RNE

I was speaking of domestic airlines, as you well know. And CX Y sucks. I spent 16 non-stop hours in it.

While I'm not "always flyin" like you, I'm not exactly housebound either. I flew a lot this year and my flying perspective goes back half a century. Flying is a shade of its former self. Domestic airlines are uniformly horrid and quickly fusing into an indistinguishable monolithic monstrosity! AAdbaUS is no holdout; it's merely the last layer atop the homogenous sediment. It is the rock and the hard place! There is no place to hide. No indignity avoidable. And the greatest outrage of all, there are no hot stewardesses like in the 60's.

OnePassenger

1) What did you like most about fkaUA or fkaCO?
Destinations and schedules; familiarity and predictability.OnePass and Mileage Plus were my first frequent flyer programmes when I was a student in the USA, now nearly 30 years ago. Flew Eastern Airlines and United Airlines all the time. Many times on the CO 747 to Hawaii and Air Micronesia to Manila via Guam. Oh those were the days

2) What changes have had the greatest negative impact on you?
Gradually, UA on board service has been declining and has taken a nose-dive now - especially in First Class and BusinessFirst. No more meals being served from the cart and really delicious appetizers and entrees. What happened? Where did that go? I felt papered like in a 5-start restaurant or hotel. It is still happening on Qatar and Emirates and Etihad! When I lived in New Delhi and took the 83 and 82 back and forth there were wonderful hot appetizers and meals. Don laugh, but I really hate that disgusting cold hard thing wrapped in red cabbage that tastes like putty with salt and pepper. Whose idea was that? THIS THING IS NOT EDIBLE. And so really bad are most of the offerings in BusinessFirst from and to India. And those mid-air snacks. Absolutely too horrific for words. I live and work in Nepal now, and the final straw is the closing of the Unites Airlines BKK operations. WHAT A DISASTER. WHAT A LOSS. WHAT A STUPIDITY. My upcoming April 2014 KTM-BKK-NRT-SFO-PDX round-trip would cost me $7,800 more in business class than the exact(!) same trip I took two weeks ago, using two GPUs. No more BKK-NRT/NRT-BKK miles or GPU upgrades; not even on the ANA so-called 'joint-venture' code share.

3) What remains about the current UA that makes it hard for you to leave?
Familiarity and being a Global Services member with quite a few nice perks on the ground. And Bonny and Alice and Micheal on the GS telephone line

4) What airlines are you considering switching to? Or kayaking?
A M A Z I N G Qatar! with the best and friendliest service in the skies; the worst on the ground and email and phone customer service. Not even an elite line for their highest tier Platinums (OneWorld Emerald) !

5) What benefits / improvements do you expect on your new airline?
Great, new planes - amazing food and friendly smiles. And ... flight to and from Bangkok

6) What aspects of the new airline make it hard for you to switch to them?
Familiarity with United. It feels like abandoning a family member. Albeit, one you don't like anymore.

SeaProf

1) What did you like most about fkaUA or fkaCO?
I had very good experiences with the FAs in the 90s and early 00s.
They fly most places I need to go.

2) What changes have had the greatest negative impact on you?
Before my international flying picked up in the last 3 years (from 1 trip a year to 4-5 trips), I was (barely) a Premier member with UA. I would occasionally get upgrades. Once the merger occurred, I went from being on the cusp of domestic upgrades to no possible hope.

3) What remains about the current UA that makes it hard for you to leave?
*A and nothing else

4) What airlines are you considering switching to? Or kayaking?
Already switched all international flights to NZ.

After all the hassles of March '12, the breaking point for me occurred in Summer '12. I had purchased BC on UA for a lie-flat seat to LHR from ORD but UA rerouted me for no transparent reason through SFO and I lost the lie-flat. Then, on the new flight I informed the FA of my unusual food allergy (tomatoes). When the meal came, there was a tomato dead center of the food. I once again mentioned my allergy. The FA then used her bare fingers to scrape the tomato off the rest of the food before setting it on my tray table. I found it very symbolic and it solidified my decision not to fly UA internationally again.

I now exclusively fly NZ for both TATL and TPAC flights and exclusively use my NZ Airpoints (I have allowed my UA MP to go to 0). I usually still fly UA to SFO/LAX to access NZ flights (I am willing to fly E- on West Coast flights for the Airpoints benefits, which are very good when flying UA domestically, oddly enough). I decided I would rather go out of the way and pay a bit more to fly to LAX from SEA in order to have a comfortable flight to LHR than fly UA through SFO, ORD or IAH to get there, regardless of class.

5) What benefits / improvements do you expect on your new airline?
I am happy in every way with NZ.

a) When I call for help, instead of being put on hold for anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, I speak with someone either instantly or with no more than a 5 minute wait. The phone agent is invariably nice, helpful and, on more than one occasion, we have chatted at length about sight-seeing and adventure activities to do while in NZ.

b) Every time I have applied for an upgrade on an international flight, I have received it. I recognize from others that is unusual but I have had good luck.

c) The Koru Club lounges put the UC lounges to shame.

d) As *G with NZ I can access UC lounges when flying domestically in the US, whereas I would not if I were *G through UA (only domestic flights as part of international would get me access). Last year I flew about 40 segments overall, about a dozen domestically with UA, so access to the UC comes in handy.

e) NZ Premium Economy from LAX to LHR is great and I love their BC, which is much better IMHO than UA's BC.

f) NZ's FAs don't use their fingers to scrape tomatoes off my food. In fact, they usually go out of their way to make sure I am taken care of with a good meal.

