The whole stock market is insane.

Or to perform a full drink service in coach and ask if you would like another on a fully loaded 737 55 minute flight

Pan Am never was allowed to have a domestic market during the CAB days. They never abandoned it. They bought National trying to build one up after the days of regulation came to an end. Too little too late.

History is good but please do not rewrite it with factually incorrect statements.

Pan Am had numerous shortfallings they tried to work around.

Pan Am also payed way to much for National - which flew North-South (a lot of Florida) - PA flew East-West. Very poor merger.

You should have done the ride in Biz ... the difference would have been far more striking.
Time to update your handle to match your new creed.

There's not really a nice way to say this. People complain about "kettles". Imagine having to travel with the Southwest crowd. I would probably have to take AA up on their offers.

UA was dependent on US for filling holes in its route system, offloading lower margin fares, award redemptions. With the consolidation in the US airline industry, there are few if any good replacement options for US, putting UA in a tough spot.

They would have to codeshare with bus and train companies as well. Shuttling between MDW-ORD and HOU-IAH

They do codeshare with Amtrak in the Northeast, especially from EWR.

Eh, doing a fair amount of flying on WN, FL, and B6, the masses and the DYKWIA crowd is really the same across the board. Probably different in Europe/Asia but people are bad on every airline and some are good on every airline.

Oh man, what a horror it would be to travel with people who manage to board a plane in a reasonable manner and without acting like idiots!

Only from EWR.

^

One undeniable fact is the WN can turn a plane in less than 1/2 the time as almost any other carrier---

1. The f/a's clean the cabin and fold the seatbelts, after landing and before boarding.
2. The WN kettle's are pro's and know how to line up, move rapidly to grab a better seat than the person following them, and make sure that they jam their carry-on's in the overhead, and get out of the aisle, before someone plop's down in a seat that they subliminally dibbed.
3. My bags are always at the carrousel in LAS when I get down there on WN.
On every flight, no matter what time of day or night, it's a minimum of 45 minutes until anything happens at baggage claim on UA. The baggage handlers on WN seem to have gone to a much different luggage academy than UA ground crews.

I admit I try not to fly WN, but the few times I have, the boarding process outside the plane is orderly, but it's kind of a scramble in the plane. It's been a few years, maybe their process has changed.

I would characterize the overall difference as non-elites on UA feel like cattle, and everyone on WN feels like cattle. I'm sure many will disagree. And to be fair, I will say the crews on WN are incredibly pleasant to be around, which is rare on UA. Depends on what you value in your flight experience. I'm not needy and mostly keep to myself so the grumpy UA crews don't really bother me.

Getting a boarding pass at "EXACTLY" T-24 on WN is a pita! Once you're on the plane it's pretty good and with the exception of a lot of loud drunk kettles flying to LAS, it ain't half bad.

Needed 3 one-way's from DEN-LAS for 12/28/2014 and UA wanted around $250.00 each (checked every day for 3 mo's). Waited for 2 months until WN opened inventory and got all three for $99.00 each. UA may drop their price later over New Years week-end, but I don't care --- We got our tickets - UA over (12/24) and WN back! I wasn't gonna pay and extra $453.00 for 629 MP miles for the Abner's!

Sat near a bachelorette party from MDW-LAS once and it was the most annoying 4 hours ever. Screeching, whooping, singing, etc. I think this is what people mean when they comment on WN kettles. They just seem to market to and attract the infrequent, leisure travel only crowd. I have no problem with the airline or their business model. But this is a significantly different customer demographic than UA wants to attract (regardless of their recent success at it).