It's really very sad to witness the once great UA continue to shrink. On one hand, those of us with tons of miles and investment in the airline say, "do what you need to to survive." On the other hand, it's the front line UA employees who work hard to create the good will and retain customers. Subcontractors, in my opinion, do not have the same vested interest in customers who are not really theirs.

My loyalty to UA began years ago when I was a college student, traveling to and from MBS. That station had some of the best ground staff, and the loyal employees there did it all, from ramp work to check in. They knew you by name and represented UA well. Also, the UA staff at BNA was excellent. The service level dropped of significantly when that station became UX.

I'm not surprised to find that I'm not the only one having problems at BUR. The UX people are nice but really not trained well or at all. I wait until I arrive in SFO before I do any ticketing or even to sign a bluey as the TAs doesn't have a clue.

If these UA employees created so much goodwill and retained so many customers, why was it no longer profitable for United to provide mainline service into these stations?

I'm sorry to hear that this is happening... IND is my home airport and two of the GAs/TAs know me by name. There are a couple that have attitude problems though. Most of the flights are UX flights operated by Shuttle America but occoasionally you'll find a 737 from ORD or DEN.

Actually, and it makes no sense to me, but UA will continue providing personnel at two of the five recent announcements. I'm having trouble finding the original announcement, which I received through convoluted channels, but I want to say they're MIA and TUS (which makes even less sense).

I was talking to one of the agents about this back in December so it really is not any surprise to any of them. It is sad in that you have a group of people that you are used to dealing with and all is working relatively well and now they are out of a job and you have to train a whole new set of people all over again. :)

The person I talked to did not know if they would be able to apply for a position with whoever got the contract (SkyWest or Republic/Shuttle America) and they didn't even know if they would want to because the salary would most likely be so low that they could probably find something else.

IND has been down to just one mainline flight for several months. I think Skywest has had at least one daily flight for about a year and the rest are shuttle flights. It looks like skywest is the ux group that is running most of the express stations but I wonder if IND would not be a different situation with republic/shuttle being based here?

It will not be pleasant the first few months while these new agents try to get those flights out on time as ORD really screws things up here A LOT and new folks will have problems......as it can get messy.

I hate to see anyone lose their job especially in a rough economy so I hope all the employees land on their feet.