1kBill

Sounds like someone didn't like the results, so of course that means the survey is worthless.

Given the brand recognition of JD Power (as mentioned earlier), I can't cannot accept that these surveys are worthless. I have to assume that the methodology was consistent across all carriers and the rankings are a valid indication of relative quality.

I wish UA's board would take these into account when assigning objectives to UA's execs. They must recognize that they are in fact, a service business, and the management team should be responsible for achieving some reasonable score compared to competition. (And last place should not be acceptable.) Bonus payments should be tied in part to such a measure.

cfischer

airlines care ... If you continuously read how bad United service has become over the years, how many maintenance cancellations they report and how they rank last in every survey that comes out ... where will you book next time you need to fly? I am talking about the general public, not frequent flyers. It impact their bottom line and this is why they care.

Honestly, overall, this survey is probably spot on. I you are a general flyer in E- enduring UAs continued operational issues and now massively devalued FQTV program ... are you going to rank them high? I don't think so.
Most of us can 'work' within the system and if you can manage to very rarely fly coach then UA might be just o.k. ... many of my colleagues fly UA seldom and bitterly complain about the poor service especially during irops; it matters.

Firewind

+1 ... Best post.

I would just add Eastern Airlines. Which, ironically, was taken over by Continental, and we regulars thought we'd been "raised up". Night and day. It was why so many of us were rooting for Continental over USAir to take over United ... Alas.

RealFan

Although I acknowledge the poll and its results, almost everyone I know (50+) who flies UA is very satisfied. These would mostly be GS/1Ks. I'd add that my experiences on AA are about the same as UA - not better or worse which is to say that both alrlines over the past 12 months have seen younger FAs in the up front cabins, better attitudes, good service and generally pleasant experiences.

We talk a lot about the airline industry in my company and amongst industry peers as we're always up in the air. United is doing a very nice job for most of us and we hope that the improvements keep on coming. Again - same is true for American. Those are the two airlines that most in my firm fly so I don't have much to say about the others.

seagar

Interesting. I am in the same age group and work with many small businesses similar in size to mine. We get together on conference calls regularly and on a recent call before all arrived the discussion turned to UAL. There were 22 on the call at this point and all are CEO's.

We did an informal poll and all but one stated that the days of flying UAL were over unless it was absolutely necessary. Since UAL doesn't consider their business important, none can achieve GS for themselves or employees by simply signing a contract-they have to directly pay for it since many own a majority in their company-they see spending their money with UAL not a wise investment. They also agreed that to make 1K, PLAT or GOLD with UAL has become too burdensome and the travel unreliable. It is also important to understand they all emphasize placing the customer first at their company.

BTW, 16 were or are 1k's, PLAT or Gold but all were familiar with UAL's "over-entitled elite" comment. We then spent the rest of the call, not on the planned topic, but discussing what Smisek and his team have done wrong and how to avoid the many mistakes in each of their own companies.

spin88

Hey, I get that everyone of the 50+ people in your company think United is just savvy-tastic.

Alas, what I hear - and dare I say everyone else hears - is very different. Just got off a SFO-PHL on US, my seatmate has a house in Napa, and goes to SFO often, like me he bailed on UA. Said its hard to believe, having avoided UslessAir for years, but US has been better than UA since Jeff took over. He says he will not fly UA, unless its "fly UA, or get stuck." Just a former GS and a former 1K, randomly talking.

And last week, on DL (again paid F) had the same conversation with like me an ex-GS, and the same week, with an ex-1K on VX.

Lots of people on this board reporting they did the same thing, and (1) there is no long list of people saying they bailed for UA, and (2) no other board has several years of threads, each with over 1000 posts on bailing on Jeff's little bundle of commodified joy.

and PS, our view is backed up by every single survey, which now across the board have United at the bottom of the list. Actually quite an accomplishment, United has swept the raspberrys

RealFan

We can go around and around on this. I was being a little conservative when I said 50+. I work for a major consulting firm and it's become my little side project for over a year to informally survey people when we're on jobs about airlines and preferences. I get the feeling that everyone either hates all airlines or lumps them all together. When I go deeper, I get feedback that most everyone is happy with UA, AA and DAL. This is for flyers doing about 200,000 miles a year.

As a CK on AA and a GS on UA, I've decided to go with UA for all my flying for these reasons:

1) Far superior upgrade percentage (basically 100% vs AA where it's hit and miss because I book late (Y for domestic, J/C/D for int'l travel)
2) Superior IRROPS - GS gives me many options including any other airline without me asking (AA does not although they do protect me on other AA flights)
3) Superior mileage program - I would tell you this is the key factor for most of us these days. We are loving the mileage rewards for all the flying we do and the AA attempt to plug the gap has fallen short by most of our calculations.

Mind you, I have zero allegiance to UA. I am a LT 2MM + flyer from AA who started flying UA just before 3/2012. I am as objective as anyone on these boards as I have no emotional ties, corporate contracts, or anything that I am not disclosing. I can fly whomever I want whenever I want to wherever I need to be. This is true for my peer group as well. Overwhemingly, we all choose UA for the most part and are enjoying the experience. In fact, when I tell folks to check out FT, they don't understand the negativity that they read here because it doesn't match up with their experience.

