Originally Posted by sxf24

I don't know why you're so cynical about, and insulting to, CO and UA employees. While they've all been through some tough years, I think the front line employees are generally pretty customer-centric.

Originally Posted by gegarrenton

UA has THE most openly hostile employees of any customer service business I have ever some across in my life, bar none. And I am friends with lots of them, and a former roommate of one.

Originally Posted by FLYMSY

I have had only one mildly unpleasant experience with a UA staffer in the last several years. Everyone else has been fantastic... UA FTers love to bash UA FAs for hanging out in the galley and socializing. I've seen it myself and it doesn't really bother me because I'm not one that expects to be waited on hand and foot.

Originally Posted by HeathrowGuy

I'm still at a loss to find a logical argument for the premise that Smisek has "destroyed a great airline"... On the United side, ever since the 2000 SFH and the impact of 9/11, the airline was never able to return to its prior position in the marketplace -- a leader in nearly every aspect of the airline business. Having made the biggest cuts of any legacy airline over the past decade (and with its rivals -- including, at one point, Continental, taking advantage of UA's problems to succesfully shift business traffic their way on a somewhat permanent basis), by 2010 United had reduced much of its mainline domestic network to bare-bones levels, and has consistently pursued piecemeal and stopgap corporate solutions and improvements -- by necessity, most every United initiative of the past decade has had to be implemented in a half-a!!ed fashion... United could and did shower its frequent fliers with miles and vouchers in an effort to beseech you to "pardon the mess", but the airline lacked the resources as a standalone to actually "FIX the mess" for good.

So, the idea that the current leadership is destroying a great airline is absurd.