Yes and no. Getting folks over to the new name won't be too hard and I know that I've occasionally tweeted @united in the past because that's what I think the name should have been even though it wasn't. Remember when southwest.com didn't go to the airline (it was actually iflyswa.com) or when delta.com went to the faucet maker? I have no idea if some squatter was sitting on @united and cashed in on the deal or why they otherwise weren't using it in the first place, but this move will, in the long term, be useful to the company.

It is also worth noting that in an environment where every letter counts, dropping the 9 extra characters is a great brand move. They've got 4,800 followers already and it won't be too hard to build back up to the ~193K they had before.