Originally Posted by M60_to_LGA

I think your conclusions are valid but wholly unsurprising. Virtually every single US-based air carrier offers service that is far below that offered by most serious foreign airlines.

I regularly fly all the American Star Alliance carriers as well as AA, and they all pretty much suck. As far as I'm concerned, Jet Blue is also just OK - I appreciate the free drinks and snacks, but honestly, how many cookies am I really going to eat?

I view the state of the US airline industry as another data point in the by now incontrovertible case that the US is now a third-world country. Flying an American carrier is like flying a Latin American carrier (actually, worse - LAN is quite good, at least in the air.)

One of my recent pet peeves is that on several UA flights between LGA-IAD, the flight attendants announce shortly after takeoff that they won't be providing drinks because the flight is too short. This when the flying time is roughly an hour - plenty of time to do the drinks service.

You occasionally get pleasant surprises in the US - I've recently taken some new planes (don't recall which ones) on UA between LGA-IAD and been impressed with the spaciousness of the seats in Y. But then you realize that you're basically on Greyhound with wings.