Originally Posted by
bseller
I don't ascribe any MORE significance to this than I do to the fact that they haven't mentioned whether the C class Int'l meal will or will NOT have a choice of fruit/cheese or cake for desert. It's just too far down the road, IMO.
Dave
I'm not sure I agree with you, because E+ is part of the hard product. Meals can come and go because they are only a part of the soft product.
But if the new UA decides to do away with E+ and adds all those rows back into the current UA fleet, it will be a long, long time before they would ever consider taking the added rows out again.
The issue here is one of the very core issues of the CAL management philosophy, namely the idea that reducing available seats is necessarily a drain on revenue, even if there is incremental income associated with upsells to E+, not to mention the long-term loyalty of elite passengers.
If the CO management team is truly triumphant I would actually be very surprised if E+ makes it past the merger process.
Otherwise, I think they would have made it clear they intend not only to hold to E+, but add it to the current CO fleet, when they announced UA UDU and the other product synchronization initiatives.