United Airlines settles fraud case over Postal Service contract for $49M

A good friend of mine says that a company willing to defraud employees Billions in pensions probably thinks defrauding the Post Office and paying a 49 Million dollar fine is chump change.......

This disappointing news highlights the level of decline in the moral and ethical character of American businesses. What happened to the idea of simply abiding by the terms and conditions of a bilateral agreement (i.e. simply doing what you agreed to do)?

I want to believe this generation of corporate America has a percentage of individuals with enough character and personal integrity to speak up against obvious wrongdoing. If a person doesn't stand for something they'll fall for anything.

Has America's business and graduate schools stopped teach standard business integrity, morals and ethics? There is a universal ethical standard of behavior that facilities orderliness in the daily operation of business specifically and society in general.

Fines mean nothing to large corporations, a cost of doing business. I wonder if anyone went to prison?

I personally do not want to fly an aircraft worked on by a person (or people) who are criminally known for fraudulent activities; my life depends upon it. The criminal activity taints the entire company and what the company does to address it either builds or destroys trust.

I do note from article -- In United’s favor was the fact that it cooperated with the investigation, removed the principal manager who led the criminal scheme and hired outside counsel and advisers to establish a compliance program with regular employee training. – What makes me worried what about all the other people (For 3 years I doubt the “principal manager” could be the only person to scan all the codes and file the paper work as such) involved; United (or any airline / company aviation related) needs to ID ALL the people known whom may have been involved. NOT saying anyone of those people were involved (thinking more management type folks especially here, they tend to take new roles in the company), but unfortunately, every one of those people now need greater scrutiny. No matter how much additional training provided, screw-ups happen, they happen more often when you do not follow the instructions or rules, and I doubt a criminal tends to care much about rules for others....

Just in case you haven't noticed, UPS, FEDEX, and the postal service have been doing something similar. How many times have you been notified that your pkg has been "delivered" only to have it show up the next couple of days. Especially with 2 day guaranteed delivery?

Doesn’t surprise me in the least. How many times have you gotten notification of a USPS delivery only to have it show up a couple of days later? I can recall at least 4.... and I’m just a homeowner... not a company. Mishaps do occur and I’ll account for that... but seriously? I called once and they said something like “each package has a GPS time stamp when delivered”. Really?

Are they going to use their “bailout” (tax) money to pay these penalties?

United should have been permanently shut down after the Dr. Dau incident. I immediately closed out my FF account and branded credit card. Now? Really? NO ONE should use this so called "airline" for anything. JUST SHUT IT DOWN!

So it appears that, per the contract with the USPS, United Airlines, not the postal service or some third party, had to produce the “data” that showed it met the terms of the contract. Sounds a bit like letting the fox self-certify that he stayed out of the chicken coop! The USPS needs to write better contracts.

In any case, doesn’t look like United flight crews, dispatchers, or maintenance were involved, so not a safety-of-flight issue.

American, and i think Delta, did the same thing.

Everyone seems to be kicking the USPS around these days. United should be barred from ever carrying mail again. If the USPS system dies, we will be in a world of hurt.

They should never use them again.

it's things like this happening that makes the postal service look inept. People blame the postal service for poor delivery times when they have to rely on other companies to fly their mail and end up losing business because of that companies doings.. Why don't so many companies have ethics and standards? It affects every industry

it's the American way