For me, DL has been pretty good with handling irrops of any kind, even when DTW was struggling with blizzard in January, they got me there (it was late, but they also always managed to find me a 1st class seat on the rerouted flights) and provided meal vouchers even though it was due to weather.

AA has been great, I've had very few late flights, one that was late they proactively accommodated me on a partner airline 10 hours before scheduled departure because they knew the inbound aircraft was so late hours ahead of time, I ended up arriving at my destination 90 minutes ahead of schedule. In a similar situation with UA there was no attempt at all to move me to another airline, despite many options on partner metal.

For me the most important features of an airline are:

1) Performance, do they board on time in an orderly manner, do the push back on time, do they arrive on time. Where I am located, and my flight patterns, United comes in last in every aspect of this, AA and DL are equal, as in my experience when there is a delay they've taken care of it and the solution got me to my destination as scheduled or before when it wasn't weather related at the destination.

2) Attitude, are they friendly, do they value me as a customer, and do they take care of me when things go awry. When all does go off the rails, how do they respond to a letter. (Here United comes in last, even recently I wrote Munoz a very detailed letter of my past experiences, where I feel United doesn't compete, and that in my opinion the culture at United is simply anti-consumer. I got the same canned, poorly written, empty promises, capped with a "we hope you come back" response. It was the kind of response where, I just roll my eyes and ask, why would I come back, what in this reply would even remotely encourage that action? I haven't had anything to write AA about, but on two occasions when I casually brought up an issue with an agent, they offered to fix things right then, DL as been the same.)

3) Is the FFP usable, does it work for me, and where can it take me. (AA is a deep last on this, especially with their new changes. I put UA and DL about on equal footing. UA and *A has more destinations, but UA charges so much more to use *A. UA has the best online search capabilities for rewards, DL is buggy but usually playing the the calendar filters eventually works, and AA is useless, you have to call for anything on partner or non-domestic.)

4) Seats, cabins, and the rest of "hard product". (I put this 4th, because it's always a moving target, it's a long lead time to develop and implement, so no one airline is going to provide the "best" at any given time). For me it's more about best and worst within the same airline, and on this measure, Delta does have a lead, UA is behind having not addressed pmUA and pmCO differences until now, and AA is in post merger fleet chaos.

5) AVOD, even the so called best, isn't going to have anything I much care to see. I've given up there entirely, and just bring my own.

6) WiFi, I just don't care. I pay for it on my phone, and in my office, and at a hotel. On the plane, I'm very happy to finally find a place to disconnect.

7) Network, they all end up being even, with advantages and drawbacks depending on where you live and your flight patterns. It's a total wash. Except maybe South America, where neither DL or UA are best, AA has the best coverage with OW. (I've yet to find a place I can't get to using either the home metal or partner metal).

Comments based on my experience with all three Carriers.

United
- I gave up on UA a few years ago because the MX delays were bad (still are), staff were generally indifferent, and upgrades nearly impossible to get. I have 1.5M lifetime miles with United and was a 1k for over a decade. It would be nearly impossible for them to get my business back.
+ United does fly better/newer birds to Asia. Flying to Asia on either Delta or AA is horrible (in Biz & First).

AA
+ They really take care of their EXP's (equivalent to UA's 1k). I've rarely missed an upgrade, flights are generally ontime, very few MX delays. A big plus for me is that they fly into JFK, not EWR.
+ Award (mile) redemption seems on par with United. Maybe a bit worse, but not as bad as Delta.
- Their birds to Asia NEED to be upgraded. I flew LAX to NRT and ended up buying a return ticket on Singapore because I didn't want to spend 10 hours on such an old plane again (this was in business too!).

Delta
I have flown LAX / JFK on Delta quite a few times and not bad. I think their business class seats are the least comfortable of the 3 carriers on transcon flights. Main downside about Delta is award redemption is VERY hard to come by.

My experience exactly! As mentioned, the hard product of the three majors are changing constantly...the best of all three are all pretty good (only fair by int'l carrier standards) This being said, an interesting measure is the experience on the "worst" offered by the three carriers...for me, at least, DL does the most with the "least". I have not had a miserable flight on DL this year, while I have on both AA and UA. UA's new slim line seats are miserable...I will not fly them any more...and the hard product and CS on AA is suffering with the current state of affairs there.

