Here's the beginning of a typical passenger's letter we received:

United Airlines Customer Relations

This is the third time I have written to you on this matter. My mother also wrote to you on my behalf. Neither my mother or myself have even received so much as a courtesy response from you.

Sound familiar? If it does, you're not alone, and that's part of the reason for Untied.com. We did our part for several years by tracking customer complaints registered through our website and the responses from the airline received by passengers.

Untied.com has collected approximately 26,000 complaints against United Airlines, for which passengers have reported receiving approximately 400 responses from the airline. At last count, approximately half of these replies were considered unsatisfactory. Not very impressive by any stretch of the imagination....

This began way back in 1998, in response to the comments of a United employee, Ms. Kimbell, who claimed that her employers "do care" about the passengers. As we promised Ms. Kimbell at the time we set up the new input form for submitting passenger complaints (and forwarding these directly to the airline), we posted the statistics here, hoping to see an improving trend with steadily decreasing numbers of complaints and increasing number of passengers who were satisfied with the outcomes of their complaints.

We're still hoping...