How bad is United Airlines

[Hombre]

I've flown United twice in the last two years. Canceled my flight at 8pm night before departure for "anticipated bad weather" on first flight. Lost our seats. May of this year, they were 7 hours late departing Texas, luggage/bows showed up three days later, lost our upgraded seats again. They did refund me $100 for my "troubles". Eff me once, their fault, eff me twice, my fault, so basically this was my fault.
FWIW, I do like their premium seats.

 

[Datchew]

I have a few air force fixed wing (inferior to rotor heads) pilot buddies that are now commercial airline drivers. It's pretty typical across the industry. Part of it is pilot shortage, part is supply chain still not catching up after covid.

I'm in aviation distribution and lead times for bolts (BOLTS!!!!) are sometimes 26 months for engine depots. They have so many engines torn apart and awaiting parts and they're cannibalizing engines to assemble other ones.

When i fly international, i try to take direct flights at all costs.

 

[TheGrayRider]

United Airlines - lovely.

Newark, New Jersey & Airport - not lovely.

 

[375er]

Flew with them last year to SA. No problems that were their fault.

 

[WyoBull]

I flew Qatar for the first time a few weeks ago through Doha to Joberg and back to Houston. Flew in Q-suite and it was wonderful.
I have a lot of miles on both United and American but avoid them unless I am just flying somewhere domestic here in the US.

 

[Biddleman]

Flew United from Newark in June.
Might of spent 10 -15 minutes going through TSA. Borded plane and sat for 2 hours or so then flight was cancelled due to faulty AC. The customer service line was long to reschedule. I got on united site and rescheduled on line through chat, before a quarter of people were through.
Didnt travel with firearms.

With our rescheduled flights we had problems getting bag tickets through the self serve kiosk. The one girl working the counter was a complete waste of space and a dolt. A freaking clueless human who is taking up valuable real estate on the planet. Got straightened out by a guy who you could tell he knew what he was doing and had no time for bullshit.

Coming back was uneventful and through passport check in minutes.

 

[sgt_zim]

I flew Qatar for the first time a few weeks ago through Doha to Joberg and back to Houston. Flew in Q-suite and it was wonderful.
I have a lot of miles on both United and American but avoid them unless I am just flying somewhere domestic here in the US.

Any idea what the seats are like back in cattle class? I'll likely upgrade to emergency/bulkhead on account of my being 6'6", just wondering if there's a difference between Qatar and UA/Delta on that front.

 

[CoElkHunter]

Any idea what the seats are like back in cattle class? I'll likely upgrade to emergency/bulkhead on account of my being 6'6", just wondering if there's a difference between Qatar and UA/Delta on that front.

6’6”? I hope you have short legs. I’m 6’2” and flew in cattle class for some 23 hours on Qatar with my knees almost touching the front seat in front of me. Think sardine can. Fortunately, on a couple of the flight legs there wasn’t somebody in the middle seat so I could move a bit and get the feeling back in my legs.

 

[sgt_zim]

36-38" inseam, depending on who's measuring.

I'll be checking for flights daily starting in 2 or 3 weeks, hopefully I can get a couple of seats early enough I can pick what I want.

 

[375er]

Emergency/bulk head is good in my book!!

 

[JimP]

Any idea what the seats are like back in cattle class? I'll likely upgrade to emergency/bulkhead on account of my being 6'6", just wondering if there's a difference between Qatar and UA/Delta on that front.

I'm 6'4" and flew Qutar cattle class and it wasn't that bad but I picked a aisle seat. They did move me to a middle seat on the flight from Joberg to Doha, that was a miserable 8 hours.

 

[WyoBull]

Any idea what the seats are like back in cattle class? I'll likely upgrade to emergency/bulkhead on account of my being 6'6", just wondering if there's a difference between Qatar and UA/Delta on that front.

Unfortunately, I do not as the boarding for business class was through a separate door. I can tell you that after flying coach on the last trip over there, it was worth the extra money to fly business class especially with the longer flight time going on Qatar.

 

[sgt_zim]

Unfortunately, I do not as the boarding for business class was through a separate door. I can tell you that after flying coach on the last trip over there, it was worth the extra money to fly business class especially with the longer flight time going on Qatar.

Unfortunately, business is just out of my budget.

 

[gram2117]

My July experience with them was not good. They canceled my flight from Pittsburgh to Newark which caused me to miss my flight to Joburg. This cost me a day of hunting. On the way back, I made it home on Sunday and my bows did not make it until Friday.

 

[Justbryan]

Delta canceled my flight on Friday, August 25 from South Africa and rescheduled me for Sunday, August 27. We were also downgraded to economy and routed through Germany.

All airlines are in bad shape with poor customer service, less availability, and poor management. Afton Safari Lodge was able to accommodate us and were very helpful.

 

[R.M.C.]

I flew Newark to joberg last year, everything went fine. I think I paid $1400 or so

 

[TTundra]

Unfortunately, business is just out of my budget.

I flew cattle class, non bulk head both ways. I'm 6'4" 295lbs, and was not uncomfortable at all. I prefer aisle seats to get up more easily and deal with the elbow and shoulder bumps.

I did ask the FA's to move to rows with an open middle seat to have a hit more room. Each way, there were multiple rows open like this. Made a huge difference.

For work I fly to Asia often and go business class, and I do know the luxury of it. While night and day different from coach, I would absolutely do the united flight again in coach for the savings.

 

[Hogpatrol]

36-38" inseam, depending on who's measuring.

I'll be checking for flights daily starting in 2 or 3 weeks, hopefully I can get a couple of seats early enough I can pick what I want.

Be advised with Delta, they will switch seats at the gate. I had an economy bulkhead seat I purchased through Gracy Travel EIGHT MONTHS ahead and I got to the gate and they stuck me many rows back in a window seat. Sixteen hours of being cramped told me never again on Delta. Others have had the same experience. One Qatar flight, I had an economy bulkhead window seat and it was fine. UA's 787 to Joberg, the exit door has a large protrusion at the window seat which cuts the side to side legroom in half. All that being said, check https://www.seatguru.com/ to at least insure you get what fits.

 

[JimP]

What I see as far as airlines is that unless you can afford business class on any of them and are stuck back in cattle class you just have to deal with it.

The only time that I saw when cattle class was great was on my return flight back when SAA was in business. A hunting partner and his wife had a whole row of center section sfor themselves and there were other vacant rows on that flight that people could of moved to.
On my flight last year on Qutar I don't believe that there was a single vacant seat. Every row that I saw was full, and this was on every leg of the flights going over and coming back.

 

[Hogpatrol]

Forgot to mention, my flight on 6/31 UA Joberg to EWR was overbooked so upgrades were probably not available.