I know the merger has been tough for both CO & UA travelers but I don't understand why people keep blaming CO for the perceived problems as a result of this merger. I flew mostly CO out of Hawaii for years, always having good things to say. They may have not had all the perks of UA but they treated their staff well, and were one of the last airlines to drop the free food, charge for bags, and offered CPU's from Hawaii when nobody else did.

The biggest difference is that the CO staff were mostly happy and they were friendly to pax and respected. During the merger, management took the most conservative elements out of both airlines and implemented policies that screwed the employees but brought a little more balance to the frequent flyer wars going on between airlines. The real casualties are the employees/unions that now generate mistrust and no sense of ownership within the new UA. Hence the warring factions that I have noticed to be a partial cause of the �summer of hell�. Slow fixes of easy mechanical problems, poor customer service, and a lot of new & uneducated staff.

Not saying CO was perfect, just saying that it�s unfair that certain posters keep blaming CO policies. This post is not meant to inflame but would like contributers to stop point fingers or just bashing for the sake of bashing.

From my perspective I don't know how CO had survived as long as it did with the dinosaur known as SHARES.

As an IT person and someone who has had the opportunity to look at SHARES and Apollo I have to say Apollo was light years ahead.

I think a lot of the bashing is warranted because CO is running the new airline and had no idea what it was like to run something as large as the combined airline. They don't know how to combat all the issues they are experiencing so they just clam up.

From my perspective CO has ruined what UA was. I am not saying UA was perfect, but it was a heck of a lot better than what the new UA is!

There is more CO bashing for the simple reason that the merged airline is a mess and it is being run like CO, not UA. As a CO passenger, you may not see it as much as we UA passengers do, but almost everything that was good about UA is gone. The sad thing is there were things CO did better then UA (catering, Hawaii service) but those few things CO did better are gone to. It's like they took the WORST of both airlines and combined them. But since it's the CO computer system and CO mgmnt, we blame CO

Everything that's wrong with UA today is due to CO.

1. SHARES, instituted by ex-CO management

2. A senior management team that is almost entirely ex-CO

3. Policies enacted by that ex-CO management team that have been hostile to its most loyal and frequent customers and otherwise disastrous in terms of operational performance (such as replacing UA practices with CO practices in regards to maintenance)

There is nothing newly bad about UA that I can't blame squarely on 1-3 above.

Everything that has been destroyed about UA was destroyed by ex-CO executives, not by UA executives.

My guess is they're using SHARES in ways it was not designed to be used. Never had problems with the old CO and saying that CO is running the new airline is false as well. Both management teams are involved, staff from both companies are working under new policies, nobody wins here. Nothing to be gained by blaming a scapegoat.

Nonsense.

SHARES was crap at CO. I flew with CO before 3/3 and had the same problems that we are facing now: zero upgrades, no TOD offers, random seat reassignments.

CO customers probably didn't know how much better things could be and thought it was normal.

I dont think so here.....look at the C level Officers....I believe most if not all are CO.

BTW...how full of yourself are you that you have to film a commercial each month to play before the safety announcement...what a waste of time and resources!

Feel free to browse the pre-merger CO boards for refreshers. No more bashing of their systems than the norm. I never had problems with domestic upgrades but I was of the mindset that these were "bonus perks", not "absolute rights". They didn't have all these complicated rules and restrictions that are in place now. (or as many) If there is any finger pointing to be done with this mess, it's Jeff Smisek. Although with CO for a while, he only became CEO in 2010. That is when CO started it's decline. Agree with that, just not blaming CO as a whole.

Haha, yeah, agree here. Started with good old Larry as a welcome onboard announcement but turned into an ego trip. In Hawaii, we get the one about how great SFO is even on inter-Asia trips.

SHARES is junk but one of the things I did like about it was that it required reasonably sharp employees to operate. The really good ones in Houston can even make that hippo dance and execute things at a speed in the ballpark of quick. United's software, while better, also meant they could hire a lot of horrible stupid people (e.g. SFO gate agent staff). I almost wondered if switching to it for a year only to switch again was sort of a quality/proficiency test in disguise to weed out the crap.

Well, here's my opinion. On a metric of when I combine the positives and negatives:

sUA > sCO on almost every conceivable metric: on-time arrivals, treatment of elites, loyalty being valued over single-transaction, and quite frankly-I was in the minority, but I enjoyed the sUA soft product most of the time.

COdbaUA < sCO (I don't really care that much about E+ as others do, and I understand getting to keep atleast some RPUs etc).

COdbaUA < sUA by about 15 miles.

So, I think that most of the criticism coming from sUA flyers is that the NEW combined airline is worse in many ways than the old sCO --- the domestic F service cuts being a good example

IT was fine when they operated as Texas Air and people express with limited connecting opportunities and no worldwide network of partners. Drop it in with the "big boys" and its an utter failure.

wrt OP's question. CO management is running the combined airline like they ran CO. With complete disdain for their "over-entitled" customers and full of an undeserved arrogance. United was running pretty well before CO, and then they threw a wrench in the works because they knew better. CO flyers either had no choice or were used to being treated like dirt. The results speak for themselves. By FAR the lowest ontime percent in the industry, by FAR the most complaints, by FAR the worst financial performance the last few months.

+1. Continental treated all elites pretty much the same. As a long time 1K I always felt really well taken care of by PMUA. COdbaUA has dumbed down my status in terms of boarding, upgrades, compensation and particularly handling of IRROPS.

Does this really require yet another thread???

-RM

I think that's the key here. It's about perspective.

I used to fly a lot of PMCO when I had family in Texas. I spent a lot of time transiting IAH and riding in the back of old 733s and 735s. This is what they do well...wanna go to or through the South? PMCO had you covered. Looking for a global airline that clearly understands its FF and the areas it serves? Not so much, as we are all finding out.

People who were aligned with (or resigned to ) PMCO did not expect upgrades to work in a reliable, established fashion. They did not expect to be treated well during IRROPS. Thus, they now wonder what us over-entitled PMUA FFs are whining about.

BTW, just because CO serves a bunch of minor international destinations with thin routes doesn't mean it's a global airline. A global airline would've made headway into fixing its issues long before now.

I'm of the minority that agrees that UA created the "over-entitled" mentality. It's a consequence of the merger, yes, but my priority is to get to my destination on-time. Everything else is secondary. Paying for an economy seat and expecting F in my opinion does demonstrate an over-entitled / spoiled attitude.

Regarding the complaints and recent problems, I blame this on warring internal factions, unhappy employees, unskilled labor, and....over-entitled pax. What I don't blame this on is an airline that doesn't exist anymore. I liked sCO, you liked sUA, nobody likes this demon spawn of a child.