The cause of United’s flight delays: Too many email addresses!
This is unbelievable.
My profile on United Airlines’ website is configured to send me three copies of every flight notification, like if my flight is going to be changed or delayed. One of the notifications goes to my wife’s email, one goes to my regular email, and the other goes to my iPhone’s email. That way, all the bases are covered.
All those cc’s or bcc’s are causing a serious problem for United Airlines. Here’s the message they sent me last week.
Action required by August 17, 2009! This is an important message from United Airlines regarding your EasyUpdate flight notification contact information and settings.
On August 17th, we are making a change to the Easyupdate Flight Notification section of our website. When this change takes place, a maximum of 2 contact points will be permitted for each type of message – your account currently exceeds this maximum. By limiting the number of contact points, we streamline the volume of messages sent out each day, which will increase performance through faster response times. This will be especially beneficial on days where there may be larger numbers of messages we need to send to our customers.
To avoid any interruptions and to ensure that you continue receiving your Easyupdate flight notifications, please log into www.united.com/easyupdate and follow the instructions to update your contact points so that no more than two contact points are selected for each message type.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Sheesh. United’s EasyUpdate system is lame anyway. For example, let’s say I get to the airport early, and get onto an earlier flight. United’s ticket system knows all about that. Do you think it tells United’s EasyUpdate system? No way. EasyUpdate still thinks that I’m on the original flight, and cheerfully sends out notifications of that flight’s takeoff, arrival and delay status. Helpful? Not.
(What about that intercap? The “editor” in me wishes they’d make up their mind: EasyUpdate or Easyupdate? United is inconsistent.)