What to expect? BOB junkboxes in place of meals in domestic C, pay for your BOB in international Y (IAD now, everywhere else likely soon), lots of "Glenn Must Go" orange wristbands, and lots of demoralized employees who feel that it's ok to take it out as bad service or lowered service to the customer.

In other words everything we love about UA but even more.

Yesterday's PHL-DEN was a good example. I was up front but early on heard one of the coach FAs make this announcement: "People, there are only two of us back here for 158 of you. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to wheel the cart through with the buy-on-board snackboxes first. Then we'll do one run with the drink cart." Said in a somewhat whiny woe-is-us don't-ask-us-for-service voice. I don't care that UA reduced staffing to FAA minimums - this type of blatant "don't expect service" announcement is offensive. Setting customer expectations could have been done in a much better manner - just some customer-oriented choice of words and tone would have gotten the point across in a better, less childish way.

Meanwhile F was Employee Class. I counted at least 4 Glenn-Must-Go wristbands on passengers who were obvious non-revs (some FAs, some pilots with spouses). "Mysteriously" there was no meal choice for this 1K. The F FAs had to be asked to hang up coats, even when coats were obviously folded with BP on top while they walked past my seatmate several times.

Oh and no Ch9.

That's what to expect this fall.

Not entirely bad day on UA - my e500 upgrade request hadn't cleared automatically, because it was a US codeshare ticket. Even after UA OLCI which works with the native UA flight# and got me on the DM list, apparently those upgrades need to be handled manually (I know they can't be requested in advance of check-in due to codeshare and OAL code in the UA PNR). When I got to the gate and asked about the upgrade, the GA gave me my BP and told me it wasn't automatic because he'd upgraded me at 4am when he saw me on the list. Even though I'd planned to use 500s, he did it as an op-up. So I didn't spend four 500's on a 1557 mile flight (ouch!).

There are good people at UA but they're burned out, their management blows, the system is stretched to the hilt, and I see little hope. Service and reliability (baggage, ontime departures, arrival gates being ready) are all going to go downhill further, and nothing UAL corporate is doing seems to make any sense as anything that could possibly fix it. That's what to expect this fall on UA IMHO.

But my next 2 month's business trips are on NW, and my Q1 2009 trips are now booked on CO as a newly-matched Platinum, so other than a Vegas trip in a couple of weeks (Rar!), an AC flight to Europe over thanksgiving with the DEN-YYZ legs on UAX, and those lovely snackbox Domestic C 777 flights for my Nov/Dec business trips, I'm pretty much done with UA unless things change.

I can't imagine a fast-track to 1K promo coming out of WHQ. Unless they are so hurting for future bookings and somebody is actually reviewing metrics on lower bookings from existing UA elites as evidence of people bailing.