fly18725

They operated as two separate airlines with different contracts for most work groups for several years. You may be technically correct in that they used different terminology to refer to the different groups of employees.

uastarflyer

. Landing #1 on time in 2008, 2009, and 1h 2010. Those planes. Yes.

Mrtrash757

THe question I have is where does UA go from here? They could be a great airline if they figured out how to fix the culture problems.

Its something I fear with AA, hopefully they will negotiate things correctly, but it seems that DL is the best at dealing with the "merger culture"

wrp96

I think one of the big differences between the UA/CO merger and the Delta/NW merger is that it seemed like Delta had a very good grasp in advance of what had to be done and when in order to merge successfully. I remember seeing a picture taken that showed the project map showing actions that had to be taken and when in order to make Delta one cohesive unit - i.e. until we accomplish this we can't proceed with this, and x must be completed by such and such date, etc.

Since the beginning of the UA/CO merger, it's never felt like UA has a complete grasp on everything needed to make one step of the merger successful much less the entire merger. It still feels like there are thing left uncompleted from the first changes made 4 years ago (yes things like the name, the pUA vs pCO etc), much less most recent changes that feel like they are just throwing darts and trying to see if that works or just copying off a page they took from the Delta website.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Really? Do you actually believe that? Pls show statistics. The ones I found for 2008 show CO#12 among U.S. carriers at 74% and UA at #17 with 71.6% for arrivals. Yes, that airline and those planes. 17th. I guess you're quoting the on-time statistics for the subset of UA planes that landed on time

I started w/ 2008 and stopped there because I don't want to do the rest of your job of actually finding statistics to support your statement.

http://businesstravel.about.com/od/a...time_stats.htm

anc-ord772

I can't help but notice we, as a community, failed to move past what ails UNITED.

Blaming Uniteds problems on Continental (and v.v) is the problem. I'm not sure if ironic properly describes the scene, but still worth noting.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Yes. The past is gone and current management is certainly on the hook by now for ALL of UA's current failings.

Mike Jacoubowsky

Just keep in mind that UA front-line employees came into the situation with a history of extraordinary animosity between themselves and Tilton. Tilton who famously said at a shareholder's meeting ("famously" to me, although it inexplicably was ignored by nearly all) "Employee morale is not my problem." The employees on the UA side were really hoping to see something better. Instead, they got a new CEO who wants to blame everything he can on the pre-merger United employees and equipment.

To have made this merger work well would have required an outside party, someone without much prior skin in the game on either side. I don't think that's required for mergers in general, but this one in particular.
I think we, as a community, have identified JeffS as what ails United. The past doesn't matter; the CEO's had three years to get merge armies. A workable gameplan should have been worked out before the merger even happened. It wasn't. There have been zero, zilch, nada, problems that couldn't have been foreseen.

UnitedFlyGuy

You know things are bad when employees are wearing the 'All Jeff'd Up"/You got smiseked" shirts to work under their uniform shirt. But on the bright side - One thing that employees have come together on!

Mike Jacoubowsky

Despite my feelings about upper management at UA, such employees should be reprimanded and managers that allowed this should be fired. The likely reason why this hasn't happened is because the last thing Jeff wants to do is create martyrs. A rallying point. Too bad. It might be the best thing that could happen. But again, any business that allows employees to do such things isn't a business worth patronizing. It points to serious issues.

halls120

No wonder Tilton and Smisek got along. As leaders, they are equally clueless.

^^

tom911

You're going to allow management to instruct employees to take off their uniform shirts so that their t-shirts can be inspected? I know management has certain rights under their various contracts, but don't think you're going to find this one written down anywhere. How will management identify these trouble makers?

anc-ord772

The past is very much alive here. It is easy to see the sCO vs sUA, PMCO vs PMUA rhetoric in this thread, let alone many others on the UNITED FT board.

Yes, on one level there is a common theme that JS is not the right CEO for the company and many of the problems are of his teams own making. Move down one level and there is a consistent drumbeat of passionate positioning around the two camps and which airline was/is better/worse and who is right/wrong.

I certainly don't believe the debate on FT has been elevated above playing the CO vs UA blame game, and we've suffered because of it.

Mike Jacoubowsky

No, I'm not saying that at all. If an employee is dumb enough to "expose" him or herself, or talk about it to the wrong person, the hammer comes down. I'm not suggesting that you line everyone up and have them take off their uniforms.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Oops! I found it...

2008 Leading On-time Carriers*
1) United Airlines 71.6%
2) American Airlines 69.8%

*List excludes regional carriers, commuter airlines, airlines that don't exist in name anymore, and any current legacy carrier whose name begins with the letter D.