Originally Posted by
kevanyalowitz
A 60 seat J cabin is bound to be a non-premium assembly line experience. Sounds terrible.
Compared to coach, it sounds like heaven to me....
Originally Posted by
cerealmarketer
Here's my guess of a profile.
- Middle level at a big corporate
- Gets paid J on long haul, maybe F on ultra long haul
- Gets F if it's less than alternative J
- At a company with a big United contract
- Has to do lots of domestic schlepping, but has to buy coach for non transcon flights, so GS upgrade priority is the stickiness
- Travel budget is 20% or more of annual salary or larger - so being top dog at a US airline feels 'big' and 'important'
Not exactly the prototypical global Emirates paid F top dollar flier.
And iced out of F as US carriers continue to phase it out.
As with everything, there are exceptions to the rule, but I think this profile is pretty close to accurate. These are the paunchy, polo shirt, cheap blue blazer and khaki crowd flying on company money, likely working in some sales department capacity. For them, GF is as good as it gets, and that is why GF is what it is, and not like foreign carriers who attract a totally different customer with prices that are thousands more and out of the reach of most US corporate travel budgets.
Where UA often fails with marketing GF, is on routes or flights they price-match to competitors' F product instead of trying to poach those business class customers by undercutting their higher J fares.