Kacee

No they are purely objective.

We can quibble about what they measure and whether that makes an airline "best" or "worst" but the measures and the ranking themselves are completely objective.

UA-NYC

US runs a tight ship these days. At least you know you get great ops.

IflyfromABE

They are "objective" but not normalized. Get the numerical measurements for all those categories for these airlines and multiply by the fraction of (airports they fly to/ total US airports that commercial airlines fly to) and you will get a more holistic picture. An airline that flies 5 routes with 10 planes is in a totally different ballgame than one that flies 1000 routes with 2000 planes....

Kacee

Pardon me, but which of the listed airlines fly five routes with ten aircraft? (I'll give you a hint, it's none, not even close).

While some criteria are obviously carrier specific (i.e., fewer weather delays in Hawaii) the sample size for each of these airlines is sufficiently large to make the statistics meaningful and the differences significant. Particularly if you're comparing the legacies.

Darlox

Actually, these studies are meticulously normalized. What you're quibbling about isn't study protocol -- rather, it's economies of scale.

Basically, if HA or VX flew to 220 stations instead of 22, you're saying that they wouldn't be able to maintain their same numbers.

Traditionally, you'd probably be correct. Because when you get to that scale, corporations always try to start squeezing fixed costs. So they outsource, and they have fewer staff members per station, etc...

But that's PRECISELY what studies like this measure the effects of. If UA or other carriers ran their operations the same way VX did, they could have the same outcomes per 10,000 or 100,000 pax. The point is, they don't. So their performance suffers.

There's lots of reasons. When airlines get very large, they have more employees. Unions leverage more power and the stakes are larger for systemwide action. The vendor/customer relationship changes because the balance of perceived power is different, etc...

But at the core, the fact remains that if UA chose to run its operations the same way VX does, they could achieve the same outcomes. Simply put, they do not. Whether the reason for that is fixable or not is irrelevant. As others have stated, the measurements are about as objective as they come.

You can argue the reasons why performance is so different, but in this specific case, the methodology of the study -- especially tracked over time -- is pretty tough to quibble over...

BearX220

Hey, everyone, we're abysmal! Hooray for us! Raises for all executives!

Your post was gold except for this bit. I don't think so, because so many of the survey metrics hinge on the actions of motivated, pro-customer employees. VX has a built-from-scratch underdog culture focused on delivering a strong product and beating the oligarchy at its own game. UA has a blended, merger-scarred employee culture with a long history of hating whoever's in charge and protecting its own interests; I don't know how you fix that. I do know the current management's anti-customer signals just make things worse.

How do you engineer a better service experience when management hates labor and customers, labor hates management and customers, and customers hate the whole kaboodle? The airline's brand is circling the drain. Where do you even start?

Yay! We're abysmal!

CO_Nonrev_elite

An Average Flight - The Good and the bad
Today I flew on 876 from LAX-JFK in business on the PS flight. The flight was all that's good and all that's bad rolled into one flight, and really is a good snapshot of what my experiences are these days with them.

On-Time Performance
We were scheduled to depart at 12.52pm, but due to storms in NYC, the "FAA" were not permitting United to take off for JFK until 4.02pm. I looked at the other airlines departures for the same bank, and all were delayed, so that seemed reasonable, but in watching, AA, DL, VX etc all took off long (60-90 min) before the UA flight. We picked up some time in the air, and instead of landing at 9.30pm, we landed just before midnight. The gate agent, and the United Club agent were both very forthcoming about the status, and went as far as saying "I'm supposed to tell you that boarding is now at 2.30pm, but realistically that won't happen as the FAA won't let us take off before 4pm

Flight Attendants
On boarding, I witnessed a late boarding passenger in the business cabin trying to put his roller board in the overhead bin. While there was space, one of the female flight attendants scowled at him (and not nicely) and said "that will have to be checked". The male flight attendant chimed in and said "let me see if I can do it" and started trying to help while the female made some snarky remark. After trying to move a few things around, the female once again chimed in with "I told you it wouldn't work, take it to the door, it's getting checked", and once again the male flight attendant said "well, "We have plenty of room in the closet, let's put it in there". - Simple things that make or break a customer's experience.

