Looking for an airline that communicates well? If you welcome texts from your airline with live radar maps during weather delays, real-time information about your trip and its possible delays, gate changes and prompts about boarding times, that’s United Airlines.
Those real-time radar maps are a tool to help passengers understand how bad weather in one part of the country affects flights elsewhere. It can be hard to see your own sunny skies and grasp why your connecting flight out of Denver is grounded or delayed. United is currently the only U.S. airline sending these innovative messages.
In the past few years, human teams wrote and sent messages to customers when things went differently than planned: crew rescheduling, aircraft swaps, etc. But United’s teams are now using generative AI to update travelers about delays.
The airline explains how it works. Customer service and flight operation teams sit in the network operations center and access gen AI to review flight data. Gen AI then writes messages that explain that situation, which are sent via text or email to passengers. If a weather event is involved, the messages will include links to live radar maps showing flight paths and weather affecting them. It’s more reassuring when you can see for yourself that there is trouble in the skies, and it isn’t just the airline messing up. Additionally, United displays the radar maps in the gate area when a flight is delayed because of weather concerns.
United also prides itself on automatic rebooking, so you don’t have to go stand in line at the airline’s customer service center (or wait on a phone call for a rep to come on). The self-service tools automatically let you know about your rebooking, tell you about your bag tracking, and offer meal and hotel vouchers if warranted.
Other innovations: United is the only airline that gives passengers real-time access to their boarding pass, gate number, seat number, and countdown clock to departure, all without opening the United app. United offers a dynamic seat map that makes it easier to seat minors next to adults in their party for free, even in Basic Economy (thank you, United!). And as of August 2020, there are no change fees and standby travel is complimentary in all classes.