I think for those who were long time flyers with UA the way I was with AA, there is just too much emotion tied up in the relationship. I see none of the issues that permeate these boards on a day to day basis on UA which I fly globally and domestically all the time. I am even more sensitive to it due to my FT insights and I still don't see it. That's why I ask around so much and hear nothing that suggests that anyone else feels any differently. I thought that maybe I wasn't seeing the negatives that I'm supposed to see Another way to put what I am saying is that all of these rankings are absolute, but on a relative basis, the experience that one has with each airline is not that far away from others on the list (unless you are comparing the very best to the very worst perhaps).

So I don't for one second dispute your informal surveys or what others say on this board. What I do think is that emotion clouds reason and as a long time AA flyer who still loves that airline and is hopeful that the CK program will be brought up to GS standards, I can state from my experience that flying on AA and UA is fairly indistinguishable and I lean UA because of the recent tweaks to the MP program.

I'll go right back to AA or split my flying if there's an economically rational reason to do so. And if UA wrongs me, I'll be the first to report it here. But so far so good for 2015 and most of 2014. I think UA is improving rapidly and fingers crossed that it continues. Although it may be hard for some to believe, there are a lot of us who actually look forward to flying on UA on a daily basis

Kacee

I hear primarily negatives from my SFO-based peers about UA; ranging from "never again" to "only when there's no alternative." These are mostly lawyers and senior level executives. It's not 100% but definitely a solid majority, such that I've come to expect negative comments if UA gets mentioned.

Baze

With all the UA hate, makes me wonder why the planes are completely packed and groups 1 and 2 are very long with elites. Do all these people really hate UA and there is just no other alternative? Or is UA low in the polls, but things get blown out of proportion on a bulletin board? Really, I'm curious. And even though UA is low in the polls, more than half must like them as I don't think any airline is less than 50%.

Always Flyin

I see. Refer to UA "hate" and that supposedly discredits objectively legitimate criticism.

UA is last in the polls and for good reason. Look at the numerous threads on this board.

Planes are packed? SO WHAT. What is the UA PRASM and why is it trailing the other major U.S. carriers?

Filling a plane with Kettles is not a viable long-term business strategy.

A lot of posters want to bury their head in the sand and pretend everything is fine at UA. It is not and its performance relative to its peers tells the true story. If someone pulls their head out of the sand instead of blindly claiming that all is well at UA they will see that.

Baze

Guess I interpret the tone of a lot of posts different than you do. Yes, I know UA is last in the polls, I don't know PRASM from CHASM, all I know is the planes are packed and have been for 3 years. I seem to get more heat from people because I post that I don't see the horrible things people post on here. I never say they aren't entitled to their opinions of what they see, I just say I don't see it. And some take offense to that or say they don't believe me. Yet a lot of these same people are still flying UA, or say they haven't flown UA for a long time yet they still have opinions that they feel are pertinent even though they haven't been on a UA plane lately. Yes, there were some really rough times a year or more ago but I see things definitely on the upswing with the customer facing people. You don't have to agree with me and heck, you don't even have to believe me. But the tone of a lot of posts on the UA forum is way beyond what I see and comes across to me as hatred of UA, the horrible airline. So take this post as you will, but these are MY experiences and opinions and I am as entitled to them as you are of yours.

LarkSFO

So what do you think is going to happen?

Should we pull the 'When is UA going to go bankrupt' thread out of the mothballs? Should we start a pool predicting the date the CEO will be fired?

How does somebody who flies 200K miles per year have their 'head in the sand'?

While somebody who has proudly spent $214 on UA (maybe more now that you add the EWR-SAN flight) this year, but 'reads a lot of negative comments on FlyerTalk' should have credibility?

Sorry, but you and others who have mostly / completely left UA are still some of the loudest negative voices. While I give credibility to people who actually fly UA, and to surveys ranking the airlines, I can't give much credibility to people who no longer fly UA.

fly18725

I think the point is that many people feel United is fine for them. That's not acceptable to others, who trot out a series of anecdotes (some relevant, some not) in an attempt to say that United is not fine and that Delta is better.

We can all have our own opinions, but I find the relentless criticism of United and praise for other airlines to be a strange fit for a forum to discuss United.

Baze

^

I am on UA planes just about every week. Almost exclusively domestic.

spin88

I think I have the same set of peers as you, and the same response when travel/UA gets mentioned. The only difference is that this subject has come up in lots of places, and even my IAH-based peers are unhappy. It is either resignation "I'm not happy, but I'm stuck with them" or "I've left/hate them/will not fly them"

(1) everyone with a CC boards with group 2, and you can pay (pehraps some do) to board early, and (2) United has post 3/12 focused on attracting/retaining corporate accounts with big discounts (up to 40%), and with those has come lots of elite credentials. I know two folks with Apple who are 1K via corporate gifts (both fly VX) and one at Chevron who has a GS gift (and she mostly flies DL/AF).

I think UA has (finally) indictly acknowledge the plan is not working, with some marginal and overdo improvements in food/lounges. Now fix the coffee!!!

YMMV But to be clear, I don't know, or purport to know or compair UA to AA. My first AA flight in a few years was today, SFO-PHL on sUS. Not overwhelming, food was very marginally better, as was the snack basket, plane was dark/no IFE. The only good thing was that with a late arriving plane they dumped normal boarding and after F and elites, made everyone board by row back to front. It went quickly. Boarding done in 15 minutes.