Originally Posted by
mike_plat
With virtal certainly, you'll be in coach. I've never been upgraded from SFO to EWR on any CO flight, the red eye included. There are bound to be lots of Platinums with full Y fares in coach too.
Advice: If you want a nicer plane, a bag of free pretzels, fly CO. If you want to get upgraded more on a worse plane with the constant fear of how bad coach is if the upgrade doesn't come through, fly NWA.
While I, of course, agree that upgrades are much more available on NW than on CO, I don't agree about your relative assessment of the two coach cabins. CO tends to fly newer planes but I find the 32" seat pitch and slightly softer seats more comfortable on NW than on CO. The 31" seat pitch and rock-hard seat on CO is truly dreadful.
The other issue--specifically concerning transcons--is that CO primarily flies 738's without mid-cabin lavatory on these routes. This means being cooped up with up to 141 coach pax who only have 2 lavatories for over 6 hours.
Of course, NW doesn't fly transcon at all so it's not possible to make an exact comparison.
Another thing about CO: They can't hold a schedule through EWR. If you have a connection tighter than 2 hours, you might well be sorry. This problem will cost CO a huge amount of my business this year.