Originally Posted by
BearX220
Incredible that I'm reading all this critical press about BE, making it sound like UA is instituting a sort of airborne Turkish prison, while lush Polaris TV ads play in the background... does the United brand stretch far enough to cover both?
Yeah it's certainly amazing how much of a difference two people on a plane can have. Imagine flying on, say, ORD-HKG operated by a 77W.
The passenger who bought the Basic Economy fare has been allocated a seat squarely in the middle of the 3-4-3 economy section near the back of the plane. It's some small consolation that they board last as it means nearly a 1% reduction in the amount of time they'll have to spend in this cramped aluminum tube. The flight's about 4/5 full (hurray for revenue management). The row behind them is empty and they ask a FA if they mind if they sit there. "Can I see your boarding pass?" is the reply. "Look here - BASIC - NO MOVES." They watch eight films during their 8000 great-circle miles and get two nutritionally adequate LSG Sky Chefs meals.
The passenger who bought Polaris has more or less the experience described in the UA TV ads.
If you could measure a Gini coefficient for an airline I'm sure you'd see it going up for UA. Kinda fascinating.