In these days of the customer "unfriendly" skies, I now choose my carrier of choice by the most positive CS experience...or how many "yes, I can help you with that" I experience...and for the last couple of years this has come from DL and until last year AA. UA is improving, but it is still suffering from the customer unfriendly attitude we all suffered with after the merger...and still has a long way to go.

"It is not as much fun as it used to be"

I know this is an ancient thread, but I didn't want to start a new one given the similar content.

Context: I have flown UA almost exclusively for the past 20 years, but had flown AA (really US) prior to that, as I live(d) in PIT and there was a hub there. The few AA flights I have done since then were mostly PIT-DCA type trips.

This past weekend, had to go to LA for the long weekend, and frankly, the AA nonstops were the only ones that made sense. So I had to gulp and avoid earning the UA PQP (and connections!) and book the AA flights. I wanted to share a few observations. To be clear, the flights themselves and service/etc (for people with no status) was fine.

1) Despite there being a LCC (Breeze) providing non-stop service, only AA was matching the prices. UA was several hundred dollars more (and with connections). This isn't a surprise, FTs have been seeing this fare delta for months.

2) We had a not so great experience getting TSA precheck to go through to boarding pass on one of our three tickets for the outbound flight. While everything matched, it just wasn't working. Spent about 1.5 hours waiting for a chat agent and fortunately they were able to fix it. Not sure what the problem was - no-one seemed to know.

3) Its really interesting to fast forward on AA's old "More Room Throughout Coach" (MRTC) program from years ago. And also how they have implemented "Main Cabin Extra" (aka E+). The 737-800s we flew on only had four rows (24 seats) with extra room (33") - the first two rows of Economy, and the 2 exit rows. The rest of the plane (30 rows) was standard economy (30"). United pitches are similar but has 48 E+ seats. I was really surprised at how different this was.

4) This was the biggest observation - delay reason and notification. I figured most airlines were similar to UA in terms of providing notifications and also reasons - nope! Our return flight was delayed from 9:15am to 11am (and eventually 12:30pm). I noticed on the app around 5am that the flight was delayed (and went back to sleep). Received notifications of time changes, but no reasons (in texts, or anywhere on flight status). It made it very hard to think about what to do in terms of options. At 6am, I clicked through on flightaware and it seemed that the "incoming flight" had arrived the previous day. I thus guessed that there was a maintenance issue. We heard nothing else and went to the airport. Halfway there, the flight was delayed until noon (still no reason). We got to the gate area in LAX T4, which had about 5 nearby gates, and the flights kept getting moved around amongst them - our gate changed twice while there (we saw several older people "miss their flight because they were sitting in the original gate area and heard no boarding announcements or gate changes over there").. These gate changes were not announced (not a huge deal, they were next door), and further, there were no announcements in the 2.5 hours we were there about either the gates or reason for delay. Just the TVs getting updated with departure times. Again I was watching flight aware (and then eventually the AA app "incoming flight status" was updated too) to show our plane was a flight coming from PHX with an arrival time of 1135 am and the posted boarding time of 1138am. Of course that wasn't possible. Anyway everyone deplaned and then the crew got on, and 20 minutes later the gate agent asked for "Concierge Key" (presumably GS) to board. There wasn't even a "we are going to start boarding in XX minutes" announcement. It just started, and the agents acted like it was a regular on time flight.

When we boarded, and everyone was seated, the captain came on the PA and announced that "sorry there was a maintenance issue with the original plane, they thought they could fix it but it was taking longer than expected so they switched us to use this plane instead and we're happy to get you on your way". While we weren't at the airport from 830am on (when perhaps an initial announcement of delay was made), this was the first time we had heard anything about what was up in the 2.5 hours we were there.

Bottom line, certainly made me appreciate the usual notifications and information provided by default on the United app (e.g., maintenance, late incoming flight, etc.). We complain a lot about the quality, but something is better than nothing.

I don't what to say that you and I are old, but MRTC was discontinued in 2004. LOL It began in 2000 and they started removing the extra room in 2003.

