Originally Posted by
Lux Flyer
Also want to add - I believe UA compared to DL/AA generally has a greater proportion of E+ seats, so the impact of adding complimentary alcohol would have a much bigger financial impact. DL also implements capacity controls on their DL Comfort seats by requiring a separate booking code to "clear" into them, even for their elites.
To put this into perspective, here's the Y+ proportion for AA and UA on a couple of their major types:
A319-100 - AA: 24/128 = 19% | UA: 36/126 = 28.5%
A320-200 - AA: 18/150 = 12% | UA: 42/150 = 28%
B737-800 - AA: 24/172 = 14% | UA: 42-54/166 = 25-32%
UA has 50-100% more Y+ seats compared to AA. I suspect that on many of these flights, a chunk of those Y+ seats are occupied by Basic Economy tickets who couldn't preselect seats, which is the demographic that UA is least likely to want to give free alcohol to.
That said, as an elite it must be super nice for y'all to have that many Y+ seats to select from. When purchasing tickets close in (week or two prior to purchase), I've occasionally not had any non-middle Y+ seats available on AA.