That was the worst of it, but almost every flight I saw on the way (both ones I was on and other flights at nearby gates) was delayed or overbooked or otherwise messed up in some way.
Obviously, with travel sometimes things go wrong, but the quantity and severity of things going wrong at United makes me think there's something off about the way they're running their airline. For instance, the two times this year that they've had to ground all flights.
I have 1k status with United -- I fly internationally with them almost monthly. The problems I've had with United have been when bags have to be interlined to Brussels Airlines and occasionally (surprisingly) Lufthansa. I've also had Lufthansa somehow think it was a good idea for 2 toddlers to sit in scattered seats rows away from their parents (who were also rows apart as well, despite having checked in almost 24 hours before the flight and being Star Alliance Gold.) I've had Brussels Airlines say they were going to "gate check" a stroller only to have it show up days later. I've been stranded in Detroit back in the Northwest Airlines days when aircrews hadn't showed up to work. I've been stuck in Paris when the Air France pilots decide that salaries up to $300,000 per year just aren't enough. On a recent United trip from Hartford to Marseille, I was stuck in Hartford for % extra hours for an airplane that was stuck in Newark (just a <50 minute flight away.) I then missed a cascade of connections leaving me rather miserable. However, United sorted the problem and got me on my way as quickly as possible. Let's not forget Jet Blues antics on multiple occasions a few years ago: a 10.5 hour tarmac delay, a 7 hour tarmac delay among several other extremely long tarmac delays. AA had 14 long tarmac (over 3 hours) delays in February. United had zero long tarmac delays during the same period. Envoy/American Eagle was in last place for on-time arrivals last year.
I'm not defending United. I'm not disparaging the others. The fact is that the air transport industry is extremely complex and perceptions of quality are as varied as their are passengers in the sky.
Every airline sucks and every airline is great. Pick a day, pick a destination and roll the dice. When you fly often enough it seems like it all averages out to just one level of melancholic service; unless you're flying on Singapore Airlines -- then it just becomes sublime.
I fly out of UA hubs frequently and have had nothing but excellent service from them this year (over 50 segments flown this year, ~60K miles).
Definitely helps to have status too...
Personally, I consider SW to the be shittiest of them all. I hate having to fight for a seat...
Lastly, use google.com/flights by far my favorite booking tool now.
1. Do nothing. You're stuck here. We'll get you on the next flight. Oh, the next available flight isn't for over a week. Sorry. No, we can't pay for your rental car.
2. Upon renting my own car, and writing to customer service to complain I got a $125 voucher for United. Great. Not enough to buy an entire ticket, so it just ensures I'll have to continue giving money to this airline that failed to deliver what I gave them money for in the first place.
3. After several weeks of emails back-and-forth with customer service finally a manager agrees to issue a reimbursement for the rental car as a one-time exception to their policy of never doing that. (but not the $7 worth of gas. I guess they just have to draw a line somewhere? Oh, and they also rescinded the voucher. No big deal since I'm not too keen to fly with them again anyway)
So, yeah. Sometimes shit goes wrong when you travel. Everybody knows that. How airlines act to fix it makes all the difference. If you hamstring all your customer service reps so they can't actually solve someone's problem, it makes something that's already annoying way more frustrating.