Manospeed

Majority of US airports, save for major hubs, have a few carriers that service them. Increasing demand for one carrier will simply cause them to increase their airfare, which is exactly what we're seeing today. Run a few routes and see the price differences between UA and other carriers.

Sure there is outrage, but being outraged translates to having to pay more money to get from A to B. Ultimately, everyone's level of outrage has a price. Are you going to pay $50, $100, $200, $300 more?

leungy18

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/u...ines.html?_r=0

NYT ran an interesting article about this. The fact that nearly half of public would pay $66 more to fly on AA than UA on a JFK-ORD segment is interesting.

Ultimately, I think the bigger fallout for UA's business will be from customers in Asia. The media narrative in Asia is that the doctor was chosen for IDB because of his race, and they're far angrier about it than Americans are. There are plenty of carriers that fly TPAC, many of them which offer a better product than UA.

Booked a TPAC J flight a week ago -- a mix of JL,CX, and AA, 2 stops at NRT and ORD. Paid extra $300 to avoid UA even though UA had just 1 stop at EWR.

yohanson

I work for a mega corporation and I haven't heard a peep about UA or the incident regarding air travel. UA won't lose any business from me because I don't fly them. I haven't flown UA since 2008 because I stick with one airline for the benefits from the status I earn. Having said that, if I were a free agent, I would refuse to fly them. If I were flying UA exclusively and had their higher status, I would continue to fly them but would send Munoz a letter explaining my outrage.

Manospeed

While you may have paid an extra $300 and are willing to inconvenience yourself with an extra stop, vast majority of people who fly both recreational and even business, are not going to be shelling out $300 per head, plus an extra stop. My company would have a serious problem with me if I submitted an expense report where they have to shell out extra $300.

Ironically, the vast majority of frequent flyers, those who fly on business often and who have achieved x status with an airline are the least likely (if not impossible) to ever be involuntarily bumped off a flight.

txflyer77

Our travel policy allows cheapest 1-stop + 50%. Based on various threads about expense policies in Travelbuzz, I think variations of that are common.

Kevin AA

Ideally what happens is the other carriers add seats to the market by buying planes from UA that are up for sale because not too many people like being abused. The rate of masochism in the general population isn't that high.

bocastephen

Throwing around big statements like "vast majority" can lead to incorrect assumptions unless you have data. I have data - my customers, my social feeds, etc - and the "vast majority" of my network are, and will continue to book away from United.

In truth, United is rarely the lowest price option anymore. For those who book on price, they will see United as either more expensive, or somewhat on par with other choices, and given the continued coverage of this along with other incidents, may choose to book away. They won't be saving this mysterious $300 by flying United - they may even be spending more to fly United.

For those who book on schedule, the priority may be different - for frequent flyers, the priority is even more different. For example, I am loyal 1K member for many years, but when I just booked my own paid business ticket to Asia and back, I didn't ticket it on UA - I pushed all of the flight segments to NH operated, and took one UA segment on the return. No codeshares, issued on NH stock, NH will get almost all of the money from the ticket, and I will get the proper number of RDM I should be based on distance. That's my protest, and I used money to do it. I can continue doing the same all summer long, one ticket at a time until I see attitudes start changing, and I won't be alone.

However this thread is abut lost business fallout in general - so let's assume the "vast majority" do not consciously book away from United, but the "vast minority" does. Just the impact of that minority changing their booking habits could substantially impact United's revenue, and dampen profits already squeezed by higher fuel and labor costs. For that reason, this incident alone can be responsible for a substantial, quantifiable impact to United's profits for the next few quarters, and if the American flying public really wants to force change in this industry, they better make sure those impacts are felt.

cerealmarketer

Fresh outlook for 2Q (April - June) revenue trends

http://newsroom.united.com/2017-04-1...17-Performance

"Looking forward, we expect second-quarter consolidated PRASM to be up 1.0 to 3.0 percent. This would mark the fifth straight quarter of sequential improvement and the first quarter of positive unit revenue growth in two years."

Guidance can always be changed later, but they didn't see enough in the trends last week to say they expect flat to down. That could be because there wasn't much impact, or it could be because the info is too noisy / conflicting to make a call, though if you have something really significant you can't make a call on one way to solve is to offer a wider range for the guidance like down 1% to up 4%.

Also remember you have about 30 - 90 days of firm leisure traveler bookings in the bag, though for biz travel it should show up closer to real time.

1 - 3% growth is what Delta offered for guidance for the same period.

halls120

If UA's response to this event is " you have to fly us," then yes, I'll pay more to fly the competition. But it won't be much more, and in some cases, much less.

The most common route I fly on UA is IAD-SFO. For my next trip there in June, UA is $482, VA is $524. I'm currently booked on a IAD-SEA r/t in early June for $543 n/s, and AS n/s is $586. I'm currently booked on UA in May n/s on IAD-FRA, for just under $900. If I want to save, I could do a one stop on AA for $514.

There are alternatives, and if UA doesn't change their anti-customer attitude, people will find those alternatives.

Kacee

Agreed. If there had been a material drop in bookings last week, I (and more importantly, the market) would expect that to be reflected in the guidance.

I'm actually a little surprised.

tealeaf99

Can I also add "immediately replace SHARES"? If UA wants to provide better customer service, UA employees need better tools and technology in order to provide better service to pax.

bocastephen

...and the hits keep coming

https://www.inc.com/chris-matyszczyk...assengers.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b01566972250cf

Manospeed

Did a quick search for ORD-LGA for 4/25 and return on 4/27. Cheapest direct flights were:

UA 791 : $69
UA 761: $69
Total: $138

DL
DL 5962: $194
DL 5959: $194
Total: $388

AA
AA 374: $145
AA 304: $145
Total: $290

If you want to protest it will cost you an extra $152 with AA or an extra $250 with DL. Personally, I think the hit UA will suffer in the mid-long term due to protest bookings with other airlines will be negligible.

halls120

But if you want to protest TATL, you'll save $380.

jamesinclair

"This United pilot seriously believes that the airline and its employees are paramount and if a passenger expresses a sense of injustice or merely stands his ground against patent excess, then service should be denied to every single passenger on the flight."

Reminds me of many transit providers.

They see themselves in the train moving business, not a customer service business. Customers get in the way of them running their trains.