Originally Posted by SEA_Tigger
The whole purpose of TED is to attract the low-cost, casual leisure market. By adding extra seats and lower fares, they can make up on volume what they lose in fares compared to mainline flights and, if not make a formerly unprofitable flight profitable, lose less money then they were when it was mainline.
If that's UA's philosophy for TED then I think they'll shoot themselves in the foot. One very unfortunate experience with CO's partner, Alaska, convinced me to start flying UA for west coast travel from SFO (I still use CO for transcon). I've really enjoyed UA's service between SFO and LAX and SFO and SNA, primarily because I usually fly in F. I flew TED once between SFO and LAS and wasn't too pleased. Apparently, UA is going to try to replace more and more of its domestic US routes with TED. If TED is no different than Southwest, then there's absolutely no reason to fly them. I'll take AA instead, who at least offers an F product, albeit quite diminished compared to UA and CO. I can't believe that I'm the only business traveler in the US willing to pay a reasonable premium for a modicum of comfort when I fly. Hasn't it occured to the majors that, if we wanted a Southwest experience, we'd be flying Southwest?
Oh, how I miss the days when airlines competed on the basis of quality of service, rather than solely on cost of the ticket.