Originally Posted by
halls120
TATL, the food on sCO is indeed better than on sUA. However, I've always found sUA's TPAC food to be much better than their TATL catering and on par with sCO's, so that's a half point in favor of sCO.
Wine on sCO is unimpressive at best. On sUA, average to sometimes very good, and here, the service difference is notable. From the nuts through dessert, the sUA FAs keep your glass filled without complaint. I often have to say "no more." That has never happened on sCO. You constantly have to ask. point for sUA.
Water - I like a glass of water that is topped off throughout the flight without asking, not a plastic bottle so the FAs can disappear. point for sUA
intangibles. On sUA, the FAs generally treat the 1Ks as a valuable entity. You can approach them when they aren't working, and they like to talk. On sCO, in keeping with the "all elites are equal" they don't care that you fly 100K on their airline. The sCO FAs can be just as pleasant - that is, unless, you interrupt their sudoku.
I guess we've just had different experiences. Among other things, the catering is nearly identical now for the entrees both TATL and TPAC, including the wine, so I'm not so sure that's something where it makes sense to differentiate today. And on my GVA trip last weekend - out of IAD on a 3-cabin 763 and back to EWR on a 2-cabin 763, both operated by sUA - the bottle of water at my seat after dinner and FA's playing on their iPads in the galley both happened. Maybe I got the only two sUA crews who work it that way but I doubt it.
As for the bottle of water thing, a couple weeks prior headed in to IST the FAs were nice enough to give me bottles of water to take with me for the post-flight. VERY nice touch and made easier by the fact that there were bottles of water on the plane to be distributed at all.
And I've found that I can talk with most crews. My elite status never comes up in those discussions so I'm pretty sure they don't care about that. And I cannot say I blame them. If being a 1K is part of the discussion I would imagine it isn't particularly interesting for them. It rarely is here either.
At the end of the day it will come down to the individual crew working the flight. I've had good ones and bad ones on UA and CO. And on DL, EK, LH, KL, AF and many other carriers. Just part of living in the real world. But, at this point, the service should be almost identical across the sCO or sUA operations, with the exceptions of subtle differences in the appetizer and dessert courses depending on whether it is a 2-cabin or 3-cabin plane.