Three class first will stay in places for a while -- management has said so -- but as a % of available premium seats, there is no argument that it will increase over time - and that's not just with United.
Having flown both, F exists to offer
1) seating to maximize rest
2) privacy/priority
3) better soft product
5 years ago people who valued point 1) most, but didn't value 2) and 3) as much had only one viable option -- buy into first. Today, the quality of business class seating has improved significantly, so the gap between the two in ability to sleep well has reduced.
So while there is still a market of folks who will always pay for the extra privacy, soft product, and space afforded by first, those who sought it to be able to sleep well have less reason than in the past. Yes, first will always be a better nights rest, but the gap isn't what it was before.
Add in corporate / govt contracts getting progressively more strict over the last 20 years and you get a recipe for a slow erosion of share in favor of business class. On the high end fractional jet ownership erodes the shorter-mid haul base as well.
Originally Posted by
tuolumne
well as usual you have the "I walked through it on my way off the plane", "saw it on Google images", " heard about it from flyertalk" - crowd deriding united first and calling for it to be dismantled, questioning its viability, and even trying to make it comparable to CO business class. Read:People who have never flown it, and seem to know everything there is to know about it. How exactly you can make sweeping generalized comments using overblown descriptors when you've never even sat in the seat is beyond me.
3-cabin intl. service worked for UA. Their demand base could support it. They made money off of it - and unfortunately smb123's stale argument falls flat the second we realize again that UA invested hundereds of millions not even 4 years ago to retrofit the entire intl. widebody fleet into 3-cabin service - even the 763s. What, did they just do this for show? give me a break. and leave the "conclusions" about the hard product to people who have actually flown the product.
The OP may not like it, but for every negative there is a positive one out there. If you want my opinion, it is apologist COmmand who are usually the ones pushing for the ididea of their "glorious, no fault" CO BF product (which is no first class suite by any stretch of the imagination) to be implemented systemeide, to hell with any of the factual ground that UA actually sells those F suits amd makes money off of them. Also, funny how we forgot, in this discussion about how awful and indefensible United First is and how mug CO can "teach" UA in premium cabins, that ee fforget ten years ago, UA was the airline with flat beds.on the front of the aircraft, even sporting (non)advanced video on demand - CO had recliners and nothing more. Now they have flat beds in C and we believe the product is.comparable to a firlrst class suite? Sorry to say, but I strongly disagree.
Its also conviniently "forgotten" that what worked for legacy CO, a carrier with two and half hubs flying into many more smaller intl. destinations that could and would never support F inventory, is not the same airline now that UA's more premium-intensive intl. saturation in large markets has been stiched on. Like it or not, F is being kept around because it makes.money, make no mistake. The people who have never sat in an F suite, who rely on others opinions from the "interwebz" are some of the last in any sort of position to describe the product with sweping negative hyperbole, much less call for it to be dismantled.