Originally Posted by
iahphx
I'm both a frequent flyer and a long-time airline investor (a better profession than many might think) ....
But offering BE systemwide in markets without ULLC competition is a entirely different animal. It basically means UA is offering a "come on" fare: a lower price for a product that you don't really want to buy and the airline doesn't really want to sell you. They're clearly hoping to get your attention and have you buy up. But offering these fares is certain to annoy your best customers, and exposes UA to the risk that its competitors will match UA's fares but include the "normal" services. In that case, almost nobody is going to pick UA for that flight. Of course, it's also possible that the other airlines will offer a fare somewhere between UA's basic economy and it's regular fare, which might also be a problem for UA.
In other words, it's difficult to predict how this pricing structure will play out. It may be another huge win for UA, especially if DL and AA also go systemwide with it. It will basically be a hidden fee; kind of like a resort fee. It may also be a significant failure, especially if DL and AA do not adopt this pricing strategy. Only time will tell.
I also think BE helps Southwest because they are the only airline that keeps pricing (including frequent flyer miles) simple. Most people aren't sophisticated enough, or willing to spend enough time, to figure out all these fare and loyalty rules. You don't have to be a committed rocket scientist to fly WN. Increasingly, you do have to be a rocket scientist to get a good deal giving your business to the major airlines. Perhaps they benefit from the complexity; but for the individual traveler, especially the novice ones, the complexity is a royal PITA.
I am also a (now former) airline investor, and have always made my investment decissions based upon what I think changes at airline would do in the mid-term to drive away valuable traffic. This caused me to invest heavily in DAL ye2012 and in VX shortly after the IPO. In essence shorting the current anti-consumer version of UAL has been very lucrative...
I have viewed UA's version of BE through this same lense, and I called the book away UA has now admitted a long time ago:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/28349801-post1656.html
I agree that UA's what I would call "extreme" version of BE (on all fares, all flights, no status credit, no carry on) was predicated on other airlines following United. But I also think that it was utterly foolish, infact incomprehensibly foolish, of UA's management to think that OALs would follow. Other airlines have management that do not think that Hunter Keay speaks from on high.
Delta already had a successful version of BE, and directly competes with certain carriers (e.g. AS, WN) that are not going to adopt BE. Why would Delta follow United? Better to sit back and steal elite traffic from United as they have been doing every time United does something stupid going back to 2012.
Then the gig should have been up when AA rolled out BE very slowly, and only applied it to the three lowest fares, and then gave 1/2 status credit. AA was between DL and UA in its use of BE. AA is clearly going to just let UA hang itself.
And while UA has clearly backed off BE a lot (no longer on higher fares) the inability of UA's management to break free from the short sided thinking of the Hunter Keays of the world, and realize that they are actually in a consumer service business, and that they can't as the third largest US airlines set the conditions for the market, is just mind boggling.
UA's version of BE was a big failure, the question is how much longer UA keeps bleeding itself before it tosses in the towel and changes its BE to be more like DL's (or AA's) version.