Originally Posted by
spin88
The reality is that the "best" international carriers (PanAm, BOAC, Air France, Swiss, later SQ, CX, JAL and LH) had far better soft product/service in the 50s/60s/early 70s and far worse hard product that what we see today.
United was late in the game, and only really had decent quality soft product from the end of the 80s till the 2000 crash. But even then, and even with the International First Product UA's soft product was not as good as the quality European (and by then Asian) carriers. I flew extensively in J, and to some extent in F in the 1996-2004 time frame, and other than the ITPE seats when they first came out, nothing about UA stood out. Getting on a flight by TG, AF, Swiss, SQ, CX, JAL was far superior, and when ANA upped its game it became a very good airline as well).
If you want to look at the "golden age" it is really in the last 15 years with far more comfortable airplanes and seats, the difference is that none of the US flag carriers (other than to some extent Delta) really try to compete on soft product, and then fall badly flat.
I think to claim United doesn't compete with soft product, you have to ignore the Polaris lounge.
If you consider a Polaris flight as including a trip to the Polaris lounge, you are getting excellent food and drink. And the onboard food and drink is just fine if you want to eat some more.
I also would add that a Polaris meal service doesn't take 2 hours, and many of these international first class products on foreign airlines (and domestic ones back when they tried to do this) take FOREVER to serve, so you could never get to sleep or get to work.
I therefore think it is wrong to call it a worse soft product. It is only a worse soft product if your only goal in flying is to pretend you are in a 5 star restaurant when you are up in the air. And for the small minority of people who think that way and who will pay what it costs to deliver that service, some airlines still offer international F. But for the rest of us, Polaris is a huge improvement, including in the soft product. And there are a lot more of us who prefer a faster, somewhat less showy service, because if it were the opposite, the international F products would be more successful and not limited to a few airlines.