I recently flew ATA from MDW to LGA. Since MDW is closer to home than ORD, I thought that would make the trip shorter. Little did I know a little rain would happen to stumble through New York when I wanted to fly...

The rain, however, was a good example of what sets United apart from other ATA. While the inflight experience on the two is fairly similar, the handling of the delay situation was quite different. When I got to MDW, I found out my flight was cancelled. They had cancelled it shortly after I had left home. However, they had never bothered to inform me. With United's Easy Update, I have received notifications of the flight cancellation and even a notice of rebooking. With ATA, there was nothing. Checking flight status before leaving just was not enough.

On the return flight - a huge delay, but an earlier flight leaving. Just getting to talk to somebody and ask a question can be a huge challenge. Then as the flight finally left (6 hours late), the crew repeated multiple times "its not our fault. Its a weather delay. Its an ATC delay. Its not our fault" Ok. We could see that the weather is causing problems, but playing the fault games...

Its also interesting to see the way the two airlines have been handling bankruptcy. TZ has been shrinking itself to nonexistance. Part of this may be due to southwest (suddenly, every route that they competed on is discontinued by ATA) UA has been actually working on improving customer service and even adding some routes. (however, the influx of RJs is a negative.)