Originally Posted by
fly18725
The problem is that there's no proof of book away - traffic is up. The attempt to conjure sell-side analysts as an instigator is also old.
As you well know UA's President, Scott Kirby said this on the 2Q 2017 call:
" [Kirby]: we get benefits from selling up more customers,
but I’m sure we lose some share as a result of that as well.”
Jamie Baker: “but I’m curious what the basic economy RASM contribution is as it relates to the third quarter guide for flat domestic RASM. We were assure the basic economy was going to be immediately accretive, at least I think that’s what you said. So I’m wondering if that has proven to be the case, it would suggest that absent basic economy, your domestic RASM would actually be going down and I’m not sure that I understand what that would be?
Scott Kirby
So, on basic economy, I do expect it will be RASM accretive and immediately RASM accretive with its competitive product. And we said that exactly in the past, but that would have been the underlying assumption that it was going to be competitive and expected our competitors to get the full workout, but currently, they have taken longer. I still think they’re going to get there, but in the near term, you know,
the upside that we get from upsell is offset, it’s impossible for us to make sure, but I’m sure it’s offset to a larger, maybe a complete degree by share shift. And so if we’ve been through any of the forecast, it’s probably what our competitors are going to do. We don’t know that. We can’t control that. And we’ll get bigger benefits once we roll that everywhere."
If you are accusing Scott Kirby of lying to investors, nock yourself out, but Kirby has clearly, and not just on this call, but in other forums, confirmed the book away due to BE, resulting in a loss of market share.
How much is there? No idea, and Kirby is pretending not to know. But if BE was working swimmingly for UA (since after all it is a fare increase) they would not be backing off it.
Other than being SFO based and basically 2MM,
and as such wanting UA to become a better airline, I don't have a dog in this fight. I've not paid BE (I just booked OALs, which are IMHO better, when UAL provided a BE fare). That UA's version of BE has not worked out so well ought to be evident to basically everyone, except the rather dense "analysts" whose anti-consumer plans have driven United to become the laggard of the airline industry.