Originally Posted by
davewang202
What I want to know is from some "old timers". That is, as human, we tend to romanticize "the good old days" and forget the bad and only remember the good, but there does seem to be a lot of complaints about United these days. What I am curious about is what the United forum looked like 5~8 years ago. Are there more or less complaints? Is United really a (much) worse airline than it used to be?
Operationally, I think United is currently at its worst. However, overall I think the airline hit rock bottom about 5 years ago, around the time they tried to institute buy-on-board for transatlantic flights. Management was singularly focused on cutting enough costs to make the airline attractive for a merger while every other consideration was secondary. It wasn't until after UA was rejected by both US Airways and Continental that things started to improve. At that point they really had no other option.
So while the situation is bad now, I'm fairly confident that it will ultimately improve. 5 years ago, I didn't have that confidence, and was seriously concerned for the airline's survival.