Originally Posted by
spartacusmcfly
The food is poor because UA has chosen not to invest in the food yet. As Kirby said, the next major investment priority is to fix the UA balance sheet.
They reduced $3B of debt last year and should reduce another $5B this year. Once that is done, you'll see a soft product investment in 2024.
They haven't invested in catering yet because they don't see a significant competitive advantage in doing so. There are a multitude of reasons for that, but I think the JVs are a pretty big impact. The debt impact is a red herring--if catering moved the needle they would have made improvements long ago, but I suspect it's a bunch of additional cost without much improvement in yield. There is a practical limit to how much they can degrade the product before it starts having an meaningful impact, and they seem to be content with, as EWR764 put it, yo-yoing around that line.