entropy

And F9 now has a CLE hublet too, albeit one operated by mainline. So they can buy their hub back in CLE.

halls120

that UA is more concerned about keeping the Street happy than its customers happy says it all.

Air Houston

I think the Q1 results show that UA is doing the things they need to do to be profitable. They may not do them as well as some airlines, they may do them better than others. Their upgrades may be more generous than some and less generous than others. Their frequent flyer plan may be better for some people and not as useful for other people. There are always going to be trade-offs, but in the end they need to earn profits to continue as an on-going enterprise, to invest for the future, and to provide a return to the shareholders.

What I'm sure the Board is directing the CEO to do is cut costs to make the airline more profitable. When costs are cut too much and revenue declines too much they will reverse course and make investments to improve the product. If they raise price in an attempt to increase revenues and it increases profitability they'll raise price again. If customers quit buying they'll reverse course. It's really about testing the value proposition to extract as much value as possible from the customer. We don't like it, but it's what businesses do. And they have to do it. No business can give away the farm forever and expect to stay in business.

I'm happy to see United earn a reasonable profit, such that they can plan for product improvements and service enhancements to grow revenue, but as an individual passenger I am willing to pay a small premium for better service. Many of my friends (high income people, mind you) will make a 2 hour connection instead of taking a non-stop to save $50. I choose not to do that because making a connection on every trip I take would cost me 200 hours a year. So for me, the route network is what is most important.

Now, that being said...when CO was really, really bad (late 80s, early 90s) I refused to fly them and I routinely took connections in St. Louis, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, or wherever necessary. I think the airline passed the pain threshhold for enough travelers that they started booking away and I think the recent announcements show that they have recognized that and are moving back in the direction of improving their product rather than cutting it. I expect that continue for a bit, although I don't think we'll get back everything we would like to get back.

Hopefully the earnings will continue on a slight upward trend as they see their investments in service pay off with increased financial return, which will stimulate management to continue providing them.

My prediction for Q2: None, I don't try to predict corporate earnings. Only companies that have regulated monopolies or cook their books have earnings that can be predicted by amateurs who get most of their information from FlyerTalk and Twitter.

bocastephen

I don't see results that indicate UA has their hands on anything. What I see is a team that got very lucky with falling oil prices and successful collusion with "competitors" to reduce capacity and reduce competition on various routes.

No one should ever invest in an airline (stock) unless your goal is swing trading - as a business, an airline never makes money in the long run unless you line things up perfectly, and only Southwest and Spirit have successful done this by being everything for only some people. UA/DL/AA is in the business of being something for everyone, and by constantly misjudging who "everyone" is and should be, and looking at loyal customers as whining, annoying children instead of assets to be guarded, what's left is a business that flaps in the wind like a sailboat with no one at the helm as they simultaneously kiss and kick their best customers.

Now most folks here have invested in UA through continued loyalty even throwing price and schedule aside as a determining purchase factor - so the key seat at the table should be ours, not Wall Street's (where investors add no value to the company by trading existing shares) and not Kettles.

The reason why people like Keay are essentially running UA is due to the lack of a competent leadership team with sufficient experience in the business, or having such experience and mentorship, throwing it out the window.

LarkSFO

Let's just set a baseline for your perspective...

Is there ANYTHING the current leadership team at United could do that would change your mind and have you begin to believe that they are competent and effective?

Or are you convinced that once their luck runs out (fuel goes up, economy goes down, competition increases, 'collusion' is reduced) that they will be exposed as incompetents and be summarily replaced?

I see results that they have posted as progress towards objectives they have set and communicated. Are these objectives all going to be flyer friendly? Unfortunately not.

why fly

WOW AA is leading the race to the bottom, perhaps only Air Canada is worse.

Garten

Is this really what you think? If UA eliminated the Mileage Plus program tomorrow (and cut fares to match) I'd fly UA about as often as I do now and I'd have about the same interest in the flights they are operating, the fares they offer, the changes on the horizon, etc. Because MP exists, people obviously want to understand and use their MP benefits. But if it didn't exist we would all still be flying.

tom911

Hang in there. Maybe one of those will be the next enhancement (I wouldn't count on fare cuts being the one, though). After all, UA can change the program rules whenever they want to and they've taken liberal advantage of that since the merger.

FT is all about benefits. If UA flyers get zero benefits, they'll move onto a competitor. Could be Virgin America or Alaska, but someone out there is still going to have an elite program if UA makes the next step and eliminates theirs as the next cost-cutting move.

Garten

I'm not sure what you mean by that. FT calls itself "The largest expert travel community." You can be an expert traveler and there is a lot of information that is useful to you that has nothing to do with elite program benefits. Most of what I learn here that's useful to me has nothing to do with elite program benefits.

UA-NYC

UA might as well pack up the tent and liquidate if they shuttered MP. Not like people are flying for operational excellence, great hard or soft product, excellent lounges, etc.

It would just be a larger Spirit or Frontier. And just about any frequent traveler would head to AA, DL, or others.

tom911

Well, you have a collection of UGS, 1K, Platinum, Gold and Silver flyers here on the UA forum and we're talking about elite benefits pretty consistently - from how to qualify for those elite levels (amount of miles need, spending levels) to how you use your upgrades (global upgrades, regionals, miles) and the various redemption options (if you're a UGS flyer you have more options than a Silver flyer). Just recently there has been major discussion about elite benefits not extending to sponsored award tickets for friends and family. You must be reading different parts of the forum than I am as I notice an overwhelming concern on this forum about elite program benefits (and not just here, but on the other airline forums of FT).

Garten

They aren't going to eliminate Mileage Plus because it's a legacy program and people are attached to it and committed to it. But, on average, the value of benefits that travelers get from MP has to be about equal to the cost to provide it. If they phased out the program and they cut fares by the value of program benefits then it would be about a wash for the average traveler.

cricketer

As others have often said, I enjoy it more than I enjoy the 2-2-2, because my enjoyment is not derived from my proximity to the aisle, rather from the comfort of the seat and quality of sleep I can manage. The x-y-z metric is completely irrelevant. It amuses me that people focus on that to the exclusion of consideration of the actual seat, but to each his or her own!

Garten

It's interesting how often a poster says "you would have to be nuts to think..." or "you will struggle to find anyone who..." and then several people express that opinion.

Is there something about air travel that causes people to think that everyone shares their preferences?

Are the big differences in what different people care about part of the reason why airline satisfaction scores are low?

seagar

I can assure you from personal relationships and knowledge that the Board is not telling Smisek to do anything...the Board reports to him and following his lead.