Originally Posted by Skyflyin

I've also heard how the merger has ruined the airline. Except that it's UAL that ruined it. When I would tell people I fly for Continental they would say "Oh, I love your airline". Now when I say I fly for United they just say "Oh" and mumble something under their breath.

UAL may have been making more money the year or so before the merger, but their product was crap as proven by the rankings at that time. Below is a overview of Aviation Weeks Rankings for 2009:

Aviation Week & Space Technology, July 13 2009
Top Performing Companies 2009 by AVIATION WEEK

2009 TPC Airline rankings (Publicly traded airlines only):

Mainline/Legacy Carriers -

[Rank) Airline (TPC Score* - Best score is 100)] -

ONLY USA:
11) Hawaiian Holdings Inc. (42)
14) Alaska Air Group Inc. (35)
16) Continental Airlines Inc. (28)
22) Delta Airlines (18)
24) AMR Corp. (15)
30) US Airways Group Inc. (1)
31) UAL Corp. (1)

Just as most of us thought at CAL, UAL has brought down our rankings to where you were.

Apparently, Mr. Anderson has bought into the "CAL ruined UAL" mantra, but that is simply not the case.

One thing all sides can agree on though is that we need some new blood to right the ship. With a 90% approval rating of Smisek from the shareholders, it doesn't appear that will be anytime soon.