United or American

[_19disnA]

Of the choices listed, I would first see who has non-stop flights and/or has the most convenient arrival/departure airports for where you are going. If that isn't possible, who has best connections? Usually when traveling on business, the time for departure/arrival matters more particularly if you to be someplace by a specific time. Also if a one day trip, you would want to look for airlines that offer flights for your return trip to avoid staying overnight. If you are traveling on business, I would assume your company pays for it, so there is less incentive to choose the lowest price or pick some budget airline that could bring its own issues.

The way it seems to work with most airlines now, you can also buy a 1-way ticket for each way allowing you to choose the specific airline that best works with your schedule.

 

[nolatravelgirl]

I went and looked up the Amarillo airport and I would tend to lean towards United simply because it looks like United has flights in/out of two different airports as Amarillo is serviced by both DEN and IAH.

 

[sam_gordon]

Trying to predict which airline will be "better" on the day you fly is a fool's errand. I don't know what kind of assurance you're looking for.

If someone had wonderful (or bad) experiences with a particular airline, or heck, even "better than average", I'd like to know.

DFW, with that horrible tram system, is a PITA if you have a connection.

See, THAT kind of information is what I'm looking for.

there just isn't any airline they you'd say yes please I want to fly them every time.

No, I'll fly Delta every time if I can. In this case, the closest they can get me is still a four hour drive. That's not worth it IMO.

 

[gottalovepluto]

I think the ultra sad part of this there just isn't any airline they you'd say yes please I want to fly them every time. All the major carriers are in a state of nickel and diming for everything and not seem like they care much about the average customer. I want to say the only true loyalty I've had was back in the Continental and more recent JetBlue days.

Once I ban all of the majors for basically being the devil in disguise I have to start over in my rankings of Least Evil Airline. Right now DL is the absolute best airline to me but the network map is small so I end up doing a lot of flying on UA. I'll fly AA if a hurricane is bearing down on me but that's pretty much it. DL and UA will both break my heart soon enough and I'll have to get over my issue with how AA screwed me and welcome them back into my airline rotation lol.

It's just all so based on personal experiences- which are somewhat based on sheer bad luck of when you were where.

 

[georgina]

Changed my vote to United. American trouble today. Sitting in MIA waiting for my 10:37 AM flight to take off. First they tried to fix the brakes. Then moved us to another gate and plane. We all boarded, sat there with no working ground air conditioning for a long time. Since the bags hadn’t yet been moved from our old plane we were all just unloaded. New estimated time 2:30 but we’re not going to make that either. Someone with a cruise out of St Lucia is quite irate

 

[Jimsig]

Changed my vote to United. American trouble today. Sitting in MIA waiting for my 10:37 AM flight to take off. First they tried to fix the brakes. Then moved us to another gate and plane. We all boarded, sat there with no working ground air conditioning for a long time. Since the bags hadn’t yet been moved from our old plane we were all just unloaded. New estimated time 2:30 but we’re not going to make that either. Someone with a cruise out of St Lucia is quite irate

That's why you don't fly in the same day you cruise especially when their is only one non stop flight a day from MIA to UVF.

 

[gmi3804]

Trying to predict which airline will be "better" on the day you fly is a fool's errand. I don't know what kind of assurance you're looking for.

If someone had wonderful (or bad) experiences with a particular airline, or heck, even "better than average", I'd like to know.

How would hearing about isolated good or bad incidents help decide which airline to pick? Wouldn't cost, flight time, connection time, etc., make the decision for you?

 

[sam_gordon]

How would hearing about isolated good or bad incidents help decide which airline to pick? Wouldn't cost, flight time, connection time, etc., make the decision for you?

Well if 25 people have "isolated" incidents, that says something, doesn't it?

And I never said this would be my sole deciding factor. Yes, all those other things will come into play, as well as people's experiences.

 

[gmi3804]

Well if 25 people have "isolated" incidents, that says something, doesn't it?

And I never said this would be my sole deciding factor. Yes, all those other things will come into play, as well as people's experiences.

Which did you end up going with? And why?

 

[sam_gordon]

Which did you end up going with? And why?

Haven't booked yet. Trip wouldn't be until August or Sept.

 

[gmi3804]

Haven't booked yet. Trip wouldn't be until August or Sept.

Oh dear, that's in summer storm season.

 

[Anthony1971]

I would fly united because they use mostly Boeing planes which are much smother then Airbus. But we also had a good friend that worked for American that would bump us to first class when we used them.
But in reality the one that has the most flight from your airport is the better choice these days in case of canacelations or delays.

 

[DDuckSouthBend]

Personally, we fly out of Chicago and use United. We have never had a problem.
Everytime we have flown American there have been issues. One time it was half the flight crew did not show up. Another time was "mechanical issues", never got the whole story on that, which lead to 2 gate changes and a 4 hour wait. The next time it was the plane was stuck at the airport it was coming from and we had a long wait.
One time coming home we sat on the tarmac for over an hour while they tried to find a gate for us to deplane. That one really baffled me, as it was not like all of the passengers decided to hijack a plane and fly to Chicago unannounced. They knew we were coming.

 

[DLgal]

American is the absolute worst domestic airline, IMO. I won't even consider them.

United is fine. Have had no issues.

Delta is also my preference.

 

[KPeterso]

Delta is my preference at the moment. As a kid, I lived near Chicago so flew United pretty much all the time since they were the biggest in Chicago and flew pretty much everywhere we wanted to go. Overall, United is ok and I am fine flying them. American though is my least favorite. I was flying them when they had a terrible system outage in 2013 (day after Boston Marathon bombing - no connection). I know that was out of their hands, but I was sitting at MCO and thinking we should be boarding and there is no plane and no changes or announcements about times changing. And that was after my earlier flight had been cancelled so this was my new one. And then flight left Dallas before I made it there for my connection even though American said all flights would be held for connecting passengers. It ended up being an ugly trip home where I got home almost 24 hours later than planned. I used my credit I got for the debacle and then had to fly them once for work, but I still try to avoid.

 

[jimmymc]

The onboard experience is nearly identical. American has infamously poor customer service.

 

[georgina]

Have flown Delta maybe 3 times in my life. Two out of those 3 were HORRIBLE experiences in long cross- country flights- plane issues, missed connections due to those issues, overnight delays. Yet so many here love them. Not me!

I actually fly SW a lot and they are my favorite

 

[Cheburashka]

I think the ultra sad part of this there just isn't any airline they you'd say yes please I want to fly them every time. All the major carriers are in a state of nickel and diming for everything and not seem like they care much about the average customer. I want to say the only true loyalty I've had was back in the Continental and more recent JetBlue days.

Yeah, I couldn't agree about JetBlue, though. They cut our city from their list, and not only cancelled our flights just a few weeks before the trip, they also wouldn't give me a refund because I'd made one change to the flights prior, so they said I had to take a credit, even though they no longer flew that route at all. I had to do a credit card chargeback to get the money back.

 

[Cheburashka]

The onboard experience is nearly identical. American has infamously poor customer service.

No worse than any other airline's customer service. United has had some awful customer service news stories in the past few years. I realize those are outliers, but so are extreme experiences on American.

 

[gmi3804]

Can we agree that no airline is consistently great, and that our preferred lines depend on our past experiences?

To quote Mel Brooks:
“Tragedy is if I stub my toe. Comedy is if you fall in a manhole and die.”