race to the bottom? I really couldn't disagree more strongly. AA has improved more in the last year or so than in any of the ten prior.

• Priority Baggage service, introduced just this month, is working well and is a most welcome improvement.
• Just this week, the new landside facilities at MIA were unveiled. MIA is the last of four major terminal projects for AA, with LAX, DFW, and JFK complete.
• Service benchmarks were surpassed and triggered the employee bonus scheme for the first time in quite a while.
• The few restrictions on upgrades were removed, making eVIP's worth even more to recipients.
• Awards were made one-way, allowing combinations much more flexible than before.
• The award booking system online handles stopovers and multi city itineraries.
• The A300's, and their reputedly inferior dispatch reliability, all retired.
• The last Saabs retired.

Those improvements are concrete, and inspire confidence that the planned accompaniments will be made real as well:

• Like clockwork, MD80's retire and 73D's arrive.
• 757's are being gutted and refitted, including 24 new F seats.
• The entire Eagle CR7 fleet is slated for 9F/56Y configuration. That's 47 new planes for refreshing the capacity of the two-class fleet.
• ORD should gain a club soon, as the L concourse turns all-AA.

So please, take the race-to-the-bottom line somewhere it will sell better, such as ever-circling-the-drain United...

At UA, you have an upgrade system in turmoil, just read the UA board a bit. At UA, you have a fleet rapidly shrinking away-- by year's end, UA will have some 250 fewer mainline planes than AA. At UA, you have a six-way identity crisis on Express flights. At UA, you have old clubs in old terminals. At UA and CO, you have a crapshoot for what kind of Business Class seat your J fare will buy, for at least the next several years. There are positives, too, I'm sure, but it's UA's job to make you aware of them...