reddirt14

Wondering if anyone really believes there is another U.S. airline worse than United, across the board. Please no highly qualified answers like: Not in terms of airlines with a blue carpet elite lines... I'm talking from a holistic look at it. We often used to say US was the worst, but it's far from it now. Delta and AA have never been at the bottom, although they dive towards it at times. I feel like UA is on a rapid path down...to me it's the worst airline we have in the U.S. and I feel like it's still getting worse. Curious if anyone thinks there is a worse one out there.

LilAbner

Wondering if anyone really believes there is another U.S. airline worse than United, across the board. Please no highly qualified answers like: Not in terms of airlines with a blue carpet elite lines... I'm talking from a holistic look at it. We often used to say US was the worst, but it's far from it now. Delta and AA have never been at the bottom, although they dive towards it at times. Curious if anyone thinks there is a worse one out there.I feel like UA is on a rapid path down...to me it's the worst airline we have in the U.S. and I feel like it's still getting worse.
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Your mind seems to me made up, and just exactly what are you looking for, someone to hold your hand??? If you don't like this airline, or can't wait for the problems to be resolved, why beat yourself up? Just take a hike instead of trying to solve your problems by committee!

Sprezzatura

Spirit?

MoJ0

Continental... oh, wait ...

sinoflyer

zzzzzzZZZZZZ...

CO777DAL

I'd def say Spirit by a runway! We are pretty lucky here in America. I have been to parts of the world that if you weren't a religious person before some of the planes I rode on, you sure found a God to pray to before getting on the plane and continuing to pray as it goes down the runway.

It's always fun to overhear the crew talking about they don't know if the plane will lift off the runway and randomly removing bags and tools to make it lighter.

johnru36

Perhaps COdbaUA is trying to distinguish itself. Having not experienced the pleasures of Spirit - up to now my POV had been US carriers are all pretty interchangeable - only differences I have found has been the superior service on some of the Asian flag carriers.

Looking forward to trying Emirates to see if i can add them to the "pleasantly different/superior" list

reddirt14

Ah the faithful... I knew they would come out to defend their mighty smisek. No worries my friend, I too was once a faithful UA follower. I'm still a 1K, been 1K for some time now. I too followed blindly and I secretly desire it to return to an airline who understands the revenue comes from the Customers.

No my question is exactly as posed - Is there a U.S. airline worse than United? No trick question, that's why I asked the faithful to leave out those highly qualified answers like airlines who offer that amazing blue carpet for their elites... And of course I asked to limit it to U.S. carriers because we know there are some airlines that are not just bad, they are dangerous in third world countries. Heck, one of my first flight instructors got her wings in Africa...scary stuff - fine for a barn storming, but add a couple props and tens of thousands of pounds and it's a different game.

Spirit...I didn't think of that one. A very good contender, indeed. Any others or is United and Spirit fighting to be the worst U.S. Airlines for 2012?

demkr

Yes. Continental. Oh oops.

cosflyer

lilabner is correct!!!!! if some(ok alot) of us on here are so anti united just go, its like the spouse that wants to leave but just cant seem to do it and just complain about nothing as the big stuff has already been discussed to death. i for one am not going to totally give up on ua and im sure alot will not either.

johnru36

With todays headlines of: Dying veteran protests Spirit Airlines' no-refund policy
I think Spirit will indeed be a serious contender...

MoJ0

I wouldn't say dying spouse... more like I've made up my mind, met with the lawyer, drawn up the divorce paperwork, but am stuck on the couch until we can sell the house.

reddirt14

No one said I'm staying. That's not the question - I'm asking what's the worst U.S. Airline? Let's stick to the point...there are plenty raw-waw all hale Smisek threads out there...albeit the supporters are dwindling these days, so I behalf of smisek's mighty empire I thank you for sticking around. Not that I'm counting... but the number of UA supporters to U haters is rather unbalanced...

LilAbner

Nowhere in my post did I say that I was happy with UA or Smisek. I just got off the phone with 3 different 1k res agents and several of my itins are totally screwed up, to where I don't know if I'm coming or going next March, but I''ll try again tomorrow. There is really no need to start a big whoopdeedo and make it a pmCo vs pmUA when we are all in the same boat.

My point is exactly what I said in my first reply re your attempt to get a posse wrangled up to agree that UA is the worse domestic airline. If you're not happy you may want to pursue your dream and "secretly" fulfill your desire to amscray, and find a much better airline with perhaps a status match, without making it an us vs them thread!

In the past 7 weeks it has been extremely bad, as most will agree, however this continual need to pull everyone's chain that doesn't jump on the whine bandwagon, is frankly getting very boring with every passing day.

Ual may be the worse airline, as of late, but I see no real purpose in attempting to persuade others to express their discontentment, nor is it beneficial to try to convince yourself or others that, "If you not with us, you must be against us"!

IslandSkies

I would think that the best way to quantify this is:
Who has the oldest, most broken-down aircraft?
Who has the highest percentage of cancelled/delayed flights?
Who has the highest percentage of delayed/missing bags?
Who has the overall highest fares?
Who has the worst food?
Who has the surliest flight attendants?

To me the deciding factors should be operational - the core business of an airline after all is getting customers safely from point A to point B. I understand that most people on FlyerTalk are elites who worry about when miles post or whether or not they get upgraded. But people on FlyerTalk are not the general public who fill most of the seats on any given flight. The vast majority are probably most interested in whether or not they got a good price for their ticket and did they (and their luggage for those who still check it) get to their destination on time and without incident.

Could UA be the worst airline? It's possible. If I'm going to be honest I can't give a real answer because I haven't been riding on other airlines enough lately to get a good feel for what the competition is like. But the above criteria I gave is weighted towards what I would find important. Everybody has different priorities that would affect their answer, and I don't think there really can be a solid concrete scientific answer. If your main criteria is upgrades or something else tied to the MileagePlus program I can certainly understand where you might feel UA is the worst. Doesn't mean I would agree with the criteria or the answer that you come up with.