Does United Air know it's in the airline business?

I agree and am sure you will get many responses here about United and poor service. I think their bankruptcy was the begining of the end for them. I have 2 stories that sum up my experience with them over the past 2 years.

First - My family and I were returning from Orlando to CA and there was some type of medical situation in the rear of the plane. My wife needed to use the lavatory so she went to the one in the front of the plane (we were in the 2nd row of coach). This is a big no-no and the flight attendant would not let her. She asked the flight attendant why and he went into the "...only for first class..." speach. Under normal circumstances ok, but unless you want me to climb over the guy in the back with the medical problem, I just need to use the lav...

The bigger problem I had with United was mis-handled baggage. I had 3 consecutive trips connecting through Chicago (their hub) where my bag did not make the connection. There was always more than an hour between flights and no weather problems. I wrote a letter to United explaining the problems I had and asked that they look at how to remedy this situation. I was flying through there regulary for work and had 300,000+ miles with them and gold-level status for 3 years in a row. I received a generic note in response and a $50 credit off of a future flight. Since I received that note I have canceled my United credit card, used all but 50k of my miles and not purchased a single ticket with them.

I am now gold-status with Continental (and silver with American).

United is no different from any airline in regards to this. The FAA restricts how many hours a flight attendant can work, and if your flight crew is delayed on the previous flight, they can definitely time out even if there's no weather or mechanical issues on your particular flight. There are some provisions in place, like "oncall" shifts especially for junior flight attendants, who call in at a designated time to see if they're needed or not, but it's not a perfect system.

One of the reasons behind this is the ultra-thin profit margins airlines operate on. They don't have a deep enough reserve pool (and seriously, how long would you keep a job if you only worked oncalls and never had any guaranteed shifts?). They could increase staffing levels on each flight so they could shift people around from overstaffed flights to lesser-staffed flights at a moment's notice, but the times that they'd be paying for extra staff and not truly needing them would outweigh the times they'd be able to avoid a staffing-related cancellation and there goes the profits. A lot of this is due to the insanely high salaries and bonuses paid to the upper management but a lot of it is also due to the American consumer's constant search for the lowest fare possible. There's no brand loyalty among the general public--- frequent fliers like me stick with the same airline all the time so we can get the perks but the average person who flies a couple of times a year or less shops primarily by price, which has in part created this mess of fewer services and trying to cram as many passengers as possible onto the flight.

As for the prior poster's complaint about not being allowed to use the first-class lav, well, I sit in first class a lot and one of the reasons I like it is because it's quiet. I've earned my upgrades through being loyal to a single airline and even if I'm not paying the first-class fare, I've paid for it in other ways (like flying 90,000 miles a year on last-minute purchase fares). I don't like the foot traffic of the main cabin; footsteps up and down the aisle are annoying and interrupt what little sleep I can get on a plane. I completely agree with restricting access to the forward lav to first-class customers only; airlines do this so they can keep track of who is walking up towards the cockpit as a security measure, but I like it because it lets me enjoy a benefit that I have earned--- quieter, more peaceful travel. You shouldn't be allowed to interrupt that just because you have to use the lav, and the flight attendant who directed you to the main cabin lav's should be commended for doing his job.

Go apply for that job then, if you think you can do better. I hate the paying public that thinks they're smarter than the people who work at the job. I'm pretty sure it's a lot harder and stressful than you might think. There might be some tyrant who doesn't know how to manage the employee hours that messed things up...which is usually the case. Don't knock the employees.