Originally Posted by
travelinmanS
Believe it or not, the Chinese airlines generally offer a better in flight experience these days than UA. This is probably part of the reason why this strategy failed. As a PVG based flyer I now would rather take MU than any of the US carrier options to the states. US-China flying will be increasingly dominated by the mainland carriers as their service improves and the US carriers reduce passenger stickiness by devaluing their loyalty programs.
Just look at the Taiwan market. As China Airlines and EVA got bigger and better, UA, NW/DL and AA basically pulled out. It is a miracle that SFO-TPE came back and is still going. On top of that, their costs are all lower than UA's.
UA's food is worse, staffing level is lower and FAs generally are not as service-oriented (part of it is simply the culture - western services are just different). Ground service is another issue (Dr. Dao and Alice in SFO incidents:
UA SFO Gate Agent humiliated a Taiwanese Student.) Then MileagePlus keeps getting worse. Not only it can't get Chinese passengers, it is also losing US-based passengers.