United Airlines

MAN-EWR 24/8/14 Flight UA80. I have never experienced a flight in which the crew have seemed almost desperate to pick a fight with passengers! I'm sure they were all tired and keen to get back home but aren't they being paid to attend to the needs of passengers? As well as the staff being incredibly surly I was amazed that they chose to serve a chicken dinner at 10.30am in the morning! They can't even use the rationale that they were working on the destination time zone as we were flying to the US and it would have been 3am there! Luckily the food was absolutely inedible so it wasn't an issue in the end.

ATL-ORD-LAX 27 Aug 14 UA3542. United likes to change your itinerary at the last minute. My reservation was ATL to LAX thru Denver when made but when I went to check in I was routed through Chicago. It was an agonizing trip lasting much too long. United doesn't even give you basic horrible airplane music or rerun TV episodes. You have to pay for everything. Bad business. Not flying United for a year or 2. Maybe never.

Unless you want to have hours of intimate contact with a stranger do not fly United! I am a small women in my 60's. United's seat size just fits me. I was in a window seat when a medium-large gentleman a little round around the edges sat next to me. This man was not obese. He overflowed his seat enough that every time he moved we were shuffled together from butt to knee. I put up with it for half an hour and then excused myself to the aisle. I paced in the back of the plane for an hour. The attendants were serving whatever they serve and saw that I was near hysteria at the thought of returning to what awaited me in my assigned seat. They did find a solution eventually. A United employee was flying coach and they switched me out with him. But the new seat was only 3 rows in front of the gentleman who had been next to me and he had to watch this seat change knowing his size overlapping mine was the cause. These conditions are set up by United in planning an aircraft with seats that are way smaller than the human population of these times. They know this and leave it to their flight attendants to deal. Other airline carriers are tight too but I have heard and witnessed that United is the worst.

SFO/IAH/SJO (San Jose Costa Rica) /IAH/SFO in First on domestic Business on the international flights - 737-900 and 737-800 - pleasantly surprised by the service which was almost perfect (only 1 FA on 1 flight was rude when I was forward enough to ask about whether there would be dessert). New lounge at SFO is still pretty bad considering it's a UA hub and supposed to represent the USA to the Pacific Rim but it was adequate (although be warned the bar closes at 10.30pm sharp not so good for those of us on midnight flights). Food on 1 flight also not so great (overdone tasteless steak) but otherwise good - I think they serve starbucks coffee because it tasted so burnt I could only drink 1/3 cup even though we were going on 30+ hours with no sleep by the time we were landing in Costa Rica. All in all we were happy with the flights unexpectedly so given some prior experiences with the carrier.

We were on a trip from Newark to San Diego. The nightmare began when we noticed that we (as two friends travelling together) had been assigned seats that were not located next to each other. But we were okay with this. The flight attendants were pretty friendly but drinks were only served 2 times and food was not served at all (on a 5.5 hours flight). There was the option to purchase food but in my opinion it should go without saying that complementary food is offered on a long-distance flight. Onboard entertainment was also not available for free. Furthermore the TV screens could not be turned off so we were exposed to continuing advertising which lasted the whole flight. When we finally reached our destination in San Diego we were tired starving and thirsty.

IAD - SAV in August. Flight was on schedule both ways which I gather is unusual. The CRJ 200 equipment designed to be uncomfortable was pretty scruffy around the edges. Non stop on this route is convenient. I fly Asian carriers where I live. The FAs while maybe not as professional as they might sometimes be are always friendly well turned out and exquisitely polite. Those on the flights I take back and forth to the US are even more impressive. So imagine my surprise when arriving at the top of the gangway I was greeted by the assigned FA's not inconsiderable rear end. Have good manners been unbundled from the basic ticket price also?

Aug 26 UA 1683 SFO EWR. On time departure and arrival. Younger crew members more friendly than the older ones. Regular runs through the cabin with water. Captain gave regular updates. Direct TV a nice option. UA hub to hub flights seem to work more effectively than connections especially those through EWR and ORD. Bad weather at EWR causes major problems for all airlines operating to/from there.

JFK-SFO. Ground staff at JFK could not have been more helpful. We had a connection to NRT with ANA and our reservation had some issues but it was efficiently solved by the staff and our luggage was directly tagged to NRT avoiding luggage fees despite being on two separate reservations. Flight was ahead of schedule both departure and arrival. Service on United has always been warm friendly and efficient. I'm a big fan of their service and never had an issue. While they are not as polished as most Asian carriers are they are interactive with the passengers and their service makes you feel at home. BOB options were extensive and quality was excellent. They also did frequent beverage runs despite only being a 6-hour flight. IFE system is wonderful the movie choices were great and most of which are recent Hollywood movies. The system was responsive easy to use and the moving map was of excellent quality. Overall a very pleasant flight with United.

I took a flight from Hong Kong to Newark. Appalling from the moment I stepped on the plane. The staff were very unwelcoming. My seat was behind the exit row which was empty - all the row was empty and seeing as I was sitting between a family who had been split up because of the shoddy seating arrangements we asked if we were able to use the exit row. The response (in an aggressive tone) was no! If you want to sit there its now been designated premium economy its an extra USD 170 each and you can pay by credit card! Note that this in the economy / coach section. The stewardess then made a big deal of slamming down all the dining trays on those seats as if to "seal off the section" - it all made for an incredibly unpleasant start to the flight. Aside from the small seats and lack of leg room when dinner came round I politely requested a cup of tea. The cup of tea was passed to me without any milk or sugar. I politely asked for milk and sugar. She stopped - glared at me and snapped - "well you could have told me that when you asked for the tea". By this stage me and the family I was sharing the row with were finding the staff so rude it was verging on comical. Then to top it off having spent thousands of dollars on this flight I learn that there is no free alcohol. Don't get me wrong I can go with out a drink for 16 hours but its a small touch to offer an alcoholic beverage as part of the service. Anyway an absolute shambles and I shall not make the same mistake of flying with United again.

On July 3 we were bound for intercontinental flight from SFO to FRA. Departure should be at 2 pm and was announced for 6.45 pm. After some more trouble boarding started at 8.15. After a tour on the airfield the plane came back to starting point. At least we departed with a delay of nearly 8 hours. The gate staff was completely stressed with the amendment of connecting flights for other passengers. No customer voucher were given no telephone calls offered no service at all.