UNITED AIRLINES   Passenger Reviews and Customer Trip Reports

UNITED AIRLINES review :  17 September 2009 by S Baker   (UK)

LHR-IAD-LAS return. Very average at best. All that aircraft were old, looked worn and tired. B767 LHR to IAD particularly so. Even new paintwork was flaking away and dirty. Seats narrow and legroom awful. Both A320's were in reasonable condition. B777 from LAX to LHR was tired, but the most comfortable of all the planes. Food on international flights was of good quality, but paying for alcoholic drinks in international flights is poor and cheap considering other carriers do not charge. Service levels, amenities and comfort are all average.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  15 September 2009 by Subodh Mathur   (USA)

Business Class Washington to Frankfurt. Called United to find out which flight (they have two) had 180 degree flat bed seats. Got answer 5 minutes later (767) and booked that. Check-in is by machine - I have a non-machine readable passport, so had to type in passport details. No one to check whether I had a valid visa for destination. Service was lax right from the beginning. Flight attendants allowed too many loose items in the cabin during takeoff. After dinner, service was virtually non-existent. The seat is flat, but flat beds on other airlines are far better. As others have complained, on these United seats there is no privacy and nowhere to store anything. A fellow passenger was frantically searching for his glasses! TV is big, food is OK. Next morning I flew Frankfurt-Ghana on Lufthansa in business class, and it felt like real business class. I have been flying United - business class and First once in a while - since 1990, and it is a shame that they have not yet come close to their competition.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  14 September 2009 by Mark Davey   (UK)

LAX-HNL an ok flight with attentive flight attendants, but was surprised to not get any food on a 5 hour flight over the pacific. Automatic checkin in LAX was quite confusing to a Brit who had not seen this before, or who couldn't remember which credit card they bought the ticket with 2 months ago (which I thought I needed for their machine.) In fact any card would do, but this wasn't obvious until 15 minutes later when the staff helped me out.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  14 September 2009 by C Bryant   (USA)

DFW-DEN on short notice and was pleasantly surprised. FA's friendly and attentive, A319 clean and well kept. Economy Plus has value and is worth the extra comfort. Flight was on time.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  10 September 2009 by J Drennan   (UK)

ORD-LHR B767-300 Business Class. I don't know how United dare to present this as a business class experience. The cabin crew were friendly and attentive, and food was of very good quality and quantity. But now to the seat and it's surroundings. I was unfortunate enough to be in 10K, which United call a 'standard business class seat'. In reality 10K and 10J are directly outside the business class galley - so much so it is possible to see right through the galley to the crew rest seats on the 'A' side of the cabin. My companion in 10J could easily just reach over the narrow aisle and place service items directly on the galley counter-top. As backward facing seats you have a single window, a bulkhead ahead of you containing the toilet and it's associated queues, and directly to your right the galley, with all it's associated light, noise and total lack of ambience and atmosphere. You also have 20 pairs of eyes staring at you from economy behind the bulkhead. The seat itself is the 'new' business lie flat seat and lie flat it did. There is not a scrap of personal storage space in or around the seat. The floor area has to be kept clear for take-off and landing and the only storage is the magazine pocket, which is at shoulder height between the seats, so literally not a single storage place for the smallest item. The aisle armrest can be lowered or raised, which is useful for getting out of your seat, but is extremely narrow, hard and angular and uncomfortable to actually use as an arm rest. As a night flight, it was impossible to get a minutes sleep due to being in a high traffic area and with lights kept on in the galley throughout the flight and being the gathering place for crew, always background chatter and clatter of service items. You might read this review and think I just have it in for United. I really don't - I am simply shocked that they could present this seat as a business class seat knowing it's position in the aircraft. I would urge anyone to boycott these seats at all costs.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  8 September 2009 by L Prince   (UK)

LHR-ORD-MCO return. All flights on time, food was pretty nice with drinks offered throughout the flight - we had earphones, blankets and pillows, and a decent selection of films to watch. The staff were friendly and helpful. My last flight from ORD to LHR was overbooked by three seats, but they asked for volunteers in return for a healthy $800 to spend on future United flights so these were taken very quickly. My only complaint is that my ORD-MCO flights were supposed to have a snack included but there was just a drink.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  4 September 2009 by Madonna Phillips   (USA)

