United Airlines

Come on United you need to step things up! While others are proceeding forward since their merger and around the globe I feel that UA has remained stagnant in their old ways. The club in LA is just abysmal with the lack of any proper amenities. My recent fight from Los Angeles to Seattle experienced an hour delay and there wasn't any proper dine for sale option though the flights departure was around dinner time. The service standards were one that provided no less or more of what was to be done. I really wish there was a better alternative to United for Star Alliance members to travel domestically on.

UA977 DXB-IAD "Businessfirst". Check in and boarding were smooth professional and efficient. Unfortunately that was the highlight of this flight. Food was mediocre at best. Filet was well done and not done well. Smoked salmon appetizer and salad were disappointing-small in portion and bland. Passed on dessert. Lie flat seats were coffin like in a flat position. Service was spotty. Honestly I can't understand this legacy carrier. Emirates' CEO was right when he said his economy product was better than most carrier's business class. A total disappointment but shouldn't have been surprised. Switching to Emirates in 2015.

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.

We are a Star Alliance Gold family. We purchased Economy tickets from NRT-IAH-FLL-SCE-IAD-NRT but I later upgraded to BusinessFirst with cash. The cash upgrade cost $1400 each. On the NRT-IAH leg the first thing that I found odd was that the FA literally threw the tablecloth to/at me at the beginning of dinner service. I think he just didn't care because throughout the flight his demeanor was cold. Small things like my wife's request for water without ice were met with the glass of water with the biggest piece of ice in it. The seat was great the food was about what you'd expect at a family restaurant and I'm ok with both of these things but I really had to wonder don't people who pay to fly premium deserve at least not passive-aggressive”service? I guess not. The NRT- IAH departure was an hour late due to weather. We were not able to make our connection at IAH. I bet United Airlines could have helped expedite passengers (through immigration/customs/re-checking) with tight connections. Our IAH-FLL departed while we were waiting for our bags. I informed the UA rep at the baggage claim and he told me they'd rebooked us on the next mornings 06.40 IAH-FLL. I asked if I could get a meal/hotel voucher but he informed me that since it was a weather delay UA couldn't take care of us. We feared that we might oversleep the 06.40 flight because of the jetlag. I called UA to ask for another booking and though there were 4 IAH-FLL flights that day our only options were 06.40 or 20.00 departure. Their website revealed open seats on all flights but the rep explained to me that those were first class seats and we weren't eligible for them. The weather delay on departure was caused by a typhoon. IAH is also known to be quite poor at handling international flights. UA made the decision to sell NRT-IAH tickets with a 1.5-hour buffer nonetheless. Maybe it's my fault for buying it but at any rate rather than stay up all night or lose yet another day with my family we accepted a better-timed flight to MIA. Our business with UA resumed two weeks later for the SCE-IAD-NRT return to Japan we took another carrier for our FLL-MBJ and MBJ-ATL-DTW-SCE trips. I mistakenly placed a bottle of honey in my carry-on which was picked up by TSA at security. I figured that if I couldn't get to my bags I could box and check it. I saw my bags were already gone so I waited at the side of the check-in line and figured I would wait until they announced last call for SCE-IAD. The desk rep soon did so and I politely explained “I'd like to get this in to my checked bags.” The man was the portrait of hypertension and stress. He acted as if the world were about to end. Eventually another rep nicely asked me to go get a box from the store across the hallway and I did and when I came back the stressed-out rep acquiesced and while printing the tape/tags repeated over and over “ The flights boarding/you've got to get on it/it’s leaving.”The flight was just starting to board. I am writing this onboard IAD-NRT. We've decided that we won't fly UA again. We’ll pay more to avoid it.

This 80 min United Express flight from Nashville to Washington D.C. was on an ancient CRJ200. The window frames were caulked the overhead bins had chipped edges and the seats ripped. The equipment certainly doesn't represent the United brand in its finest light.

My two children and I had a flight booked from Albany to Portland Oregon changing planes in Newark and Houston. I received my first delay notice via email at 10.16 due to late inbound aircraft arrival. The second one came at 4.39 pm while we were at Newark Airport due to same reason however my children and I watched the plane arrive. The plane had tons of cargo underneath. Not just baggage but tons of commercial boxes. Our plane which was originally supposed to take off at 5pm for Houston did not take off until almost 7pm which put us in Houston at 9.30 a half hour after our plane left for Portland. That was just the beginning of our frustration. As I got to the gate and went to ask the United Airline attendant about connections she said "see the guy down there and he will help you with connecting flight." She was just telling us what we needed to hear to get us out of her way. By the time I got to customer service at 9.45 United Airlines customer service workers were dropping like flies among a mob of very unhappy people. We are talking 10pm people at one of America's busiest airports. 10.30 I finally get with a customer service worker who gets me food voucher's taxi voucher's and a hotel voucher for a best western 25 minutes away from the airport. She said "grab some food around the corner". All food venues were closed. We walked down to ground transportation and were informed only yellow cabs accept taxi voucher's. Finally got a cab and made it to the hotel at 11.30. In short lies and terrible customer service. The cargo was more important than the passengers and the customer service was horrible. I guess I'll never fly United again and given the amount I travel that's a loss for them.

Flew from SEA to AMS via ORD on July 12. Both flights arrived ahead of schedule which was welcomed since I had only 45 minutes for transfer in Chicago and 48 minutes in Amsterdam to catch inter EU flight. Service basic but good flight attendants offered beverages very frequently and food served on transatlantic flight was OK. My bags joined me a day later at my final destination but it was not UA fault. As a Silver status holder I still appreciate upgrade to Economy Plus but with new regulations for earning points in 2015 this seems to be harder to get in the future.