The problem with what you're saying is that it seems to imply the following (unless I'm misreading what you wrote):

1. Since they're doing worse than industry average, everything UA and VX does must be bad.
2. Since they're doing better than industry average, everything AS does must be good.

Neither of these is true. Not everything UA and VX does is bad. Not everything AS does is good. There is always room for improvement.

This would be like the following exchange:

"Hey, did you see that the Zune has a cool new feature? I wish the iPod had it."

"Why should Apple copy a feature from a music player that's almost dead?"

The fact that the Zune has lost horribly in the marketplace doesn't on the face of it disqualify every feature Microsoft has created for it as useless or bad.

Also note that you're simply leaving out B6 as a data point.

You should see the disagreements on MyStarbucksIdea.com. And yet good ideas have come from there.

Also, when people ask me what I believe in, I say, "the scientific method." So I'm not saying my idea is necessarily right. What I'm saying is that I think it's worthy of more investigation, up to and including a limited real-world test. Collect the data, crunch the numbers, and see what they tell you.

A real-world test has costs, and given the following:

- previous market research (per Seattlenerd) wasn't all that promising,
- the one airline that has it (UA) has continually lost share on routes similar to AS's (CA/West Coast) to another airline (WN) that doesn't,
- one airline with something similar (B6) has said it decreased revenue somewhat,
- another airline with something similar (VX) has blown through a couple hundred million in VC and still isn't making money yet, even though they've done a good job in getting mindshare and customer loyalty,
- AA's MRTC (another similar concept) flopped,

I'd say the costs of even doing a limited fleet conversion as a trial (similar to what UA did on their new test interior on a 757) don't particularly meet the bar of "hey, we should spend money on this" unless you can present really strong evidence that people want this before shelling out money for heavy-duty plane modifications.

I understand your point above that just because UA/VX lose money doesn't mean E+/MCS are the reason they lose money- but it does suggest that the existence of this feature doesn't make them particularly attractive in the market. You might also consider that the most successful US airline of the last 20 years (WN) does NOT offer F or anything like E+, and the most successful US airline of the last couple years (G4) doesn't, either... and AS has done pretty well themselves post-deregulation without offering this.

AS doesn't need to be a UA. If you need an E+ seat, get an exit row. E+ is not worth all of the attention it gets here - it is a great marketing gimmick, but not a huge improvement in comfort. E+ days are probably numbered - AA removed "more room in coach" and UA will probably need to add seats to make their flights profitable in this economy.

I would rather have AS lock seat backs with no recline, then my legs will be fine.

With the talk of SRO tickets, I would just be glad to sit down.

E+ might make sense on Q400s as it would ensure proper load balancing with more folks in back.

As a 1P on UA and MVPG on AS, I'd have to say the E+ issue is the biggest reason why I'm sticking with UA...it didn't seem like a big deal to me until I flew in Y on a NW flight the other day. As for the comparison to AA's MRTC promotion, that's not a fair comparison since this wasn't anything they were selling seperately...that's like saying BOB meals won't work because free meals didn't...you've got to compare apples to apples. On a side note, if I get short on miles to make elite and need to do a MR, it's FAR easier to create cheap segment runs on UA since they have a more diverse network (example: DEN-LAS-PSP-LAX-SFO-PDX for around $110 a.i.? enough said.)

Amen! And their seats aren't as thin, so even less leg room in E-! For this idea to be really effective you've got you make your E- product a living hell, as UA has.

"Similar" is not "same". I mention MRTC because it's a case of "a lot of people just don't want to pay extra for better pitch in coach seats". As such, it's very appropriate to evaluate in the context of "should we remove some coach to add pitch to some coach seats"?

My argument is that there's limited evidence at best that this is something AS needs to do to be competitive, given that we have some historical references of similar things that have decidedly mixed results at best. In addition, there is quite arguably no real evidence that E+ is a major competitive advantage for UA (given their performance relative to the industry). Yes, I know, there are lots of FTers and United loyalists who are basically flying UA because of a) E+ and b) ability to fly international F and C/United p.s. for cheap with an acceptable hard product (even if the soft product leaves something to be desired). But UA is a very, very different airline than AS, and isn't doing so hot at making money despite that loyalty.

- Seattlenerd's post was about a proposed conversion of the F cabin, not a conversion of the first 7 rows of coach.
- Most airlines have lost share to WN. I don't think you can lay that at the feet of E+. Also, UA has said E+ makes money for them.
- My reading of the B6 10-Q was that their equivalent actually increased revenue, helping to offset their decrease in capacity (which I believe was due to cutbacks to adjust to the recession, but I could be mistaken).
- VX has stated publicly their program is a net money-maker for them.
- MRTC was a completely different concept and bears almost no relationship to this.

What I'm saying is this: I can't say that B6 is doing relatively well compared to its peers because of Even More Legroom. You can't say that UA and VX are losing money because of E+ and Main Cabin Select. They're just single aspects of highly complex airline operations in which hundreds of factors contribute to profitability.

