It begs the question of why these issues still happen so frequently after 30k events in 20 years. The industry seems to be very good at recording what goes wrong. Still, it may have become too rigid or complacent about implementing changes to prevent some of these issues from happening again and again. Of course, I will give it to you that this is not just UAL's fault, but it's also not as easy as just blaming the botched rollout of NextGen; it's a system-wide issue in the domestic airline industry. Preventing runway incursions requires changes from the airlines, the FAA, and airport operations, but is it a stretch to say that this could already have been done ten years ago, if the will was there, or if a serious accident had happened?

Regarding the altitude loss incident, that one was reported to the FAA but not the NTSB, which is usually a lot more vocal in its investigations. United said it didn't feel it was necessary to report it to the NTSB. The NTSB, however, did decide that an investigation was warranted and has started one.

I didn't say that they haven't been doing this, just that they, like any airline, have no excuses for not doing it. As a frequent flyer, given the recent incidents, I'm concerned that the lack of serious domestic incidents has allowed complacency to seep in. I know it would happen in my industry.