United Airlines reviews

United Airlines is plagued everywhere with factionalism, mistrust, and adversarial relationships between customers, suppliers, the C-suite, and employees. Employees and customers are not valued and they know it. Leadership exists in but a few, silo-ed pockets; executive and middle management layers are entirely too self-absorbed. The company's current strategic direction -- to reduce costs by every means possible (primarily layoffs, outsourcing, and attrition) in order to generate cash, executive bonuses, and the holy grail of a merger opportunity -- has created an empty shell of a company that once had a big heart for customers and employees alike. Strategic planning is largely ineffective and tactical implementations are often realized late or not at all. Planners, project managers, and older employees are regularly purged in every furlough event. There is no agile, innovative, creative center of gravity anywhere in the company. United wisely began implementation of an Air Canada-style Lean Six Sigma transformation effort in 2006, but decapitated the program in 2008 and has been scaling back expectations ever since. The primary computer systems undergirding every facet of the business are of 50s, 60s, and 70s vintage; everything about how the business operates is tired, cranky, overly complex, and poorly documented.

This is my second airline. The hours here are longer and with less hours on layovers compared to my other company. At UA we also have long sits. On those long sits the company expects you to be approachable at all times. No reading, on phone calls, no ear buds in, no sleeping. Unless you are super senior or lucky you'll have at least one 3 hour sit every pairing you have. Ive seen 3 hour sits everyday on a 4 day pairing. That's time you aren't getting paid for! 24 hour reserve system is not safe. Some days you could be up for over 24 hours. As reserve you can only pick up trips last minute after CS has released you.