airlines, we are constantly holding ourselves accountable from a Customer Service and a Customer Satisfaction standpoint. So much so that we actually have Customer Satisfaction metrics as part of our employee compensation. As part of our employee incentives. Those are watched very closely by all of our employees, all 19,000 of us, and those are addressed every month. I would say the same for southwest. Customer service measures are the part particularly our leaders are compensated. So we review those often. Second, with the change, we will no longer overbook as part of the oversale. And we expect that to go down to denied boarders 80 . And we will watch that every single week. We receive Customer Feedback in multiple forms and we Pay Attention to all of it and take it seriously. We have a team at american that we call our Customer Advocacy Team that consist of leaders around the airline and we meet monthly to review feedback, review our policy and make changes to continue to improve. But are they implemented immediately . Theyre implemented as quickly as we can. If its a simple policy change, change, yes, immediately. If its something that requires a Technology Change it may take us a little longer to get it done. Mr. Mcgee, do you have any comments . Yes, thank you, congresswoman. Weve heard a lot about retraining and improvements. And we certainly want to give credit where its due for that. But i do think that theres an underlying issue here, and that is that it really shouldnt take a media event and a viral social media, you know, outcry to make executives in this industry rethink how they treat their customers. Thank you. Mr. Mcgee, do you have any comment in the training that is afforded the employees in so far as Mental Health is included . Anything to help the employee deal with customers who are acting odd . Or on a personal basis, or selfimprovement, i fly twice a week. So, ive seen it all. Yet. Ive encountered every now and then a very rough attendant. Will it be because of stress, would you indicate that any training is given to them to be able to deal with Mental Health problems if they arise . I think its an excellent question, congresswoman. Because as i stated earlier, this is an industry that heavily outsources. Im a former Airline Employee myself. I should point that out. Im faa a licensed aircraft dispatcher. I spent seven years working in ground operations and management. I was proud to work at panam, an airline that was renowned for Customer Service. But right now, we have a situation where employees are understand tremendous strain. I think its the executive decisions that are putting flight attendants in the front lines of so many of these situations. Flight attendants have a fundamental responsibility to insure safety and evacuation and of course Customer Service. Weve asked them to be bouncers and Police Officers and all kinds of other things. So theres no question that theres an issue of training as well. I ask any of you to quickly reply. Im running out of time. Simply put, we agree. And in fact, support a united today in the audience, several of our pilots and flight attendants. And i think we work with them constantly to ensure what their needs what they see and the constant back and forth, so we do put in policies, training. Does it include Mental Health training . We do have a practice that were implementing for our pilots. May is Mental Health month, i urge you to take a look and make sure that is taken care of. Thank you. Thank you mr. Davis . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mcgee, thank you for your comments that were just made about this industry, hoping to fix some of the Customer Service problems themselves. Last, you know like Many Americans i was disturbed by the video we saw of mr. Dao, and also other video subsequent to this thats why i along with my colleague sent a letter to ask questions about the incident, including any guidelines, if any. Where an airline asked seated passengers to leave in order to accommodate a flight crew. Mr. Munoz, thank you for taking responsibility as a ceo for that disturbing video and making sure that there are policies now in place to ensure that doesnt happen again. Thats the