sltlyamusd

Eastbay1K

Hubris? Really? In this instance? It is a matter of expecting a promised delivery of certain creature comforts during our travels. I enjoy my IFE. And this is not compare and contrast of what is more important. Furthermore, I'm not getting better schedules. I just spent a small bucket of dough for a pair of SFO/MEX one way tickets to get me to my MEX/SCL award start, because AS can't get me to MEX anymore.

But back specifically to the IFE, it isn't like a menu isn't distributed anymore. You still get your food, and you can still (generally) pre-order it, so you'll know what you're getting. This is like getting your food, but you need to bring your own plates and utensils if you want to eat.

You know what email I received this morning? Yes, just within the past few hours. You've made it to Platinum Medallion® status, now it's time to enjoy it. Here are some of the Platinum benefits you'll experience
I never thought I'd ever join the DL program. Instead, I matched a year ago, had short term Platinum, was Gold for most of this year, and now Platinum once again until early 2020. No, this is obviously not because the elimination of mid-con IFE players. But it doesn't help re: future travel on the "tipping the scales" when all things are otherwise equal, at least for me.

chrisl137

It's even more than just the weight - consumer electronics improve so quickly that even the newest seatback IFE will never be able to keep up with what passengers are already carrying as far as image quality. Plus there's maintenance on top of that. The Digi-eplayers make more sense because the upgrade path is much simpler than with seatback IFE, but given the number of screens I'm usually carrying, it seems silly to spend mass on screens in the seats. Supply power and USB charging port to every seat and let people use their own devices. It would be nice if they had seats that had the fancy spring clamps so you can clamp your tablet or phone into the seat in front of you, though, just to not have to hold it or have the table deployed all the time.

PVDtoDEL

When I travel for work, I only bring my work laptop (which has terrible image quality and I prefer not to download personal entertainment content onto). When I travel for pleasure, I bring no laptop at all. I've been using the same iPhone for 4 years and have no plans to upgrade. If I'm going to watch a film on an airplane, it'll be because the airline provides IFE. Many of my friends are the same way - and perhaps we're all dinosaurs, but I think it's unlikely (we're all in our 20s). In my experience, flights are one of the only times when I'd want to watch entertainment on a screen - I spend enough time staring at a computer all day at work, and the last thing I want outside of work is more screen time. I'm not going to invest in a better quality screen if I have no utility for it apart from some fraction of the ~25 hours a month I spend inflight..

Therefore, I don't think that the assumption that everybody carries a better screen than AS can provide is realistic. That said, perhaps I should thank AS for reminding me that I have a long reading list that I should work on..

jiburi

Enjoy it.

For me, spending $9000 on one airlines for the Platinum privilege of being on the upgrade list, often without success, was hardly worth it. Id rather spend my $9000 elsewhere. On top of that, as Platinum, the earn rate of 9 skymiles per dollar means you need to spend minimum of $2777 for a roundtrip domestic ticket (if at 25000 miles), but quite often more as Delta now have unpublished pricing. I'm not sinking my money into a program who is dishonest to its members.

I do agree with this statement. Alaska seem to be doing very little to find a niche of differentiating itself from other carriers. All of what they had seem to be slowing disappearing....and soon looking more and more like WN.
Jiburi

Eastbay1K

If I were SEA based, and AS could get me where I need or want to go most of the time, it would be a different story. I simply cannot get where I'm going on AS at times, or without some convoluted routing, or connecting to an AA codeshare that doesn't price properly. I'm buying discounted F on DL (and its international partners) and getting my status pretty easily. Agreed on the points I'm earning not having that much value, but it isn't as if I'm abandoning the Eskimo. But I'm not playing upgrade lottery on either AS or DL on anything but short hops.

As someone who has played the mileage game for 32 years, who is almost as old and bitter as BOB W, creature comforts in the moment play a lot more of a role in my choice of travel than illusory dreams of grand vacations with my miles and points at some future point. Not that I haven't been the beneficiary of some very nice travel over the years via my various mileage and point banks. But the "in the moment" experience, does not include having my head crunched over holding my phone while trying to eat my gormay kale and polenta.

eponymous_coward

How's that? WN doesn't have Basic Economy/Saver Fares. WN doesn't charge for baggage. WN allows free changes/cancel and retaining the value of the ticket. MVPGs and 75ks lose most their benefits on Saver Fares, but WN doesn't punish you for buying WGA tickets.

