Of course a lot of the foreign carriers are at least partially state owned. So they can afford to have these lavish cabins even if they don't make money off them.

While UA F may not quite measure up to some of their foreign counterparts, frankly I find the new F suites to be quite nice from a hard product perspective. The food isn't as good I suppose but frankly I don't care all that much about the food on an airplane. I care about space and comfort. Service is hit or miss, but that is the case on plenty of foreign carriers too.

The NYT article missed the cheapest EK F suites experience. Less than $650 ow on the flight between BKK and HKG. Flight time is about 3 hours.