DING! We have a winner. I agree with you, and slowly over the last year have come to know/believe/realize that my initial sentiment is indeed "fact". Exactly as you point out. In some ways it very much fits our culture- I often watch news outlets on TV that aren't any more grounded in reality or fact than Jeff's "welcome on board" videos are. Maybe I'm getting old but I get sick of being spun/blatantly fed misinformation.

It's their business model. Old UA had plenty of issues, but generally took care of their top end fliers. New UA has an entirely different model. It's a game of "how much can we cut without losing too many customers" (dam the overentitled elites! ramming speed!). So far, thanks to fuel price drop, their new model doesn't lose money. However, there is no question they have lost elite/high revenue fliers. All things being equal UA has a tread water strategy at best(lose high yield, gain low yield), and certainly no strategy to catch up with DL or AA in terms of elite treatment, hard or soft product. The funny thing is I promise you they would do better competing with AA or DL than they would with WN! If you fall too far in service/LCC mindset WN becomes your competition, and that is a tight ship to fight against lol.