Originally Posted by
jsloan
I don't think the issue is the planes, at this point, but rather training staff, preparing catering, etc. UA needs hundreds of mini-amenity kits, dining sets, etc., which may need to be sourced at both ends of the route, and they need to be able to take the cabin crews off of planes to do Premium Plus training.
While I agree that they're likely anxious to get started, they're probably also anxious to avoid the bad press they'd get if they started selling P+ for travel on, say, October 1, only to find that they couldn't deliver what they promised in their marketing material.
That's true... I don't think United has even begun the process of training crews on the Premium Plus service flow.
It's a panoply of factors. Customer service, as you note. Technology (selling the product) and reliability (actually having the product you sell on the airplane) are hurdles, too. United will soon have 11 767-300ER in a Polaris configuration and still will not 'guarantee' the product on a single route. In fact it's totally opaque until an aircraft is assigned to a given flight, and even then is subject to change.
I expect United to have all the 77W fitted with PP this winter, and to start selling the product at that time on 77W routes only, gradually expanding as the 77E reconfigurations roll on.