Originally Posted by Blumie
I paid to fly F on UA recently (SAN-SFO-YVR), and experienced the exact same lack of service as on AA. I enjoyed channel 9, but everything else was more or less the same. Except that the aircraft used on the SFO-YVR flight was pretty darn old -- I think it may have been used by the Wright Brothers for their innaugural flight in Kitty Hawk.
Mind you, I'm not being critical of UA. But I think the service levels among the legacy carriers are more or less indistinguishable.
I'm with Blumie here, and I fly a lot on both UA and AA in both classes. In my experience, the service in the air is inconsistent on both (generally OK though), and the provided "amenities" (food quality, number of courses, coat hanging, etc.) are also more or less a wash, IMHO. Schedules and loyalty programs swamp any difference in service for me.
That said, for me there is indeed one significant difference, at least in BOS: ground service (ticket and gate agents) is far superior on UA to AA. Far fewer rude agents trying to get rid of the customer as quickly as possible.