I traveled 90% of the time for business for eight years and I preferred using United Airlines for comfort and free first-class upgrades. This was one of the benefits for being a UAL Premier member (fly more than 25 flights a year). I will definitely say that UAL was one of the best airlines regarding comfort and care. Unfortunately, UAL is no longer the pride of the skies due to many reasons -- the most obvious is the industry-wide impact of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. But prior to 9-11, many airlines including UAL were struggling against diminishing market share due to the entry of smaller regional carriers such as Southwest, ATA and Alaskan Airlines.
The last time I flew UAL was in 2000 when a disgruntled gate agent accosted me at Los Angeles International Airport. Suffice to say that the fellow did not offer his name, hid his UAL employee badge, and refused to apologize after realizing his mistake -- he didn’t read the red ink on my boarding pass indicating Premier status.
There were many factors that could have contributed to the UAL agent’s rude behavior, such as salary freezes, UAL bankruptcy, etc... However, they are no excuse for treating customers poorly.
I wrote a formal letter of complaint to UAL. The response was a generic indifferent response of ’’thank you for your feedback...’’
I will never fly UAL again.