What I can say is this: the three domestic airlines with premium economy products have all said they're net revenue generators. I'd say that's not complete evidence, but it's strong contributing evidence.

As to your point about WN being the most successful domestic airline of the last 20 years, a point with which I'd certainly agree, are you suggesting that AS should rip out F, lose its hubs, and stop flying transcons? Because your point could just as easily support those assertions as it could support the assertion that AS is just fine without premium economy.

The physical modifications are pretty minimal, I think. In my proposed scheme, the only changes are that one row of seats between 7 and 11 are removed, the positions of rows 6-11 are adjusted accordingly, and 1 of the 3-seat rows in the back is converted to a 2-seat row. I'm not a mechanic, so someone here could tell me what that would take on a per-plane basis... but I'm guessing it's not a huge deal. So this is really nothing like the example you're pointing to. I think that quite literally the only new equipment that would be installed would be the 1 row of 2 seats to replace the row of 3 seats in the back. And I'm talking about something like 1-4 738s in total for the test.

I'm guessing that the more expensive part would be the changes to alaskair.com and to the check-in system that would be necessary to support it. I have little to no knowledge of AS back-end systems and so can't speculate as to what this would or wouldn't cost.

As for the evidence bit, let me see what I can do about that, beyond the testimonials from UA, B6, and VX about the efficacy of their premium economy programs. That's a reasonable request to make.

... if you ignore the fact that AS has been able to dramatically expand THEIR network and operations over that time, I guess. AS probably comes in at #2 behind WN as being the post-deregulation winner of airlines that were flying pre- and post-1978. (For a while, they had a string of profitable years, too.)

Let's put it this way: I don't think there's really much of a decisive case for an E+ analogue for an airline that does a lot of short-haul travel. There is a better case for it on long-haul travel in the domestic market, but it is still not necessarily essential (see: DL/NW, CO, AA, FL, and, well, AS). AS is better suited for it as a product than WN due to their AK/HI/midcon/transcon routes, but they still aren't UA (at this point, they still are a West Coast regional airline trying creative things to make money with 738s that can do some long-haul flying), and given a limited universe of dollars to invest towards product and a very rough market for airlines, I'm not sure it would be high on my list of priorities without a lot of evidence that this is a solid moneymaker.

Actually UA's E+ generates about $100M dollars in up-sell charges each year from non-elites. This is part of the difference between E+ and MRTC - AA didn't really earn a return on the product, it didn't allow them to charge higher fares or increase load factors so when you take into account losing seats (~12 seats on AA vs. ~6 seats on UA since E+ is only part of the cabin) it just cost money. UA not only profits on non-elites looking for more legroom but it has helped the company command a revenue premium on its loyal elites. Each year UA must validate the financial benefit of E+ and its passed. Remove E+ and the financial position at UA worsens. There seem to be a lot of UA hatters on the management and financial state of the airline - while its slipped downhill dramatically in the last six months with the economy, prior UA had fantastic cash generation and a plan to right the ship (sure there wasn't profitability every quarter but that’s really just accounting treatment). The problem for UA is every time things start to get better something else gets a lot worse. In my opinion UA had also weathered some of the most intense competition, Independence Air at IAD, WN at SFO/DEN/IAD, Virgin America at SFO. Everyone keeps trying to kick UA while its down but it’s still here. Make no mistake - the airline isn't perfect if they could hire a CEO that labor would rally around (although you'd have to go back 50+ years to find that) and the economy improves and UA reduces the standard deviation of its service (be more consistant) it could be a great airline again.

The piece that B6 doesn't like to talk about is that their legroom program, while marketed as something in the customer's interest, strategically got their A320s down to 150 seats, so they can fly with 3, not 4 FAs. This saves them a guaranteed expense on every flight.

I think this plays perfectly into the plan. By removing 1 row plus 1 additional seat (presumably from the back), the 738s go to 150 seats.

seats would have to be taken off is sets of 3.

I don't know, my (admittedly non-expert) opinion on this is that E+ is one of the only things UA has done right in the last few years. I'll admit that I am biased based on my height (6'4") but when I was elite on UA I at least knew that my last minute $1,000+ transcon purchase would almost always secure me a comfortable coach seat. On AS, those good seats are so limited that they are usually unavailable to high yield last-minute purchasers and instead are given to frequent flyers who booked the lowest fare buckets long ago. As other have said, UA claims that the product generates revenue in terms of buy-ups, but I suspect it also generates revenue by swaying higher revenue frequent last-minute bookers to stay loyal to UA rather than flying just about anyone else. That, of course, could change if any other major airline decided to adopt a similar E+ model.

UA's problem is that it does just about everything else wrong and manages to provide some of the worst service of any airline on the planet. If UA could just fix its broken corporate culture it would be a dream airline.