seat38a

Well just got back from Peru. 4 segments on United all in First / Business First. 8 segments so far this year on United all in premium cabin. Been to the United Club in LAX, IAH, ORD, DEN and all friendly. So where are all these terrible club agents and FA's that everyone gripes about? All FA's so far have been friendly attentive and hardworking. Actually thought the FA's were more refreshing and real than the ones on Asian carriers there they are forced to smile at everything.

First time flying in Business First and on both ways, had the best sleep ever on a plane. We all agreed that the BF seats are more comfortable than the business class seats on OZ A380 or TK 777.

Did all the dragons decide to leave and go try out for Pete's Dragon?

mduell

Places you were lucky enough not to transit: Newark and SFO (at least the IFL there)

transportprof

Yeah. Try EWR on a Friday afternoon during the summer thunderstorm season, or during a January blizzard, and let us all know how much milk of human kindness is flowing through the ground staff's veins.

Duke787

I'm glad you had a good experience. There are plenty of those that occur regularly at UA and I've had many good flights and good agents.

The problem is inconsistency. The bad is often really bad (see numerous threads here describing all sorts of bad) and it happens more frequently than it should.

zrs70

Been a 1k about a dozen years. Rarely, RARELY, meet the bad apples. They certainly exist. And once in a while I come across bad apples.

But it's not like I feel that on balance there are more good than bad. I feel that most are good and very few are bad.

The problem is that when you meet a bad one, the interaction can be all consuming.

Mind you, I came into the worl with more serotonin (happiness serum) than most others!

porciuscato

8 segments is a very small sample size.

I'm around ~120 segments and 160,000 BIS miles so far this year. And my experience over the years has been pretty consistent - so much that you can refer to it as "Cato's law of United service":

1/3 is downright bad (i.e. openly rude or discourteous service); 1/3 is meh; and 1/3 is actually good.

That's compared to a LH, LX, or OS, for example, where the downright bad percent is less than 5%.

JVPhoto

I'm with you. I never have met anyone atrocious and that's tons of flights out of EWR and enough of SFO.

Sometimes I wish I would come across so I could have a good story to tell at least.

Most of read I read on FT about the nasty stuff I attribute a 25% storytelling hyperbole increase to.

In The 216

You hit it on the head with that statement. My experience over the last two years has been that the good is REALLY good and the bad is REALLY bad. I also find there to be very little in between, if any at all. I feel like I either get great service (whether it be on the phone, at the airport, or on the plane) or horrendous service.

Over the last 8-12 months I've noticed a marked difference for the positive with agents on the phone and the flight crews but still no real difference in airport staff.

physioprof

There are also substantial individual differences in what flyers perceive as "openly rude or discourteous service". Over decades of pmCO and now UA flying at least 50,000 BIS miles per year, my perceived fraction of "downright bad" experiences is vastly lower than 1/3. And the statistical likelihood that this reflects substantial differences in the service actually provided seems like it must be extremely low. (And this is not at all a normative comment on how one should perceive airline service.)

steveo

Apparently Newark

Seriously though, at ORD the lounge dragons are getting screamed at every time I'm in the clubs due to their overcrowding with the club upgrades. Note sure if I've ever seen a bigger group of jerks than the behavior of some of my fellow UA flyers.

milepig

They're still out there. Had one in the ORD Global Services/Global First check in area. First snarled "YOU'RE in first?" and then gave treatment that seemed like it was his first day on the job. Clueless. What he was doing in that area, I don't know. They've all been wonderful in the past.

halls120

This. EWR and the SFO IFL have cornered the market on nastiness when it comes to UA employees.

porciuscato

Absolutely. And I will admit that my standards, formed by a European upbringing, are higher than most. For example, I consider the following rude or discourteous:

* Taking away someone's food or drink (other than PDB) without asking, while they are still consuming it
* Sticking food or drink in someone's face, instead of handing it to them or putting it on the tray table
* Bumping or pushing past someone without saying "excuse me"

A lot of people would not consider any of these to be rude. But note these are behaviors I almost never witness on Lufthansa or other decent international carriers.

Comments/incidents like the one noted in my sig. below are more around the 5% level.

Fleck

Perfect.

8 seconds of perceived rude gets blow up on FT for 3 days

clobber8

This +100. I had no prob at SFO Business Lounge. I try to avoid EWR at all costs. In 25 years, I've been through there a hand full of times and it is always dreadful. I'll pay more to avoid EWR.