I have flown US Airways several times on US domestic flights and had my first transatlantic experience recently (week of thanksgiving), flying FRA-PHL and PIT-FRA, both in the A330. All my US Airways flights have been in coach, so I am only going to compare the coach classes of LH, US and UA.
IMHO, from a quality and service standpoint US is better than UA and has advantages and disadvantages compared to LH. My reasons are:
- I always found the US personnel (ground and air) very friendly, helpful and customer oriented. I missed connections on several occasions and the rebooking went smooth and painless. On one occasion (before the LH-US partnership was in place) I missed my LH BOS-FRA connection because the US flight was delyed. Although my LH flight was on a different ticket and so US wasn't obliged to rebook me, the gate agent spend one hour on the phone to find another LH flight (it was a busy weekend, so I ended up flying EWR-FRA) for me. US Airways never lost my luggage and there was never a problem with boarding passes for connecting LH flights
- I experienced quite some poor service from UA, unfriendly and ignorant agents, never able to check me in on connecting LH flights, once even refusing to check through my luggage (SYR-IAD on UA, IAD-FRA on LH). United lost my luggage a couple of times (well, the luggage thing is probably bad coincidence)
- I found the seats and the seat pitch of the US A330 (front cabin) better than UA, whereas IMHO the LH coach seats are the worst. US Airways seems to have the best IFE on the A330 (although I agree that the movie and music selection was the same in November and December), compared to UA and LH. The food on US was ok but I think that UA and LH serve better food. On US, alcoholic drinks and headsets cost US$5 and I agree this is like flying a charter airline, but for me, the seats in coach class are the most important criteria for chosing a transatlantic flight, therefore US wins my comparison (well, from what I have heard, the US B767 don't have the IFE and the seat pitch of the US A330).
- I found the US Airways club in PHL (Concourse F) and PIT (Councourse C) quite nice and the lady at the desk asked me if I haven't been there before and since I wasn't, explained the features and facilities to me. Nice gesture. By the way,
I was able to use the RCC in FRA with my US ticket and my LH SEN Card, seems that the UA people are not clear about the rules. Nevertheless, the RCC matron rolled her eyes when she saw my LH SEN Card...
So that's my personal opinion and, Threy, I am sorry to hear that you were treated badly by US Airways, I usually made a different experience.