6) What aspects of the new airline make it hard for you to switch to them?
I have to go to LAX, SFO or YVR to connect to their flights (the latter means going through customs and immigration twice, which is not fun on the return from NZ, so I avoid it even though it is much closer to SEA). But this is a very minor complaint as they fly to my most visited locations (LHR, NZ, Pacific Islands).

Always Flyin

As to domestic airlines, I agree with you. A decent lay-flat seat, which you can find on a small minority of routes, goes a long way to being able to ignore the remainder of the abysmal product.

Domestic flying is a race to the bottom. But United is very proud of itself: it is winning that race.

Don't do that.

While the domestic flying experience on AA/US is 95%+ the same as the other majors, the manner in which they treat their customers--particularly their elites--is presently far ahead of United. The AA 77W first is miles ahead of UA, and C on US and new AA planes is far, far better than UA.

While AA/US might change how it treats its elites, UA already has. I'll put my backside on an airline that seems to know that it can grow its business by poaching customers from United and treating them decently than the present shell of an airline that UA has become.

All of which is easy for me to say because I don't live in IAH or EWR (although commuting by train to PHL isn't all that tough from the EWR area).

demkr

1) What did you like most about fkaUA or fkaCO?

pmUA-Loyalty friendly upgrade policies/priority
-CR1s and SWUs
-eCerts when things went wrong
-F class Mai Tai (hey, it was good!)
-Widebody planes between hubs.

pmCO - Best-in-class F meals, which was the only thing I liked about them, and then they took that away too.

2) What changes have had the greatest negative impact on you?
-The main thing is the Upgrade roulette: A near 100% upgrade rate on United going from a sub 50% on COdbaUA.
-Nearly every "service" cut has come from the premium cabin..Everything from meals to cashews to pillows to movies and meal windows.
-Devaluation of miles
-Coddling of GS to the point where 1K means nothing
-Imposing PQD with no improvements to the loyalty program or incentive to continue.
-Various technology snafus
-Reliability (on-time arrivals)

3) What remains about the current UA that makes it hard for you to leave?
-SFO hub.
-Having to "start all over" for status on another airline (can't really do a status match for various reasons).

4) What airlines are you considering switching to? Or kayaking?
-Depends if I stay in San Francisco or not. If I move to Seattle as I've considered, Alaska. if I moved back east, maybe American.

5) What benefits / improvements do you expect on your new airline?
-Loyalty based upgrade system
-More value for my miles
-Better lounges

6) What aspects of the new airline make it hard for you to switch to them?
-N/A as I don't have one in mind right now.

CMK10

That's utterly inane. Maybe if the route you're talking about is RDU-EWR but to simplify all the airlines in the US, let alone all the airlines in North America and the world to "a bad airline" is a gross oversimplification.

LarkSFO

I think RNE clarified that the reference was to US domestic airlines.

Including:

Delta
American
Southwest
United
etc. (Alaska, Jetblue, Virgin, Spirit)

ATXflyer

True, but UA is outsourcing so many flights even over 4 hours long to UAX, so anyone can tell the difference.

UA has lost 22 segments from me in January alone this year due to their ubiquitous use of UAX instead of mainline aircraft.

I won't fly UA till February since they can't get me to my destinations without UAX and their pathetic unreliable flight service.

I'm not leaving UA, but I sure have left UAX.

manstein58

Absolutely the biggest issue is the increasingly common use of regional jets on what should be mainline routes

Michael D

So reduce the number of flights and increase the number of larger mainline aircraft?

TravellingMan

^^^

Very well said. That is something that no one has mentioned. They have raised the bar to become an elite but the benefits have been whittled down. Why would any sane person bother?

UA-NYC

I agree with you - but inevitably someone will come on and say "it's all about frequency! Hourly turboprops/RJs are better than mainline every 2 hours!"

denuaflier

Just did challenge with AA EXP. Will still fly some UA but mostly for the following reasons I am out:
1. Revenue Management - Hub to hub one day travel used to be reasonable now it is out of this world.
2. Service - Was told flying on international business at EWR that can not use Club on same day - stated benefit on website. Had to call a supervisor before I could enter.
3. Overall war against the customers - this is a top down affect ussually in my opinion. If your management does not value customers, employees will not either. I want someone who wants my business and is willing to work for it.

Again, will still fly some United just becuase I am Denver based.

FL5000

See my thread about a flight from DCA to ELP last year ("United refusing to compensate for late flight").

Flying United to/from ELP has been a miserable experience. Yes, it's operated by SkyWest or JetExpress or what-the-heck-ever but the brand is United and the service has been horrible.

For example, the gate and/or flight attendants frequently refuse to let me take my Rimowa 21" roller on board the ERJ-145s or CR-700s even after I tell them over and over and over that it fits in the overhead bins, even on this tiny tin can - that's why I bought the damn thing in the first place!

I now fly only Southwest to/from ELP - I've completely given up on United/SkyWest for any segments out of ELP. Will stick with them for longer hub flight and international, at least until they reduce Silver to an even more meaningless status level.

3Cforme

Some markets have a decent passenger volume but demand very high frequency. ORD-LGA comes to mind. DL doesn't have the passenger volume of UA or AA on that route and so meets demand with 14 E75 flights today.

Other markets have more modest demand but rely on connecting traffic over a big part of the day. 3x 319 may not cover the connecting departure windows adequately, and 6x CR7 would be preferred (from the point of view of time, if not comfort).

I don't how many U.S. city pairs really support competitive ~hourly service. If UA, DL and UA are going to fly to more than 300 cities, however, 50-seaters are going to continue to be part of the mix. They fly to dozens of domestic cities where WN couldn't begin to support 3 or 4x 737s daily.