I have vowed never to fly economy again. I guess all the airlines overbook, but when you are going on your big trip to Paris , it is more than disappointing to get bumped. We booked on Orbitz for August 22 and got a good deal, but I was worried from the first about not getting seat assignments. We called, Orbitz and the airline but were told, you are confirmed, you will get your seat. After we were bumped, we were sent to a two hour line for another booking, we refused the free flight as compensation and took the check, something they don't want you to do. Take the money, they will just bump you again. They were trying to send everyone who got bumped at Dulles for Paris to Frankfurt - the next night! We said no, get us to JFK. So we took that route. They told us it was not their policy to send the luggage if the passengers don't board after our bumping at Dulles, so we asked for our luggage at Dulles. They said, sorry it went. After a late night in a hotel in Washington. We go back to the airport the next morning to fly to JFK and were told that our luggage didn't go after all, not to worry it will be in Paris. Well, they sent our luggage to Frankfurt and when we received the bags, five days into our trip, our clothes were wet. The United worker at Dulles assured us our luggage would go to Paris. Take carry on bags folks and travel at least business class and not on United.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  4 September 2009 by K Smith   (Ireland)

United Airlines simply do not care about their customers as you are only a small voice among many. We flew DUB-LHR-ORD with three small children. I booked window seats (months in advance) for all the children but when we arrived in LHR, we were told the flight was totally overbooked (767) & they could not keep us all together on the flight. The wife was put in business class with one of children on her lap while myself had to keep the other twin on my lap while the 2yr old was sitting three rows behind me. When I queried the reasons behind this as I had paid for 5 seats not 3, I was told she had looked after my wife and one of my twins but she could not find anyway of seating me with the two other children & she just walked away from me muttering something under her breath. I found this attitude really lacking but what can you expect from idiots. I contacted the customer service dept when I got to ORD & was given three free upgrades for our return flight last week as the service agent was horrified over this issue. Overall, it was a bad situation that should have been avoided or managed better but the business class seats were good. The moral of the story is never fly with United Airlines unless you want high stress levels & problems.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  31 August 2009 by John Estrada   (USA)

United's new Business Class seating is an improvement over the old style seating. However, their are numerous design flaws including having to literally crawl over someone if you're in the window or the two middle seats on the 747 ORD to NRT. The private reading lamps on the aisle seat shine directly in your face if your in an aisle seat with the forward and rear facing seats. They no longer serve champagne in Business, only US Sparkling Wine. There was a flight attendant who walked down the aisles like she was at ball park selling hotdogs 'Asian Newspapers, Asian Newspapers, anyone for an Asian Newspaper'. Pretty good seats, but it's the same old inflight service. My connecting flight NRT to BKK was in the upper deck of a newly configured 747 in Business class with very shoddy inflight service. It was so rushed, the food was cold, and only one offer of wine on a six hour flight. They did come through to provide water twice. The good news for all of this was that I was using anMileage Plus 1K upgrade certificate. I would never pay full fare on United.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  31 August 2009 by Donna Kershaw   (Australia)

Sydney to New York via San Francisco. Online check-in was a breeze. Bag drop easy (no queues) and boarding done by section numbers. Full flight on an older 747-400. The big let down was that there were no seatback TVs or amenity kits. Seat pitch fair. Meals were plain and unappealing. The onward flight to NYC was on a small A319, full and only a drinks service was offered. Overall United was passable if you have low expectations, certainly the price was right at $1157 Australian dollars for SYD-SFO-NYC return.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  31 August 2009 by B Rider   (USA)

New updated 767 is much nicer but it is no BA or Singapore. If you go in with the mindset it is a nice airline but not premium you will be pleasantly surprised Service efficient and food was nice. My biggest compliant is inconsistency with products and route map. The older 777 bus class seats are not comfortable. My biggest tip is try to connect through AMS as they fly B767's on this route which have been updated.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  31 August 2009 by James Hinnecke   (Canada)

Toronto–Chicago–Honolulu (B757/B 777), Honolulu–Denver–Toronto (B767/Emb170). Flights were on time or early in all cases so that was a plus. Booked ‘economy plus’ seating on longer flights and it was the worth the extra charge because otherwise seating is cramped even for an average sized person. Planes seemed well maintained and clean. Overall not a terrible experience but not particularly inspiring either. Had to fly United as it was booked by cruise company as part of package. Compares unfavourably to Air Canada or Westjet because of chaotic and time consuming luggage check-in in Toronto (though much better in Honolulu), luggage check-in charges - an annoyance and also encourages people to take over large items into airline cabins, old style limited entertainment options (ie. no AVOD TV in seatback), indifferent flight service on some segments, and limited food purchase options. I guess the bottom line here is that United gets its passengers from points a to b on time and in relative comfort but service is bare bones unless you are prepared to pay more. From what I have heard this seems par for the course for any U.S. carrier these days.

UNITED AIRLINES review :  31 August 2009 by T Johnson   (USA)

STL-DEN-ONT in coach on A319/A320. Overall, the experience was good. The flight attendants were courteous and helpful. Both segments had video, but due to time, only TV shows were aired. The seats were very cramped in coach. Maybe seat pitch was taken away to make room for Economy Plus. I am only 5'9", but my knees touched the seat in front of me on both legs. It was fine until the person in front of me reclined their seat. For $137.50, it got me where I wanted to go without any issues or delays.