Originally Posted by
halls120
UA clearly had a goal of offering a better business product when Polaris was rolled out. And at first, it was a better product - until Kirby decided it was costing too much, and thanks to his changes, it’s among the worst when it comes to food and drink. That was fine while UA was experiencing strong demand for any business seat, but it will be interesting to see how he deals with the fact that COVID has cratered demand for flying in general, and how he intends to win back people with they take to the skies again.
An interesting point. There is so much churn that takes place, which is the change for an airline to impress someone who has not flown them before. That for me was in 2012 when UA was cratering, I got on Delta and said "oh, this is better" after it was better 20 straight times, and on my next UA trip they stranded me at LAX, it was "so why am I flying the 'diminishing returns after 80% OT' airline"?
Covid-19 if it keeps going they way it is is going to result in a lot of traditional travel patterns getting scrambled. E.g. I know three FFs (GS or 1k) on UA who fly SFO-HKG all the time, and have still traveled there. Now, the only way to get there direct is CX, and I asked what they thought. All were super-impressed with CX and the A350 (they all fly J). Will be interesting to see what they do when things get back to normal.
So it is not just that everyone will go back to old patterns, if this goes on a few more months it will toss the chess pieces in the air. Not so sure that UA's approach to retaining/incentivizing customers will be a real plus for getting back those who fly other airlines.