Originally Posted by
B787938
The DL 16F 320 config is the updated interior they are rolling out. There is only one or two out of mods. The others all have the ORIGINAL NW interiors featuring a 17" wide seat.
Having flown the DL and UA 739ERs they are both horrific and I avoid them both.
I used the updated interiors as that is what Delta is rolling out. Delta substantially improved arguably the worst (in Y) plane in their fleet. United, OTOH turned the best ride in the narrowbody fleet into the worst, by far.
As web-sites start to put information on seat with and pitch into the visable information at purchase these will become a bigger issue. For example, the Delta A320 will say '18" wide with 30-31" pitch seat, power and streaming, and United A320 will say ' 17.7" wide with 30" pitch seat, no power, streaming" Or it will just give a comfort index and give the DL plane a 3 and the UA plane a 2.
Originally Posted by
lhrsfo
UA has the same issue that all the legacies have, pretty well worldwide, with competing with LCCs. They have a bloated cost structure so the only way they can lower costs is to degrade the customer experience. Eventually it's degraded to such an extent that it's no better than, or even worse than, the LCCs in pretty well every respect. Which is fair enough as they compete on price. However, customers' expectations are lower for the LCCs so they come away pleasantly surprised. The story they promulgate is that WN is just fine, which slowly changes to WN is good, unlike UA, which slowly changes to WN is better than UA - all achieved under a lower cost structure.
And all that is fine if UA's principal existence is a) to feed its network - but that's an expensive proposition and only works if the LCCs don't compete across its network - and to satisfy its elites with UCs, priority airport screening and extra legroom etc. - but that's an expensive proposition also.
If I look at BA as a comparator, competing with EZ and FR, they have a similar dynamic. Everyone has decided that EZ is just as good as BA and FR is tolerable. The sandwich BA gives you on shorthaul flights is worth not much. So the shorthaul has become either a feeder for the longhaul, or a place where elites can top up their status and enjoy lounge access. The longhaul is profitable but principally because of North America and the (to some extent perceived) weakness of UA, AA and DL. Take that away and BA is in big trouble and its shorthaul network will become untenable.
I see UA (and AA) being in much the same position - their product is expected to be better but it really isn't in any meaningful way and in some cases is worse. Their costs are way too high and they have to ask themselves what is their raison d'etre.
Bear pointed this out earlier, and I ecco his thoughts. This entire forum is devoted to loyalty programs, and in response to a very good post about how gutting the product eventually has repercussions, I just note that mileage program were invented to help prevent this from happening, given a person a reason to concentrate their flying on a network. I also think that unlike BA (with basically one hub) the american legacy carriers are far far more exposed to domestic flying, with a much larger domestic market. Lose that and you are TWA or PanAm.
Originally Posted by
transportbiz
I've flown slimlines for a long time, technically VW has them, and so does LH, BA, LX and many others, I've never found the others as horrible as UA's slimlines, I don't know what they did to make them so awful.
I have never sat in as bad of a seat. I think its is the short seat bottom combined with a lack of padding, but I will not book a UA A320/319. Combo of upgrades being impossible and a bad Y seat, I stop looking at UA when I see its a A320/319. Sad since I used to so enjoy flying that Aircraft.
Originally Posted by
Sydneyair
The cabin is only so wide, so whether it's WN claiming to keep wide seats on the 739 or BA claiming to widen seats on 787, they're just reshuffling deck chairs. The cabins didn't magically become wider.
As for the 31" vs. 32" issue, for any flyer displaying some levels of loyalty, they're entitled to free/early-access to 34-35" Y+, and for flyers displaying very high levels of loyalty, potentially free upgrades to 38" F as well. To me, the 31 vs. 32 debate is just a kettle issue.
All that being said, I agree the 319/320 slimlines are horrendous (hope they have plans to rectify that poor decision), but the E75 / 739 slimlines are quite acceptable. I recently flew on DL 738 using regular padded seats and they were no better than UA 739.
The "Jeff special" on the A319/320 will be with UA until those planes are retired. It will continue to be a drag on customer retention and revenue. Same with the old CO BF sets being introduced.
I do agree there is only so much you can do with a 737 given its cabin width, or in 9 across on the 7-narrow-7. Airbus has worked to actively avoid via design airlines going with more narrow seats, Boeing has welcomed it. At some point customers - as I already do - will see Airbus aircraft as more comfortable, and will look for those planes. When this happens Boeing is in real trouble. They sold their soul to a downward spiral and will pay for it as businesses that do this eventually do.