Flying with United was the worst flying experience of my life.

We had two cancellations that we weren't informed of until the last minute, plus delay after delay after delay. We did get a hotel and food comp once (though not without arguing about it for hours with various staff members who tried the 'not our fault' tactic even when we could prove multiple times that it was, in fact, their fault) and the hotel they chose was abysmal (dirty, far away from the airport, no English speaking staff, almost no shuttles to or from the airport, etc).

The registration/airport staff were incredibly rude from the get-go, even flat-out hateful, the redirected flight options were at best inconvenient while most were just laughable, and I'm sure I lost a decade of my life expectancy thanks to all the stress this airline caused me and my family (including my two children aged 2 and 3, which the airport staff were appallingly dismissive of).

Not only did my family and I have a horrific experience, I watched how the staff treated the other passengers as well, and it was no different. It seemed like every airport staff member had a 'God complex' and was exercising their tiniest bit of power over ordinary people who just wanted some information and to figure out how to solve their current problem of not being able to get where they needed to go.

I witnessed passengers getting yelled at by United staff; my husband and I were harassed by a United Airlines worker for opening our suitcase near the counter, although no one was around or in line at that time; and gate staff were just unnecessarily rude to people for no reason other than to satisfy their own superiority complexes.

Even though I would rather pay double than to fly with this sorry excuse for an airline ever again, there were two redeeming qualities that I should point out for fairness' sake: first, the staff that we directly dealt with onboard the flights were lovely (where were they and that level of service throughout this rest of this entire ordeal?), second, we didn't crash and die.

The people who work for United (i.e. the flight attendants, pilots, and those at the gate) were wonderful! Despite a lot of issues out of their control, they were calm and informative. However, it is upper management that is seemingly unable to run an airline.

The flight out was delayed 6 hours. The flight was initially delayed 45 minutes due to the prior route being late. Then, after boarding there were updates in 30 minute increments as it was always hopeful the plane would take off. We waited on the plane for 2 hours before we are told we needed a new plane. We were given some good vouchers, which in a closed, expensive airport only got some M&Ms. (This was shocking as it seems a simple thing to plan for and is truly just poor management.)

The return flight was exponentially worse. The flight was delayed 2 hours because 'an earlier delay impacted your plane's arrival.' This delay led to our plane's inability to land at our destination due to a storm that had rolled in, after circling for an hour we were rerouted to a different airport.

After landing in a different city, we sat on the runway for 2 hours with the promise of take off soon. However, that never occurred because... the crew was going to time out.

We made it to the gate two hours after we landed and five hours after our initial arrival time. A new crew would not be ready for takeoff for another 4 hours. An entire flight was trapped in an airport that had nothing open.

While I am all for safety, it is appalling that there is not clear management in place here. We were circling in the air for close to an hour, then sitting on the runway for 2 hours... and no one at United foresaw the crew timing out. They easily could have predicted that and gotten a new crew in place to return, but they truly do not care about their passengers.

In Europe, there are regulations that protect passengers and as a result - there are no issues! Every flight I have had in the EU has taken off on time, no issues with the aircraft, and if there ever is a slight hiccup... they have a solution in place immediately!

So it is possible... United just won't do right by their customers and they take advantage of this.

United is the biggest scam when it comes to hotels. NEVER book through their site. Always go to a different site directly. 3 hours on the phone for a room I can't use due to Storm Debby. They are charging me $500 to switch the dates 1 week on a $400 reservation. No customer service. They have no idea how to help me. RUN RUN RUN!!!!!

Simply don't fly with this airline, we got delayed for 18 hours (who knows if even more), no help, no hotels, no vouchers, no kind of answer or anything from anyone, no one at the front desk even to have a conversation with. Disgraceful.

This was a wonderful flight with a great pilot. The seat belt sign was on for almost the entire trip, as there was much turbulence, and the pilot kept us informed all the way. Since there was a storm in Tucson, and it looked like we might not be able to land there, we hovered over Phoenix for about 40 minutes. Our pilot announced that it was very likely that we would have to land there, as the aircraft only had 20 minutes worth of fuel.

However, luckily, there was a break in that storm, and we rushed to Tucson. The landing was a bit scary, as there was lightning all around us, and the plane was buffeted by strong winds. But, the landing itself was smooth, and we were all happy to get off the plane. Due to the storm, the airport was packed with delayed passengers, who cheered us as we walked out. What a welcome!

The unfortunate thing about this flight, was, that directly in front of me, a passenger coughed the entire time. His window was not aligned with his seat, but was halfway in my space. So, he kept turning around to look out of the window, and coughing towards me constantly. There was nothing that could be done, but, we were very unhappy that on our return, we both were very sick for nine days, with fever, chills, cough, etc.