IAH-OIL-TRASH

IMHO, anyone who flies UA frequently and will not admit some improvement in the last 9 months will never be satisfied. I can definitely recall significant delays/IRROPS 2nd quarter and extending into summer not due to weather that have abated significantly.

FriendlySkies

+1

The only time I had my bags come out early was during the trial of priority gate check tags in COS/ASE-DEN. Too bad it did not continue.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...n-ase-den.html

channa

While the operational reliability has certainly improved, the service cuts have continued (see the fruit bowl thread). My last IAH-SFO 7:15 PM was a cold plate (I guess 7:15 PM is too late for dinner now, the cutoff used to be 8-someting).

While UA has been more willing to work with me on IRROPS items (close to PMUA levels), the impact and time spent to get to resolution is still often ridiculous. These 20, 30, 40+ minute rebooks to get on an OAL continue to be unacceptable.

These lengthy calls and agent interactions really snowball in IRROPS situations (e.g., East Coast storm) with the call center backing up and lack of agent empowerment, valuable agent time is wasted waiting in queues for supervisors who are the only ones who seem empowered to fix things in some of these cases.

So overall it's a mixed bag, and it's still a net negative, IMO, from pre-3/3 service levels. It's certainly an operational improvement from say 6/2012, but the whole enchilada is not yet where it needs to be.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

I can agree with that.

halls120

I can cite some small but meaningful improvements:

1) reservations are confirmed in less than five mins when purchased on line,
2) sCO FAs are starting to prioritize meal orders in F
3) sCO FAs are starting to not disappear after meal service
4) it is less chaotic at the gate now that more GA's are starting to stick to the script.

sinoflyer

IMO, catering in transpac C has improved tremendously. The entrees are generous, well prepared and plated, and delicious. The bigger ice cream sundae is terrific, too, and so is the mid-flight noodle soup (previously a foil wrapped half-sandwich on PMUA). Even ex-PEK and PVG, where I've had some terrible meals in the past, the quality is much better. I do wish they change the menu more often. I'll post photos of my most recent trip in the other thread a little later.

Other than that, punctuality is the most important thing for me. Since last June, I've only had one misconnect on 10+ domestic trips, and it was proactively handled prior to my arrival at EWR.

I love the iphone app. I don't know how many times I've now mentioned this, but it really is a gem and has made the traveling experience much easier and better.

txp

These are great news and I am encouraged to hear all this. Thanks for sharing.

Darlox

I don't disagree with too much of what has been said. But there's a phenomenon referred to as "Bad becoming normal", where humans tend to grow accustomed to just about anything after long enough exposure.

My on-time rate is up. My CPU rate (as 1K) is still pretty dismal, even after 2/1. I'm having fewer issues booking/changing/upgrading tickets. I think the boarding scrum has actually gotten worse, not better.

A mixed bag... Improvement? Certainly! Good enough that any of us should be trumpeting how great things are? Not by far.

I started directing a lot more of my revenue travel to DL this year, and while they're certainly not my favorite airline of all time, I have to say that EVERY single DL flight has thus far been a breath of fresh air, compared to what has become "normal" or even "slightly better than it was" on UA.

brendog

While I have seen some slight improvements, I'm still slightly annoyed that most crews are no longer holding back the Y pax on the 752 for the F pax to deboard first via 2L. I'm 0/3 this year.

Wx4caster

I hesitate to even mention these since they're so seemingly insignificant, but since I noticed it last week, here you go... On flight 200 (ORD-HNL) last week, it was the first time in many, many months of flying back and forth to HNL that Hawaiian music was playing during boarding. Additionally, they also had the half-way to Hawaii game (again, first time since Fall I've seen this), and although I ignored the game, I would swear that the flyer said there was a potential to win miles - didn't it used to be just a cd?

I would concur that my overall impression lately has been 'things are improving'.

azstar

You're apparently not flying many Express flights. Nothing has improved. Still terrible multi-hour delays thanks to Expressjet & Skywest. "Awaiting Crew", "Awaiting Flight", "Aircraft Servicing". I guess UA finds this acceptable, but more and more passengers are finding alternate airlines which are more dependable, myself included.

goodeats21

Mixed-bag is pretty accurate for me, at least when compared to last summer.

Reliability of UA is up (I will leave UAX out of it )

Catering seemed to be going up, but very recent experience this year might show it heading back down.

Ticketing is not instantaneous, but has gotten faster.

The fake 1K desk is better than last summer, but not even close to the pre-merger days.

CPU is still very poor.

Experiential benefits continue to decline (boarding, check-in, baggage).

Attitude of FAs are on the up-tick.


I liked the comment above about "bad becoming normal". I used to be excited by the travel experience on the old UA. Now I feel unease.

sfoboy85

While I also have mixed feeling about UA, I still like it...

- As others mentioned, ticketing goes really fast!
- Award bookings and the actual value of miles here is still - I think - one of the best.
- I am also one of those guys who received some really terrible service by reps over the phone in 2012, but so far what I have seen in 2013 is a HUGE IMPROVEMENT! (or maybe I have been lucky with who answers the phone).
- Thanks God, it looks like they have fixed the companion upgrade and they no longer separate your companion from you (it was about time, seriously!!!)
- Their CPU/RPU system is still the best (and most generous) I think!
- Flight attendants are generally nice.
- I only had one flight that was delayed in 2012 and I flew over 100,000 miles which I think is an excellent service (not to mention that approximately half of the flights I took last year were early!).
.... and as long as Turkish Airlines Elites can use the lounge, I am a customer for life

STILL:
- I would still love to see WIFI on long(er) haul flights.
- The different Group boarding lanes need to be adopted EVERYWHERE! As a 1K, I always line up and when they announce PRE-boarding I move over to let the pre-board guys go, but it backfires since everyone (including group 4) starts boarding then cause a mess and there is no line anymore, only a total chaos /BOS excluded, those guys seem to know how the system works/.
- I would LOVE TO SEE UA getting rid of those old 757-200 with nothing on them...

redtailshark

^ Shout out to the UA ground staff @ TUS.

Glenn has fixed some real emergent problems over this last year, battling with SHARES recalcitrance to ensure ticket reissue, reroute, and all the usual fixing that we at FT depend on from our primary airline agents.

The station wrote me a birthday card and I picked it up while boarding (for RGN ) a couple weeks back.

This service is something that I thought was lost to me with the DL borg absorbing the redtail organization.

Could use the legendary NW PE line folks @ 1K however

1KPath

...and not me either. I have experienced excellent service from UA's Philippine call center over the years. They are the "best" of the offshore centers and seem to have the most highly trained agents!

Just about a year ago I experienced a problem with combined UA/SQ award tickets in C which UA had never confirmed with SQ...and had cancelled the ticket After a number of calls(two weeks worth) to the 1K desk and promises to fix the problem with no success, I ended up with the Philippines call center. The agent looked at my record and stated that "Oops...it looks like we made a mistake...Let me see if I or my supervisor can fix it. After ten minutes of hold time (she checked back every couple of minutes to see if I was still there) she came back on the line with her supervisor and a SQ reservations supervisor...and had the entire award ticket reissued on SQ... apologizing the entire time...and even "upgraded" one of the SQ flights (SIN-LHR) to F! Needless to say, it was a great trip! Before hanging up, I asked for her name and location and sent a GTEM to UA complimenting her...Two weeks later, I received a hand written thank you note from the agent thanking me for being a UA customer and for writing to UA corporate about her!