Maybe the reason why southeast Asian carriers like Cathay and Singapore offer superior service is that they HAVE to. Both Hong Kong and Singapore have extremely tiny home markets for international travel. For flights to the US, they depend on luring US residents to their airline. Competing for US residents is extremely hard because 1) there are so many US carriers, 2) the US carriers have a huge advantage in having an extensive domestic network to feed into their international flights, and 3) the US carriers have a huge advantage with their frequent flier programs which cover both domestic and international travel.

So, to survive, CX and SQ MUST have superior service and competitive pricing. Fortunately for them, these are areas where they have a sustainable advantage over US carriers because 1) lower labor and materials costs than in the US; 2) less stringent employment and civil rights laws allow them to keep their FA labor force at a young average age, mostly female, and of a certain physical type; and 3) Asian culture is more service-oriented/polite/obsequious than American culture.

If I were a US carrier, I would not try to counter CX and SQ by trying to match or surpass their level of service. Instead I would focus on my areas of comparative advantage: feed passengers efficiently into my international hubs and lock fliers in with my frequent flier program. I think UA is already doing a pretty good job from that perspective.

So go ahead and complain about the lower service levels that US carriers have, but I think it would be wrong to say that United won't be able to survive if it doesn't match the Asian carriers in service.