787fan

No, but I have flown F on CX NH JL OZ TG LH, and already have bookings on SQ EY QF in the next 12 months

Other than heading to GRU, I won't consider any US-based F unless it's an absolute last resort.

Bonehead

The big losers here might be UA nonrevs, as they were when UA aligned with CO and adopted CPUs.

I recall FC was called "Employee Class" on pmUA by some.

Bear96

All good points, and I agree.

I would add one more thing that U.S. business travelers want that some of the more upscale ones cannot offer: FF miles and benefits on an extensive domestic network, giving them the ability to upgrade and take the family to MCO (or Europe) on vacation for free once a year.

The U.S. carriers have made the calculation that the bottom line is that their bread & butter customers value miles over pretty much all else, and have structured their business model accordingly.

goalie

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goalie
UA Forum Co-Moderator

eponymous_coward

Yet obviously US-based airlines should keep the product that you wouldn't consider save for last resort.

Brilliant way to inspire people to make purchases of a longhaul F product, isn't it?

Well, dangling the possibility of free upgrades in domestic F, don't forget that.

Also, a number of carriers have outright gone to revenue-based models, and are shockingly starting to realize that a model of "fly our lousy airline a lot and you can sometimes fly a better, different airline for free" might be supplanted by "maybe we should improve our lousy airline, and also not sell products that we don't seem to have a knack for selling, in markets that don't really support the product".

787fan

Actually I never make the argument that US airlines must keep F. Someone else did.

I was only comparing actual plane count for international 3-class F for US-based airlines. While UA may not install F on their 35J, they have no plans to actively remove them from existing 772 fleet.

So in mid-2015, the most likely scenario is that UA will have far more planes than AA with *international* 3-class F. I won't go projecting what happens by 2020 or 2025 because no one else knows either.

elitetraveler

I think you are making a factual statement. But it's such a sad product, it's sort of like so-what. Back in the 80s Aeroflot was the world's largest airline - of course nobody wanted to fly on it.

bhrubin

Red herring. Aeroflot being the world's largest airline in the 1980s Soviet era has nothing to do with 3 class F international class today. AA is the largest airline today and doesn't even have 3 class F international service.

Coincidentally, I flew Aeroflot in J on a 2 class LAX-SVO flight in October 2013. Turns out they aren't so bad--decent food and a great IFE in J--who knew? Angled flat seats, of course, but still pretty good overall as a means to get nonstop from the West Coast USA to Moscow.

bhrubin

A number of carriers have gone to revenue-based models for earning status because they realized they likely should be rewarding those who PAY the most with the best status--as opposed to rewarding those who fly the most miles. This has nothing to do with improvement or supporting products...and has everything to do with basic economics.

elitetraveler

Sorry - you missed my point:

- UA having lots of F seats compared to AA or any other airline is meaningless as they offer a Y+ soft product and a hard product that would be considered very good J. In terms of F product it's lacking. The analogy to SU in the 80s was that just because it was big/had more, didn't mean anything because the product was so poor.

- SU today is quite decent -- overall better than UA IMO.

bhrubin

I'm not sure that the "bread and butter customers" of US carriers value miles over "pretty much all else" like you've offered. We know that leisure customers value miles in that regard, perhaps. But those are not the bread and butter customers. I assume that many business travelers value MILES, but I don't believe that most do. I assume that most business travelers value STATUS over many things, getting themselves the chance for upgrades, easier check in, better food/service, etc, but that isn't the same thing.

Offering F in a 3 class configuration allows UA and AA to offer their best business customers the chance to upgrade from J to F, and the concomitant better food/service and perhaps easier check in when available. Obviously, this doesn't seem to make economic sense if there also are not sufficient customers PURCHASING F on some of these routes, so we can only assume that AA has calculated it doesn't have sufficient paying customers for F to warrant as many 3 class F routes OR that UA has calculated that it does. The fact that UA has far more of these flying transpacific routes and AA does not suggests that it may be a transpacific market issue more than everyone herein realizes.

