mikel51

I guess I have been lucky. I have flown about 10 international trips in C or F since the beginning of 2010. In my experience, its like United is a different airline in 2010 and 2011 compared to the previous years. I have felt a very strong effort by every one of of the crews to provide good service and friendly service. In the previous 10 years, I have experience good and bad crews, but never the open hostility described by OP.

I have always found the food to be edible. I am a lover of fine food. I don't find UA's food particularly good in either C or F. However I haven't found SQ C food or LH C or F food to be up to standards that I would call "fine." While the food on SQ of LH might be better than UA (mostly, but not always), the difference would not be enough to make me choose one over the other. For me, a decent hard product, friendly FAs who are genuinely trying to make your flight a good experience are what makes my flight good.

If SFO flight crews are the surly ones, I guess that I am lucky to be flying out of the midwest.....perhaps that would be the silver lining of having moved from the bay area to DSM a few years ago

embarcadero1

I wonder if any human eyes actually read this note. The note is mechanical to the point that I really just wonder if it wasn't computer generated....

Oh well. I didn't really have high hopes for contacting UA.

Any other suggestions about how to direct this? I'm inclined to just leave the matter here.

SFO777

My suggestion is to send SMI/J a copy of your letter (and the canned reply) together with your SQ PNR each time you fly SQ, highlighting the amount you just spent on SQ and not UA.

malgudi

No disrespect, but I think your note is a tad too verbose ... maybe it is just me

embarcadero1

Too verbose for what?

If I were on the receiving end of this kind of letter, I'd want to understand what happened. Getting cash was not my objective.

bocastephen

Gee, and I remember getting attacked for calling UA "not a real airline" and pointing out how my international-based friends and customers wouldn't set foot on a UA flight unless there was a fare fire-sale too good to pass up.

I just don't see any reason to pay for Business and get subjected to this sort of abusive behavior from flight crews. Sure, you can find less-than-stellar service on any/every airline, but some varient of this sort of experience has been the hallmark of UA for far too long.

Last week we were instructed to begin booking clients away from United for all flights (domestic/international) and steer that business to specific other carriers, who are standing ready with extensive and very attractive incentive programs for net fares, cert/mileage-less upgrades and status matches - passing this information to my clients is yielding a huge sigh of relief and we're going to have a very easy time convincing even UA-centric customers to make the switch.

The message about service and product is only delivered with a commensurate drop in $$ - neither Smisek nor his team or the Board give a woop about our service expectations or experience - for them, it's a take it leave it proposition. The organization I'm involved in has decided to leave it, and the resulting 8-figure loss in revenue is going to get noticed....whether anything changes in management's 'tude is yet to be seen.

Exleftseat

It will not be any better with any other U.S. legacy carrier. It is unfortunate that the longhaul routes are worked by senior F/As. That's the dilema and there are no ifs and buts about it, although granted there is the occasional, rare exception. Foreign carriers are sometimes better, sometimes not. In any case, for those of us who fly on their own dime and mostly in the back of the plane, realistically there is no option given E+ is an UA exclusive. With W fares reaching unrealistic highs and still not guaranteeing SWU success, that's the way it has to be at least for me and Mrs.EX.

bocastephen

E+ is not a UA exclusive anymore - DL is offering a E+ product which is superior to UA's (more legroom, more recline and better inflight product offerings...call it PremEconLite).

I've flown over a dozen longhaul trips in CO BF - I've never had a single episode that came even close to the average complaint I've read here. Sure, I had one rather terse no-nonsense FA on a flight to Japan and one FA who sort of ignored my travel companion on a OGG-IAH (back when CO flew this route with BF) a couple of times, but in many hundreds of combined BF/F and Y segments on CO, I've had to write in a grand total of twice to complain about inflight issues, and I've written in more than that to compliment crews.

UA didn't clean up their service mess when they were an independent company - now they're run by a crew bent on one thing - money - and under the impression they are the biggest airline and no one has a realistic alternative - I doubt we'll be seeing anything improve.

DL is really getting their act together - something I thought Anderson would be incapable of - and for us *A folks, there is always the great service and amenities of Air Canada from YYZ or YVR to Europe, Asia or Australia.

malgudi

Too verbose for a complaint letter (IMO)

usa18dca

Surely you're full of hyperbole...What UA serves in F (Henriot) is usually $40 a bottle and Pommery or Hedseck in C is $25-30 per bottle...

Skacorica

I have an idea: UA does codeshares with Air Canada, could we also do FA shares? My longhaul AC flights have all had great FAs

exerda

I didn't want to be the one to post that first, but yes, that is my experience, too. I've had a few of my best crews ever on UA in recent months, as well as the worst. And they fit the categorizations above to a T.

gengar

I was referring to the non-sparkling wines. Even Iron Horse (which is what was often whined about by faux-elitists on FT for not being "champagne") goes for $35-40. My point was that instead of complaining about the "champagne" label they should be complaining about the awful quality of non-sparkling wines. The non-sparkling offerings on my int'l F and C flights are certainly in the range I mentioned, with maybe one getting around $15ish tops. I've also often found that the listed wines on the menu are not available even on int'l F flights. And again, my real problem is that these aren't even good $8 or $12 or $15 bottles. In any case, sorry for any lack of clarity.

dulcamara

Yup. I only drink the sparklers. They go with everything.

Sabai

With the minor exceptions of their Worst In Class SkyPesos FFP and an IT department that apparently has been outsourced to Nigeria.