Dear employees,
The unique privilege of pass travel is part of what makes working for an airline so special and it’s important to all of us. These privileges allow us to see the world with our families and close friends. We all share the responsibility to comply with the terms of United’s pass travel policy; however, we’ve found an increasing number of instances where employees are abusing these privileges.In violation of our policy, enrolled friend status and buddy passes can be purchased online every day, and “pass travel brokers” run underground businesses illegally selling buddy passes. We have discovered employees who have sold enrolled friend status or even fraudulently designated individuals as eligible family members. Some employees have used their privileges for themselves or family members to travel for other jobs or side businesses. Based upon conversations with my peers at the other major airlines, this situation isn’t unique to United.These clear violations of our pass travel policy and our code of ethics are damaging to our company and we cannot allow them to continue. I’m sorry to say that within the past year, we have terminated more than 100 employees due to fraudulent activity related to buddy passes, with a disproportionate share relating to international travel.
To preserve the continued viability of our pass travel program, we are making two changes:
1) Beginning Jan. 5, 2015, all regular buddy pass riders traveling outside of the 48 contiguous United States must be accompanied by an employee or an employee’s eligible pass rider. Eligible pass riders are the employee’s spouse or domestic partner, enrolled friend, age-eligible children, parents and extended family buddy pass riders who are validly listed on the employee’s profile.
2) Beginning mid-February 2015, all regular buddies will need to be registered and certified a minimum of 48-72 hours before travel. Employees may designate a maximum of 12 people (in addition to extended family buddies) who may use buddy passes. Like eligible pass riders today, you will register your regular buddies on your travel profile (Employee Services > My Info) by answering a set of questions and certifying the responses to be true and correct. This process will help substantiate in advance that you have a relationship with those who use your buddy passes. Under the revised program, employees will still receive 24 buddy pass segments for these 12 designated buddy pass riders and extended family buddy pass riders to use.
I know these changes may inconvenience you, but we’re taking these steps with the goal of ending widespread misuse and fraudulent activity related to buddy pass travel. Our only alternative is to terminate the buddy pass program, which we are trying to avoid by implementing these changes. Although I am optimistic these changes will be successful in curtailing violations, if further violations occur we may be forced to further restrict the program, or even terminate the buddy pass program in its entirety.
We regret that we need to take this action, but if we allow fraud to continue we are turning a blind eye to those who are damaging our own company.. Our Corporate Security team will continue to monitor pass travel usage to ensure pass travel adheres to our policies and procedures.
Sincerely,
Donna Towle
Vice President, Employee Relations
The unique privilege of pass travel is part of what makes working for an airline so special and it’s important to all of us. These privileges allow us to see the world with our families and close friends. We all share the responsibility to comply with the terms of United’s pass travel policy; however, we’ve found an increasing number of instances where employees are abusing these privileges.In violation of our policy, enrolled friend status and buddy passes can be purchased online every day, and “pass travel brokers” run underground businesses illegally selling buddy passes. We have discovered employees who have sold enrolled friend status or even fraudulently designated individuals as eligible family members. Some employees have used their privileges for themselves or family members to travel for other jobs or side businesses. Based upon conversations with my peers at the other major airlines, this situation isn’t unique to United.These clear violations of our pass travel policy and our code of ethics are damaging to our company and we cannot allow them to continue. I’m sorry to say that within the past year, we have terminated more than 100 employees due to fraudulent activity related to buddy passes, with a disproportionate share relating to international travel.
To preserve the continued viability of our pass travel program, we are making two changes:
1) Beginning Jan. 5, 2015, all regular buddy pass riders traveling outside of the 48 contiguous United States must be accompanied by an employee or an employee’s eligible pass rider. Eligible pass riders are the employee’s spouse or domestic partner, enrolled friend, age-eligible children, parents and extended family buddy pass riders who are validly listed on the employee’s profile.
2) Beginning mid-February 2015, all regular buddies will need to be registered and certified a minimum of 48-72 hours before travel. Employees may designate a maximum of 12 people (in addition to extended family buddies) who may use buddy passes. Like eligible pass riders today, you will register your regular buddies on your travel profile (Employee Services > My Info) by answering a set of questions and certifying the responses to be true and correct. This process will help substantiate in advance that you have a relationship with those who use your buddy passes. Under the revised program, employees will still receive 24 buddy pass segments for these 12 designated buddy pass riders and extended family buddy pass riders to use.
I know these changes may inconvenience you, but we’re taking these steps with the goal of ending widespread misuse and fraudulent activity related to buddy pass travel. Our only alternative is to terminate the buddy pass program, which we are trying to avoid by implementing these changes. Although I am optimistic these changes will be successful in curtailing violations, if further violations occur we may be forced to further restrict the program, or even terminate the buddy pass program in its entirety.
We regret that we need to take this action, but if we allow fraud to continue we are turning a blind eye to those who are damaging our own company.. Our Corporate Security team will continue to monitor pass travel usage to ensure pass travel adheres to our policies and procedures.
Sincerely,
Donna Towle
Vice President, Employee Relations
