Seems that everyone agrees that operations are still an on-going mess.
Forgot to mention that United's operation had been very unsatisfactory in one incident that I was involved with.
1. I had purchased tickets through Orbitz for my sister's family to visit Europe. Outbound was on United (LAX-ORD, ORD-CDG), Inbound was on Air Canada.
2. Upon purchase, I had all 5 members of her family squared away in 5 adjacent seats.
3. United then did an equipment swap, took out a 777 and replaced it with a 767 on the ORG-CDG segment. The reservation the scattered all 5 members of her family to 5 different places.
4. I tried, over the course of 5 phone calls and 3 weeks to get them back together. Some CSA's were completely clueless, as they insist to me that they've changed the seat assignments, and that's that. Even when I asked them to check, they implied that I was somehow insolent in asking them to check something they already said they did. Finally I managed to get a very experienced UA 1K CSA, who realized that the equipment change on the second segment of the flight (same flight number from LAX-ORD as ORD-CDG, but different equipment) somehow put the computer system into a paralyzed state and no one could change seats - not myself through the web interface, not any CSA, not her at the 1K desk with web services help. Her final advice was just to let the GA fix it, since the GA has the power to move people around, and since my sister has a 3 year old, she was certain that the GA would be more than accommodating to move people around.
5. After 5 calls and finally finding the one very experienced agent who seemed to know the in's and out's of what was happening, I accepted her advice and told my sister and brother-in-law to have the seat assignments fixed in ORD.
6. After the flight, I asked my brother-in-law what happened. He told me that
A. The theory that the GA would fix things is a good one, but
B. the ORD-CDG flight was oversold by 6 passengers. They had no seats to give to to the folks on standby. They had no seats to move anyone around. The GA was completely uninterested to try to move people around.
C. After some discussions and some passengers helping out, they finally managed to secure two adjacent seats for my sister and her 3 year old. Her husband, and the two other kids (both less than 12) had to sit next to strangers scattered across the cabin.
7. After this flight, my brother-in-law vowed never to fly UA again. (He's no stranger to travel, he flew 100+ K miles on USAir a few years back) I can't say that I blame him. After all, the seat assignment problem was known a good 2+ months in advance, and I used my elite status to make call after call to try to get the problem fixed, but the computer system stood in the way.
I've been meaning to write a nasty gram to UA on this matter, but since I wasn't the one separated from my family scattered across the Y-cabin for 7 hours, it just kept on slipping my mind. The sad thing is that I don't think I'll get anything more than a form letter and a few thousand RDM's for my brother-in-law - RDM's that he's never going to use to fly on United...