Originally Posted by
Anglo Large Clawed Otter
Where's rkkwan with the 764/777 heavy maintenance schedule when you need him? If CO neither increases upgrade/R availability nor redeploys a greatly-improved BF product prior to 787 rollout, methinks the next two years could be rocky in terms of premium-yields for CO. No one in their right mind would pay D/J for TATL CO BF (CO's bread & butter) if they have the choice of new UA (recall, 767-300s get revamped first), DL 777-200 with new lie-flat VS-style seats (with lie-flat also expected for 767-300s at some point in the near future), BA, VS, BD (soon to have SA-style lie-flat), AC, or EOS. That's quite a spectrum of true-flat J seats to choose from on TATL routes. If I were purchasing J tickets, unless CO was just gazillions of times more convenient than any competitor, I would have a serious think about who got my $$$ (as I could choose true-flat on so many airlines, on any of the alliances).
UA isn't a very strong player in the Trans-Atlantic market. They may take some people connecting, but those from the NYC metro area won't connect at IAD just to go flat bed.
And DL's 772 won't be flying to Europe much, and it'll take a while for DL to completely redo the 763.
So, really, I don't see there's a very urgent need for CO to upgrade right now. They will wait until the 787. Yes, the 772 (and likely the 752) will get new BF, but they probably won't want to spend much on the 767s. They don't even have plan to put AVOD on them right now.
CO has been competing with BA/VS, etc on Trans-Atlantic, which have flat beds for a while. And those are larger players in this market than UA.