It ALSO may be that UA has calculated that the vanity/PR effect of still offering a true F in a 3 class configuration is worth more than it costs overall. After all, Etihad's new "apartment" is going to be a lavish expense (costing the carrier significant sums to create and costing it in less J/F revenue it otherwise may have gained) that isn't always going to be filled in a year or two after its novelty wears off. But the vanity/PR effect for Etihad has still been significant for making people and the media discuss Etihad more than otherwise.

UA-NYC

These economics aren't so "basic" - you're giving more to flyers who often don't have a choice, and who would fly you anyways, and shafting folks who DO have a choice. You can't fill a plane with the former, no matter how hard UA tries.

You realize there's no carrier currently operating under this model, so you can't judge it a success.

tuolumne

UAL actually adopted Unlimited domestic upgrades UDU before the merger with CO...so domestic F class, sans 3-class p.s. of the time, was off the table.

eponymous_coward

You keep saying this, but I'd point out that the world's largest premium transoceanic market is NYC-LON... which is one of the routes that AA is retaining 3-class F on.

FWIW, OZ, CX and NH fly planes without F for various North American TPAC markets, and nobody is doing this about their F the same way they do about UA GF. So even they seem to get the idea "you don't fly F everywhere and you adjust to market conditions".

UA's going to have a lot of GF for a while, but that's an artifact of decisions they made almost a decade ago with IPTE, in considerably different market conditions, similar to how AA has 772s with 16F- which might explain why they don't mind limiting it to their new 77Ws at the moment (keep in mind AA is getting A350s too now). I would think UA's decision about their next premium product is coming up as the A350s show up on the property.

Sure there are. WN, B6 and VX domestically, and go look up what kind of EQM/RDM a discounted NH/LH/CX/SQ/EK fare gives you. Hint: it's sometimes 70%, sometimes 50%, sometimes 25%, sometimes 10%.

A system where "buy this cheap fare and get 10% RDM, buy this expensive one, get 100% RDM, buy this first class fare, get 300% RDM" isn't a whole lot different from a model of "you get RDM based on what you spend".

bhrubin

United has the best route network of any US carrier. This isn't a detail that is debatable. AA has very little transpacific. DL has much less transpacific, too. DL does own JFK-LHR along with VS, but otherwise DL's network is not nearly as encompassing as UA's.

UA's cost structure still lags DL and AA largely because of its incomplete union contract merger issues. It still deals with separate mechanics contracts for pmCO and pmUA equipment, among so many other merger issues, which has prevented UA from benefitting from the merger savings it predicted. That isn't a problem with its route network; that is a problem with associated costs from management-union inability to finalize the merger the way it was intended. Blame it on Smisek or UA management or the unions as you wish--but that has nothing to do with the product in the sky or route network compared to that of AA and DL.

United is still the second largest airline in the USA, and the 4th largest airline in the world by passenger count. No one? Think again. AA was the 4th largest airline until it MERGED with US. The combined AA-US airline is bigger, but let's not confused merged passenger volume with something it isn't. AA flyers continued to fly AA and now US, and US flyers continued to fly US and now AA, which gave AA-US the most passengers. It isn't like everyone from UA and DL and the other domestic carriers (or foreign carriers) have been flocking to AA/US as you suggest. UA has its problems, but no one thinks that no one wants to fly UA. [Unduly personalized text edited by Moderator.]

Yes, because I know all those DL flyers in ATL and MSP and SLC that really prefer flying DL and love their mileage program with their worthless Skypesos who would never switch airlines even if those cities were not DL hubs. UA isn't the only one that benefits from its hub locations. [Unduly personalized text edited by Moderator.]

The real money? UA made a huge profit in Q2, whether you want to concede that or not. There is an upswing for the future of UA, just as there is for DL and AA. With only 3 major carriers, it is far easier for ALL of them to profit significantly.