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.
After flying DL/AA/AS for most of my recent travel, I was surprised to see UA doesn't offer complimentary alcoholic beverages in E+, although it makes sense given the difference in number of seats.
FWIW, I think the main motivation for Delta to implement separate fare classes for Comfort Plus was to sell their branded fare products through other distribution channels / GDS. Although this also gives them the ability to implement capacity controls, they haven't done this (yet) for elite upgrades to Comfort Plus. From a pricing perspective, I don't think there's much of a difference since UA and AA use dynamic pricing for seat selection pricing.