Last night a colleague and I had to be in Raleigh. I flew , as I normally do, PIT-RDU nonstop on the last flight of the day at 10pm. Get upgraded no sweat and even arrive early to the airport at 11pm. In the nice new Airbus -- very quiet and uneventful ride.

My colleague, coming in from Albany tries to connect with my flight but the ALB-PIT portion is sold out. Travel agent puts him on United. I warn him to expect the worst and send him my sympathies.

His connection was supposed to arrive at 10:30pm. Turns out he arrives closer to 1am due to a 2 hour delay during which United refuses to say what the problem is.

Moral of the story? I will keep telling my travel agent -- anything but United. And my friend is happy he's flying American on the way back.

:-)