United apologized in advance of DOT report, but sorry doesn’t make flights arrive on time


Skift Take

United Airlines has a gargantuan task ahead of it if the airline is to get its house back in order from a customer-service standpoint.

United Airlines was apologizing for its customer "disservice" in the form of late-arriving flights, cancellations and mishandled bags even before the Department of Transportation revealed the extent of the airline's transgressions.

In fact, according to the numbers in the DOT's Air Travel Consumer Report, unveiled August 9, United was the recipient of 1,740 consumer complaints from January to June 2012.

And, according to a statistical deep dive by The Consumerist, that amounted to more than one-third of the complaints leveled against all U.S. airlines.