I commute on UAL, AAL, and SWA. UAL's app gives the most information of the flight and delays. On AAL and SWA I revert to the FlightAware app for tracking the inbound airplane.

Larry - yup - I should have added a smiley or snark warning, but really what went through my head was "so much for more room throughout coach" ! But was still surprised how few rows had extra room other than exit rows. just surprised it is seen as competitive.

Yeah. At the time, I was really hoping the concept of MRTC would spread and become the standard. UAL is the closest of the big 4 with more E+ seats but it's nowhere near what MRTC was.

And that was the former AA. What’s called AA now is really USAir or I suppose you could even say America West.

Yes, and it's also the most functional by far. I love that you can see inventory, and on the very first booking screen.

AA just within the past few weeks finally introduced the ability to select flight credits as a payment method on the checkout screen. Previously, you had to copy and paste a ticket number (similar to WN, where you have to copy and past the confirm).

AS has actually gone backwards as they attempt to integrate HA. Now wins most clunky app award, which is pretty sad when the competition includes WN.

I'm in the DC area (currently next to DCA) but might be moving to the west side of IAD. I hate flying UA at IAD with a passion, but I may be forced to make the switch since fighting traffic to get to DCA will likely get old.

For those who've made the switch, how does 1K stack up against AA EXP? I'm trying to decide if I want to stay with AA (and mix DCA with AA flights out of IAD) or completely switch over to UA (I'd rather keep top-tier with one airline than mix mid-tier at multiple airlines).

The UA Clubs (and no premium lounge access on international flights when in economy) seem like a downgrade (no showers). PlusPoints seem more useful/flexible than SWUs. Complimentary upgrades on AA are pretty easy out of DCA (lots of premium heavy RJs). They seem less so on UA. AA's mileage program seems more valuable, but UA seems to have a decent amount of Star Alliance partner award availability at IAD (and I can use Chase transfers to Aeroplan to book awards as well).

These are just my perceptions, so feel free to tell me if I'm wrong/missing anything.

Sadly, AA these days is a distant third behind UA and DL in most all categories that matter - to me, at least. If I were still traveling for business out of the NCR, I’d stick with UA because they have the most destinations out of IAD. And while DCA is nice from a passenger’s point of view. IAD can be tamed - with precheck I could make it from drop off to the gate in 30 minutes.

UA is my choice because I have so many points stashed and UA does a decent job for a USA carrier but take other international carriers when it comes down to money. The FAs are so wildly hit and miss. Lounges are okay. Their liberal policy on modifying flight dates/times to future credits is fantastic. Food, enough said about that. Safety wise I trust the people flying and it has been a long time since my luggage didn't show up.

Domestic UGs on UA are very rare. I haven't had one in 3 years at least. International UGs with PlusPoints are less than 50% for me, so I wouldn't come over to UA expecting a high success rate for PlusPoints UGs. Also don't expect friendly proactive FAs; DL is far better for that.

UA is way more functional than AA. Upgrades depend on route, but very difficult to non-existent on hub-to-hubs. For long-haul international, it really depends on the route.

There has been such a surge in EXPs with the LP boondoggles that I'm not sure AA is really any better when it comes to upgrades these days. I've found AA miles have sagged in value recently, particularly for TPAC redemptions with JL releasing next to nothing and AA dynamic prices now generally higher than UAs. UA OTOH is now making IN (business class award inventory form premiers and card-holders) pretty widely available. For the first time in many years, UA miles now have significant value for long-haul premium cabin redemptions on UA metal.

For travelers who can't always book F, UA offers a much higher number of E+ seats than AA with its minimal MCE seating, and UA is in the process of upgrading its cabins with personal video screens and Starlink wifi. I find myself choosing UA over AA for close-in purchases just so that can get an E+ seat.

Even though based at an AA hub (PHX), UA is getting at least half my flying these days.
Wow that's some bad luck. I still get a handful a year as a Gold. I think three CPU this year, plus one miles upgrade HKG-LAX.

Almost all of my domestic flights are transcons or hub-to-hub. However, there've been several like ORD-PHL/MSP that I haven't gotten either. I just consider domestic UGs unobtainable and don't even check the UG lists anymore, where I used to compulsively watch them.