Pre-Departure Drink
While I cannot obviously comment on everyone in the cabin's experience. I was offered to have my coat hung, offered eye shades etc and offered a pre-departure drink within about a minute of sitting. I had my customary Bloody Mary, and as soon as I was finished the male flight attendant came over and said while looking at his watch "You know, if we go fast, we could probably get another one in before take off, ready for a refresh?" - Again, simple things that didn't need to be done, that make or break a customer's experience

Seat
I like the PS product in general, I like the seat, I like having flat beds domestically. While I guess ultimately having all aisle access is better, it really does not matter to me at all. If I wanted Aisle access, I can select an aisle seat. Climbing over someone or likewise is not a big deal to me.

Inflight Entertainment
Movie selections etc all seemed current and plentiful, so that's all good, wifi worked well and was certainly fast enough to watch showtime on demand on the iPad.

Channel 9
Was on, but broken at my seat. You could hear it through the headphones, but no matter what you did with the volume, it was extremely quiet and certainly way too quiet to make out what was being said even with the Bose on. - This was a drag as I do listen to it a lot.

Food
Was ok at best, presentation and quality was only ok. It's not a restaurant, so my expectations are not beyond reason, but I fly a lot, and what's on offer at the other carriers (DL/AA) is significantly better on both metrics.

Arrival
We landed in pretty low visibility, didn't come through the clouds until about 400ft, nice landing. Long Taxi to the gate, then waited, and waited, and waited for a person to operate the gate. Then the gate didn't work properly, so it took some fiddling about. While this was only an extra 10 min, etc, you'd think that they'd know we were coming. Even if no one knew to expect us, the long taxi would give them enough time to get there and be ready.

Bags
I did have a checked bag, and while it did come out fairly quickly, the bags did not come out priority first, and god that JFK baggage claim area is still pretty shoddy looking and third world.

Nothing ground breaking, but shows the good and the bad of a typical UA flight.

1kBill

Further improvement probably not worth it as there are diminishing returns to efforts to raise performance above abysmal!

BearX220

Thanks for the very good mini-trip report. This wait-for-the-ground-staff thing drives me crazy, and I swear it happens much more often on UA than competitors, even at hubs -- perhaps because staff are stretched so thin. But when you roll up late at night and your appearance is apparently a total surprise to the agents and rampers, and it takes 5-10-20 minutes to come park you, it makes a terrible final impression. Either the crew is too busy to get to you, they forgot you were coming (night after night?), or nobody cares.

flybit

LOL love this, I will borrow it for an email.

bmwe92fan

Lol +1 - it's like "Great - we suck less than we used to!"

JBord

Second this. Maybe it's just me but I've personally noticed a significant increase in these issues lately. My home is ORD and I fly about 90 segments a year so perhaps it's more of an issue at ORD?

It's one thing when the captain announces the gate is occupied, but I'm referring specifically to situations where they announce "no one is available to guide us in".

In terms of overall quality perception, nothing is worse after a delayed, lousy flight than sitting 100 feet from the gate for 10-15 minutes...well maybe except for those folks who check their bags.

CO_Nonrev_elite

Someone who flies back and forth a few times per week from LAX-JFK-LAX would not agree with these findings. They'd need to connect on many of them if making it at all. They'd be in economy on several, they'd not be allowed to upgrade on Delta, and they'd be happy on American, Virgin and United. Virgin and other than a few AA planes are not 180 beds, leaving you happiest on United with TV's, wifi and beds.

I guess it depends on what type of flyer you are

denCSA

Just wait until UA launches it's next 'enhancement'... I'm pretty confident whatever it is won't help their rating any.

HatAndJacket

...worst airline ratings, but best FF program if you ask me, now that AA devalued again and DL 2015 looks pretty bad... it's a trade off you do what works for you (unless you're a poor soul that's hub locked)