I know 2 people working in UAL's corporate office. When UAL went through bankruptcy they just started cutting salaries every week until the talented people left. One of the people I know left, the other, her spouse stayed for the travel benefits. They both told me it was mickey mouse, that mgmt. was out of touch and over their heads, and that mgmt. only flew business class and had no idea what cattle class was like.
Also, I read an article about the new way of pursuing customer focused business is to continually "test" what you can get away with as far as reducing cost and quality until the customer revolts. Bank of America did this with their famous charging customer $5.00 to withdraw their own money from an ATM. This is a problem with MBA culture, especially those who go from undergrad straight to MBA school w/o ever working in their field and the revolving door of CEO's who get appointed to multiple boards but have no loyalty to any company they control. UAL is just one of many badly run businesses that get away with it due to their size and generous contributions to political campaigns.