I agree AA is going to the dogs
AA used to be a cut above the others. Now it's almost unrecongizable. Planes are old and filthy. Employees are ok, but travel on AA just doesn't go as smoothly as it once did.
What I did notice in the past year on United, in contrast to what most people here are writing, is an improvement in their service. I stopped flying United in 2000, between SoCal and SFO, because the best on time record I had in eight trips was 45 minutes late...the other trips were MORE than 45 minutes late in both directions. This was when they were very profitable and they had a "we don't care" attitude.
The final straw was an air traffic control delay (not their fault) during monsoon conditions in SoCal: 90 degree tropical heat (a tropical storm missed AZ and hit us) in August. They needed our gate for another flight, so they towed our plane to the other side of the airport and refused to turn on the auxiliary power. It was 88 F in the back of the plane and they wouldn't turn on the APU to cool the plane down. The crew had their forward doors open to catch a breeze, while the back of the plane cooked.
However, I did fly United twice last year to New York. In some cases, they offered direct (no change of plane) flights to New York LaGuardia....Continental offers nonstops to Newark, but there is no nonstop service to JFK from OC, so a one-stop flight to LaGuardia is a real plus if you are going to Manhattan. Both trips went off without a hitch, transferring in either Denver or Chicago.
On the way back from the first trip, I was asked to change seats at LaGuardia. Seems a family of four had mistakenly booked themselves seats in an exit row which is not allowed with toddlers. I was seated in Economy Plus with a whole row to myself. The gate agent asked if I would switch to an exit row middle seat (thereby giving up my three seat "bed") to solve the situation (the family was obnoxious, we all wanted to shut them up and get the plane on its way).
In return, she made a notation in my record and told me to see an agent in Denver re: my "reward". When I got to Denver, I learned she had awarded me five 500 mile upgrades, enough to upgrade one way to First Class on my next flight, which is precisely what I did. Also, the cost on United was lower than the competition, and their itineraries offered the fastest connections (or sometimes direct flights).
I have to go to NYC in June and once again booked United, they were at least $100 less than AA and I found a roundtrip to LaGuardia for $288 total, pretty amazing when one considers June is peak season. I had given up on United, but after trying them again in 2007, it seemed as if they had cleaned up their act versus 2000.