This:
"If you listened to many pre-merger United employees, you’d think that United was the greatest airline of all time until Continental came in and ruined it. Talk about seeing the world with rose (er, uh, tulip?)-colored glasses. Let’s be realistic here.
United was a mess for a full decade or, arguably, more leading up to the merger. Awful management, bad labor relations, and a lack of interest in preparing the airline for long term success led United to the bottom of the industry several times. Had things gotten better in the last couple of years before the merger? Sure. But that’s because they couldn’t get any worse."
There is so much retroactive romanticizing of the old United, by employees and passengers alike. It's nonsense; CrankyFlyer is right.
But the pmUA / pmCO distinctions and cross-culture blame-placing are killing the airline, and Smisek is spraying kerosene on the bonfire when he stands up and blames "undertrained" pmUA employees for today's crisis.
The writer is absolutely correct about the culture problem. I don't think management knows any other game but blame-placing and moat-digging, however.