United Airlines

London Heathrow to Newark to connect to Fort Lauderdale Florida. My trip to Newark was uneventful. It was after landing in Newark that everything went wrong. Starting with the long immigration lines that wound around and around. My connection was scheduled to depart at 1.17pm and I was still at immigration at 1.10 even after enquiring about help from a United representative who was standing talking to a fellow colleague. She told me to join the line and when I ask what happened if I missed my connection she just tersely answered they will rebook you and walked away. At baggage claim there was no sign of my bag I was told to catch the flight and look for my bag in Fort Lauderdale. I finally got seated without a welcome or assistance from the two attendants standing at the door. We sat on the tarmac for over 2 hours. In the meantime however the empty seats started filling up little by little and I began to wonder if they were not just awaiting a fill to capacity flight. Not offered anything to eat. They gave us tea coffee or water and that was it. Needless to say that when I go to Fort Lauderdale my checked baggage was not there and was told it had been left in Newark and would be arriving on the 11pm flight. As I am writing this my baggage has still not been delivered.

Narita Tokyo to Singapore Changi on March 28th. IFE did not work (and even if it did I would be stuck with according to what was in in-flight mag an old and poor quality selection) food awful and had to pay for wine on a transcontinental flight (a first for me). Whole flight experience a bit of a revelation for me as I am used to flying Asian and European carriers. It was a bit like flying a short-hop domestic flight in UK - nothing much really to keep you happy while you are stuck in your seat. Maybe UA treat international flights like their domestic US ones. Even the announcements were the worst I have come across. Purser who did not seem to be able to speak English and a captain who had obviously not been sent on any course about speaking to the public (lacklustre disjointed and very rare). Won't be booking anything with UA again.

Feb 2 from Newark to Punta Cana flight UA 1520 returned Feb 9 flight UA 1518. Traveled from Newark on March 21 flight UA 423 to Fort Myers. Returned on March 24 flight 1587. What a disappointment! It started at check-in at Newark airport they expect you to do everything and if you ask for help they make it seem they are doing you a huge favor. The seats are super tight have to pay for luggage food TV I'm surprised they don't charge to let you use the bathrooms! They make you feel like you are getting on a bus.

LAX-SFO-SEA-LAX in United First. Outbound legs to Seattle were great. Service was warm and personalized even if only snack basket and drinks were offered on these short runs. Where United really shined was on the return flight. Original SEA-LAX flight was canceled due to mechanical on inbound aircraft. I received a text message with this update and before I could even get to the agent UA had me rebooked on another carrier getting in just 30 minutes after my original UA routing. When I got up to the agent she had my ticket ready and waiting for me. I fly United almost every week and seldom have cancellations or major delays. Regardless the way they handled this one was flawless and I couldn't have asked for better service all-around.

4 Sectors with United YVR-ORD ORD-BOS BOS IAH IAH-YVR. Very poor customer service on the ground and in the air. Greeted at the aircraft door by the usual icy scowl. A "good morning" from me totally ignored on all sectors. Officious cabin crew. A request for two drinks met by a terse response of "We do more than one drink service this is United!" Hugely oversized carry on bags allowed in the cabin. As a result the last few passengers to board are separated from their carry-ons and ordered to relinquish them even if they are of legal size. Purchased a roast beef sandwich on the 4.5 hour BOS-IAH leg it was tiny soggy and disgusting. On the 5 hour IAH-YVR sector departing at 2100 no hot items for purchase just snack boxes with cheese and crackers. I don't believe that United is any different to any other US airline these days. I can tolerate the ancillary charges the cramped seating the lack of food I understand that's what most of the budget conscience travelers demand these days. But simple manners courtesy and mutual respect cost nothing to provide and sadly they seem to be the most difficult qualities to find in any US airline.

If there is any alternative to flying United take it. The staff do their best but everything about the interface is far from traveler-friendly. First of all the food - and this is in first class - can only be somebody's idea of comedy. Murky chalky flavors and strange un-natural textures characterized every dish I was given. Also on one recent Newark - Los Angeles flight there was were no screens in the plane - no movies no TV. No wireless available and no plugs.

Denver to Midland scheduled departure time was supposed to be 2.15pm. The flight was delayed 3 times and all while the plane was sitting at the boarding gate. The airline employee spike very broken English. Said that anyone traveling with children needed to be checked due to weight restrictions. She then said that 6 people needed to give up their seats for luggage of other travelers or she would not let the last people that checked in on the flight. No one volunteered so she picked 6 people 2 of which were military personnel. Once on the plane people were told to move seats to even out weight since. We will never fly with this airline again.

The worst experience I have encountered when flying. Total disregard to their customers and employees. The poor people at the gate were just beat up to no end and it was not their fault. Flew out of Aspen Colorado which only has 6 gates and 2-3 planes to manage and they could not even accomplish this simple management. United changed my flight without even giving me the courtesy of an e-mail or phone call to check to see if this arrangement was ok. It wasn't even a change in a flight on the same day but they changed the day I was flying out changed from one layover to two layovers changed the total flight time and did not even offer an apology for this inconvenience. In the future the only way I will ever fly United again is if there was no other airline going to this location. A horrible experience.

I am on a flight to LAX from SFO already delayed by 45 mins waiting for flight crew to arrive. This had already given me a pretty good idea of customer service the flight's staff has to offer but that got solidified when I asked for 2 cups of water from one flight attendant and she told me - 'why don't you finish one first?'. She eventually got me another cup.

First international flight from MCO to HKG was great. Very smooth. Crew very helpful. Being on a 15+ hr flight hydration is important. All I had to do was take my water bottle to the back and the crew happily refilled it for me multiple times. They even came around with trays of cups with water every so often. Second flight back (HKG to MCO) was a disaster. First flight from HKG to Newark was delayed 2 hours. Not a big deal we still had time to make our connecting flight. However the plane was further delayed by another 1.5 hrs after we were already on it. The crew were extremely rude. After 6 hours of no water my husband asked if we could refill my water bottle same as the first flight but this time they looked at him like he was crazy and said they were about to bring the drink cart around so to just wait for that. By the time we finally touched down in Newark we missed our connecting flight so had to be put on one 4 hours later. Again that flight from Newark to MCO was delayed. Instead of leaving at 9pm as scheduled we took off from the runway at 11pm after waiting 2 hours on the plane. One of the bathrooms was not functioning properly. They made an announcement that they weren't going to fix the bathroom but had to fill out paperwork anyway so we'd be off the ground as soon as paperwork was finished. Next thing we know a guy is coming down the aisle and starts fixing the bathroom. Then we had to wait for him to fix it before we took off. In the meantime they let 5 more people on the flight so they had to play the safety video a second time before we could take off. Thankfully we had no problem getting our luggage. The movie selection available was also decent. Food was okay for the first two meals and the third was disgusting.