Downgrade on the world's largest airlines

I am finally back in Dubai after being away for more than six months, which is nice, except that it took three tries for me to make it on the daily United flight from Dulles Airport to Dubai as a space available passenger. While my husband pays the list price for business class, I try to fly on a buddy pass as much as I can, which gives me flexibility and the chance to go back and forth from the USA more often than I could afford otherwise. My sister works for United, and she usually has more passes than she can use. It's a great deal when I can get a seat that way, but the key word is "when".

Now that United has merged with Continental to become the world's largest airlines, many things have changed in the United flying experience, including the buddy pass program. Flying on a pass from Dulles to Dubai is much more difficult, possibly due to increased demand since there's still just one flight per day and Continental passholders are part of the picture. Getting a seat in business class--one of the best features of the program--may never happen again since all upgrades go ahead of space available passengers. Getting a seat in coach is also a challenge, even when there appear to be seats available, due to mysterious weight and other factors that come up often at the last minute. Of course, if there is ever a problem with a flight, that will have ripple effects into the next day.

I make sure I have plenty of leeway when I try to travel space available so I will not go crazy when it doesn't work out, which is often the case. I wanted to fly with my sister to Dubai when she had a trip there in mid-September, but the flight was unexpectedly full and then some seats had to be given up at the last minute due to missing fire extinguishers in the crew cabin, so I didn't make it. Probably a good thing I did not fly that night as they encountered another problem with the smoke protection system in the passenger cabin and had to return to Dulles four hours after take off.

The flights between Pittsburgh and Dulles can be just as challenging. The schedule is very limited, and the planes are small. When you add in flight delays, it suddenly seems much easier to just rent a car and drive the five hours to Dulles airport from Pittsburgh.

None of this tends to bother me very much, since you get what you pay for and I am not paying very much. The one thing that riles me most at the moment is the increasingly lousy food offered in coach. I remember the days when an international flight of any kind brought with it a printed menu and tablecloth service. Now you are lucky if you get served anything edible. There might be two options, vegetarian and non-vegetarian, and they are both bad. The flight attendants are not to blame. They are very busy and do what they can. I imagine that they even feel a bit ashamed at the unappetizing offerings. But a tasteless tricolored mush with bits of corn the only identifiable ingredient and a frozen roll was more than I could bear the last time I flew. The only edible food over 13 hours was yogurt and a cookie. I hear the coffee has even been downgraded since the big merger. I had my own Snickers bar and cookies that I brought along in case of emergency but never touched them having lost all appetite.

I feel bad for my husband as a Global Services-level elite passenger, who suffers from the stress of unhappy travel experiences a lot more than I do, having to reschedule meetings and deal with staff from afar. While the food he gets in business class is much more acceptable, the "elite" service leaves much to be desired. He was not notified, as he should have been, when his connecting flight from Pittsburgh to Dulles was delayed, causing him to miss the flight to Dubai later that day. A simple phone call or email would have made it possible to get on an earlier flight in time for the Dubai flight. He is paying top dollar and deserves better.

I hope these are temporary problems, perhaps due to the big merger. Emirates is one airlines that will not hesitate to eat the US airlines for lunch if they find an opening, and it will cost us all a lot more in the long run.