UAL may not survive since they are currently in the Pan Am, TWA model in a world of oil company monopolies and two-fisted middle management.
Nobody on that airplane's going to come back to UAL unless they have to. I know I wouldn't. Why should a pax stand for being lied to about hotel room availability etc, and then made a prisoner in a metal tube while stegosauruses with an attitude refuse to serve them water and bitch at them like they're going to go to jail if they try to use the head? For nearly 24 hours? What if somebody has a medical condition? Arteriolar Thrombosis is no laughing matter. Deadly leg blood clots can kill you three days later.
While the pilots are perfect gentlemen imho and try to consider everybody's perspective (safety, pax, FA, workrules), I've witnessed this UAL middle management mexican standoff a few times and it reminded me of a bunch of lawyers all breaking out their ringed binders trying to decipher complex ambiguous contractual language....
Maybe UAL needs to go to the SWA model and sack about eight layers of middle management. Then let the people in the field make the common sense decisions, not some power-hungry !!!! in a sky-scrapper in Chicago...
Meanwhile give me Cathay, Singapore, EVA anyday.....