Status can definitely help if you end up on standby as a result of a cancelled flight. I’ve had cancelled flights where I’ve gotten on the next full flight because they put me at the top of the standby list.
It’s also great if you get to the airport early and want to get on an earlier flight that’s full (as a standby); I’ve done that a few times as well.
The other thing I’ve found helpful with cancellations is the airline club. The staff there is outstanding at helping get you rerouted.
I’m on a little vendetta against American. I’ve had the card for years, but they took away free luggage with international travel as part of the $95 card benefit. As they service so much of the Latin American and Caribbean markets, it certainly is a profit move for them. In addition, due to weight issues they left a lot of checked luggage behind in Dallas when I was flying to Guatemala last spring. it was delivered in about 24 hours, but someone had to stay in our lodging to await delivery all day. In addition, they messed up my friend’s carefully planned trip to New Zealand last winter for some complicated reasons involving photos and visas. So, I cancelled my credit card. No reason to keep it if I don’t get free luggage for flights to Mexico.
United on the other hand, has been efficient, and have had two international trips with them in the last year with no issues whatsoever. Nice planes, good food, and timely. And the credit card includes free Global Entry as well as some lounge passes.
Horrid flight on United recently. Connecting international flight. We made the connection, our bags did not. When we got to the gate they didn’t think we were on the flight. United: Oh, our mistake, we gave your seats away (we’re flying first class). We’ll fix that. They booted the upgraded passengers to give us our seats. My tray table was taped down with caution tape and unusable. The seat back in front of H was in very bad shape. To add insult to injury, an unruly toddler was in front of us (dad had noise cancelling earbuds in); infant girl was very fussy with mom across the aisle (don’t blame mom she did her best). Worst leg on the 18 hour flight home!
As someone who prefers the aisle I’m not sure I like this especially since it’s only saving a couple minutes overall.
If they really wanted to save time boarding, they would make economy class open seating (like on Southwest), so that people boarding do not have to wait for a specific seat but can choose any acceptable seat that is open, include a checked bag at no extra charge so that people are less likely to bring maximum carry-ons that slow down the boarding process, and install extra big overhead bins to reduce the risk of boarding delays as those with carry-ons look for space in full bins or have to gate check them.
I don’t like this at all! How does it work if you are traveling as a family and have a whole row?
I actually like the assigned seating. Makes the loading of plane so much calmer (no “rush for the good seats”!)
Other than rushing for someone else’s overhead bin to fit all the „stuff“ people carry on!
The problem is that the window people will get first crack at the overhead space, which will make aisle people mad. Other airlines have tried things like this with boarding the back of the plane first and when the front people got on, there was no overhead space left.
New system: board by ccm / cubic inches of carry on!
Those with the most to store board last.
Those who can just sit down and get the heck out of the way, get to go first.
the whole family boards with the higher Group, i.e., window seat person.
btw: the new United rules are much ado about nothing. Essentially they are just adding one more boarding group, by splitting out the Middle seats from teh Window, so instead of Window+Middle in Group 3, Window is now Group 3, and Middle is new Group 4, and Ailse is new Group 5.
All priority boarding rules still apply.
“The problem is that the window people will get first crack at the overhead space…”
The Window people are already in Group 3, so that is not a change.
I remember once boarding a flight on an assigned seat airline where they boarded those with no overhead bin bags first. But that was only once.
I like that rule. I’d like to add that, with some exceptions, there should also be a rule that if you can’t lift your carryon to put it in the overhead bin, you should be required to check it in.
Thanks for sharing. What I found most humorous in that article is this quote regarding airline profits since the profit gained by shaving off 2 minutes of boarding time is often completely negated by the hour or so waiting on the runway to take off. 
“planes don’t make money when they’re sitting on the ground.”
I rarely fly united as my local airport isn’t a hub but given all the issues the airlines are having with customer satisfaction these days I’m sort of surprised they think this will make much a difference.
Even though fares on SW are often significantly lower than other options to one of my frequent destinations, their free for all seating policy is a deal breaker for me. Competing with strangers for the best seats, or seats with my family/friends, feels both chaotic and crass to me.
Overhead bins, imo, should be divided and assigned. With fees for checked luggage, I assume my ticket price includes a space for my (size compliant) carryon and I am entitled to that space without having to compete for it, and without the threat that it will be taken from me and checked.
Southwest seating usually works well, even for groups, if you are not very late in boarding. They also have family boarding at about the 1/3-1/2 point so a family with small children can stay together.
Regarding overhead bin space, it is only recently that some airlines have been installing bins on some aircraft that have room for one carryon bag per passenger. It is still common to find aircraft with space for only about 2/3 of the passengers’ carryon bags.
Back when they were the only airline that flew nonstop to my hometown, I flew SW many, many times. I did not think their system worked well. It was very uncomfortable for me. I like to know where I’m going to be sitting, and I need a guarantee that I will not be flying in the middle seat.
To my knowledge the family seating policy refers to actual children, not your adult kids, or in my case, sometimes my parents.
I agree overhead bin space should be assigned and I think the fee for checked bags should be lower, maybe half the current charge to encourage people to carry less on board. I flew on EasyJet earlier this year and those planes are boarded at both ends so you enter through the rear if your seat’s at the back and that boarding process went very smoothly. Now, their carry-on luggage rules are impressively stringent (and enforced) and they charge a lot for checked bags so I made do for 5 days with what would fit into a small backpack :).
We flew United recently and 2 of 4 flights had issues (1 involving unexpected overnight stay in the city of our layover), and the other involved having to get off one plane after boarding and get on another, which probably added 2 hours to our flight time.
While we lucked out with our United flights a couple of weeks ago. We had 5 short flights (2 there, 3 back) with super short layovers (40-60 min) including getting through passport control! The schedule blew but they were the cheapest I could find and were still super expensive that left us enough time for sightseeing over a long weekend.
Because of the short layovers and short trip duration, I decided to not check a bag. I hate worrying about if we will be able to get ours on. And with such short layovers, if they were gate checked, would we have enough time? I didn’t sleep at all the nights before worrying over it.
Anyhow all 5 flights went fine and we got ours bags stored even being group 4 once. The other time we were 4, I gate checked it because it was our last one there. They made us get it at the carousel because they didn’t have staff to bring it up to the gate after the flight. Not sure what would have happened if we had a connection?!
I’ve had issues with United before but thankfully not then! I’ve had issues with most of them before though.