Another long-time lurker who felt compelled to post in this thread. I must admit I am very surprised by the number of proclaimed "neutral individuals" who claim to have no stake in this matter, and the incredible devotion with which they're defending UAL and calling people frauds, among other things.

I particularly noticed, for example, a frequent poster who as of this writing has had 60 of his/her 75 posts solely in this thread, in a 19 hour time span. This poster's posts began yesterday at 12:31 PM (US CST for me) and who has continued posting for 19 consecutive hours (6:56 AM at last count) with nary a 1 hour break in between to eat, sleep, or presumably work. Either this person has no life or has some sort of agenda that they're not disclosing.

I find it hard to believe that posters who claim to have no particular care in the matter would go to such lengths to defend an airline (UA, of that), over and over again, with seemingly much greater fervor and frequency of posting than customers who actually have bookings and trips on the line! Jealousy, perhaps? I don't think jealousy would go to that extent.

My point is that it is highly likely that there are UAL shills posting in this thread, as has previously been alluded to by others. Quite honestly if I were United, I would do the same - this is the main hotspot for discussion on this matter and I would attempt to influence the course of the conversation and opinion as much as possible.