Originally Posted by
bseller
This is a very valid point.
The reason, IMO, that they will be surprised is that the HouCrew doesn't see how people CAN go to greener pastures. What other pastures are there when you hub at IAH, CLE, EWR and GUM??
Problem is, most other airlines have hubs within reasonable distances of those (except for GUM). Between DL and US/AA, you have JFK, ORD, PHL, CVG (sorta), DTW, etc).
This plays into
pdx1M's comment:
Originally Posted by pdx1M
I suspect that if one does the actual math there are more travelers that fly in aggregate from non-hubs than from hubs. For those of us that don't live in a highly captured hub (ATL, MIA, EWR - tho other choices for NYC, IAH, ORD, SFO, CLE) we are almost always (unless flying to a hub) going to have to connect. In that case, it really makes no difference. The current UA management seems to not see that based on their approach to competition. If I have to connect then where you do it often has little impact on travel time. An extreme example - I was just looking at PSP-DCA and the difference between connections that look "straight" and a rather weird looking PSP-SEA-DCA on AS maxed out at about 1.5 hours for the departure times I needed. Service levels and value/cost really come into play for most of us. It really takes an amazing level of obliviousness to the customer base you serve to understand so little of them.
I agree with this. Outside of hub captives, where connections occur doesn't matter as much as there aren't going to be that many nonstops, except to hubs. BWI, for example, outside of the WN domination, is pretty much equal amongst the remaining airlines. In most cases, it doesn't matter much whether I connect in SLC, DEN, or PHX in the west or EWR, PHL, ATL, CLT, or JFK in the east. Most get me there in more or less the same amount of time.
If I want to go to the west coast, UA used to have decent service to SFO and LAX. Now, it's practically nonexistent, which makes UA a lot less attractive compared to the others. With service times being equal, it becomes more of where I get the best value for my money.
Originally Posted by StingWest
Agree that that's a good way to look at it. I do understand the pain that many travelers have experienced under the new mgmt. I personally have been generally happy with the service and perks on UA this year (mostly TATL), so I'm not ready to jump ship. UA has compared reasonably well with both BA (AA partner) and VS (Delta partner) which I've flown in business also this year (to burn miles). No great motivation to jump ship.
Being tied to US at the moment, I've done my TPACs on UA the last couple years. In Y on the couple occasions I flew them, *G treatment wasn't much different than I would have gotten on UA, with the exception of missing E+ and a small chance at an upgrade if I were a 1K instead of a CP. I paid for C on the TPACs so I didn't miss anything at all. Sadly, what I saw wasn't beckoning me to come back.
PQDs aren't an issue with paid C TPACs - I can get what I need for 1K on 2 trips. The problem UA's facing is if I'm not seeing the value of what they're offering when I'm actually paying for the perks, why would I want to park my butt on their planes repeatedly to try to get them for free?
Now that US is tied with AA, I don't have to give them anything.