Originally Posted by
JSlo
No, most likely incorrect. UA has now been flying 747 and 767 with reconfigured IPTE. They have had an ample time to monitor load uptick in planes/flights with the new config, and ample marketing to ensure with some degree of certainty that the paying business market knows about the new cabin. Clearly, they are not seeing enough of an uptick in paying business that they can coorelate to the availability of the new cabin v. the old. So they are in a hold pattern and conserve cash. In this economy, it doesn't matter what business or cabin- if your company stopped approving C class fares then the fact a new cabin exists is moot. This is what UA's data is saying. It doesn't matter if we spend millions on a new cabin, right now it will not generate any new paying C class pax- or at least not enough new c pax. So they wait...
To me the whole point of this is that UA will have large lost opportunites in the recovery period. By the time business start spending again for paid C it will take UA at least another 12 months to catch up. To me that is a huge lost opportunity for UA. The companies that can invest during a downturn to prepare for the recovery will be the most succesful IMHO. I don't however think UA is in any shape to position themselves to he ahead of the curve and have that competitive advantage. By the time they get around to completing the conversion we could be headed for another down business cycle and the opportunity to reap the rewards on the way up will have been lost.