It's likely closer to being closer to NK, if you look at AS F as a version of the Spirit "Big Front Seat" that comes with food and beverage, and a better FFP. NK's reliability is considerably up compared to a few years ago. Their fleet is young.

And the reason why AS and the US3 are chasing NK in making their product look like it?

https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea...-7-50-tickets/

Airlines are not in business to make FlyerTalkers feel warm and fuzzy. They're in it to make money. A lot of people pan FR, G4, F9 and NK, but they sure make money.

If you're SEA-based, DL can get you to a lot of the same places AS can, plus a whole lot more out of SLC/MSP/DTW/ATL that AS will never get you to because they can't offer connectivity for, because a nonstop from SEA is LOL-worthy, outside of an AA quasi-partnershio that is weak sauce now.

So far DL's success is coming at the expense of others out of SEA like UA/WN. We will see what happens over the next decade.

I place no faith in princes, or that AS MP "mile for a mile" is going to stay a differentiator forever (people were saying AA's program was a differentiator post-US merger, look at what happened). It's a way more diffuse, nerdy, FTer-y value proposition than the "I get free bags and I can change my plans and not get hosed" that WN offers.

fly18725

I think your use of the word "promise" is inappropriate and indicative of the sense of entitlement that permeates FlyerTalk. To continue with the brutal honesty, no airline is targeting customers that value IFE above other factors. It is telling that there are only two airlines (DL and B6 for now) committed to in-seat IFE for domestic flights while 4 (AA, AS, HA, UA) are removing or discontinuing in favor of streaming.

eponymous_coward

B6 has NYC as a hub to draw passengers from (top premium market in the world). AS doesn't, just SFO and LAX (which puts them at a disadvantage to everyone on premium transcon; the Big 3 have hubs on TWO sides of NYC-California (UA for SFO/EWR, everyone for LAX/JFK/EWR), B6 has the bigger hub in NYC vs. SFO/LAX). VX's F product was getting long in the tooth by the time the merger showed up; AS would have likely had to commit to a Mint-esque product refresh with lie-flats. Their beancounters did the beancounting (and presumably have better exposure to VX's financials than all the FT EVPs of Revenue Management and Operations) and went "nope, let's do 40 inch pitch in F with recliners fleetwide and call it good".

I might note that this is a better hard product than AA's Project Oasis rollout and DL F (pitchwise). We'll see if it gets a death of a thousand cuts. But it doesn't even exist as a product yet for pmVX (0 planes configured for it), and there's still work on the pmAS side too (0 planes in final config).

Eastbay1K

It is not inappropriate in that it is what the airline sold me. It is not any sense of entitlement, other than what I contracted for, of which I'm entitled. When you order something from a menu, such as Duck a l'orange, and the plate comes and instead of your expected plate, there's a dry piece of duck and a packet of ketchup, notwithstanding the menu description ... in a pre-pay no refunds restaurant ... is your expectation inappropriate? Are you suffering a sense of entitlement?

AS "sold" me status, for a year, and enticed me to earn status, for the better part of another year, where much of the route network would have IFE devices. AS sold F tickets, which at the time of the purchase, would have IFE devices. No entitlement here. I am not to proud to fly WN as need be, and I get what I contract for, and if I want guaranteed bin space and a good shot at an aisle seat, I pay more for a supplemental contract.

Tack

rustykettel

Might be 1 plane in final config on the pmAS side...

eponymous_coward

OK, so there's one in that config. Maybe. What AS plans on delivering won't be fleetwide until 2020, at which point AA will be densifying their F seats and ripping out IFE, and UA and WN won't be adding IFE anywhere.

nearlysober

Fallacy of relative privation (also known as "appeal to worse problems" or "not as bad as" fallacy) – dismissing an argument or complaint due to the existence of more important problems in the world, regardless of whether those problems bear relevance to the initial argument.



I don't see anyone saying that they "believe IFE is more important"... but that doesn't mean we cannot have this discussion.
You want to talk about better schedules and networks? Start a thread for it.

fly18725