And in some cases it may get the plane down below 150 pax, <FA's.

That may be a win for CO, but not necessarily for FA's.

Absolutely. CO and I have agreed to differ - they don't have a price~comfort mix that comes close to fitting my needs. I fly Premium Economy on BA, VS, NZ, etc. across the Atlantic while for domestic flights I'm more likely to take WN because it's more comfortable than CO, there are more non-stops where I want to go and the flexible fares are more realistic.

Instead of flying AUS-IAH to connect with BA I use one-way car rentals, so the only thing left is the return IAH-AUS where I fold my legs into CO's excrutiatingly uncomfortable coach seats - thankfully I'm only there for 1:15 - 1:30 in total.

One inch makes a huge difference in comfort. I'm 6'4". I'm fine on Continental as long as I have an exit row or bulkhead. But 31" is extremely uncomfortable, which I was reminded of last week. I had an aisle and basically had to lift the aisle side armrest and keep my legs in the aisle to make it bearable. I could not extend my legs under the seat in front of me. And luckily, the guy in front did not recline.

Compare that to Southwest with a 32" pitch. I am always fairly comfortable when I fly them no matter what seat I am in; even the middle seat is bearable.

E+ on Continental would be huge. Once we have access to it on United this spring, I will probably shift some of travel to them on routes where I know I won't get upgraded or where the schedule makes more sense. As it is now, I go out of my way to fly on Continental.

I will be the first to agree that E+ is a much better seating experience than E- on UA (and by inference, Y on CO). However, for me, standard Y on CO is much better than E- on UA. For some reason, the UA E- seat is terrible (for me). I would say that the CO exit row and bulkhead seats are comparable to UA's E+ seating.

The biggest problem I see is that the person who was adamently against E+ was the new CEO himself. I distinctly remember him saying that CO could not replace the lost revenue from seats removed to create the E+ section, and that passengers were not willing to pay a premium for these seats. So, until someone can convince him that the metric for premium coach seating has changed, we will be speculating about rumors such as this one.

One other comment. I also agree that if this rumor is true, then I would be more concerned about a possible merger going foward, since the two airlines would be very closely aligned with their product. All that would be needed would be to get the computers together, and then watch out. (I know, very simplified ;))

That's just baloney. First, economics often force passengers to fly in coach. First/Business can be 10x the price of a coach ticket. As the growing number of carriers offering some type of premium economy suggests, there IS a market for something in between coach and first/business. There are people who will pay a modest premium for just a little extra space so they can be comfortable, but don't want/need to pay a multiple to get all the bells and whistles of the true premium cabin. It's clearly not something you can do and pass on the cost to all passengers (like AA's failed MRTC), but segmenting the market has in fact proved profitable for many carriers.

Plus there's the incremental revenue from already loyal elites who may not pay directly for E+, but add to United's revenue by returning because of the privilege. We know as well as anyone that that's the main purpose of First Class nowadays. Very few occupants are revenue. I'll bet it's also the case for E+.

I wonder if the UA executives are already including that in their estimates of revenue attributable to E+.

One other thing I've brought up in the United threads about E+ is that it regularly goes out sparse from BOS... That is, if the FAs interdict all the mice who dart forward when they aren't looking. I'm mainly talking about transcons. The point: I have wondered at times if it would survive. But aparently because of all the above reasons, the pros outweigh the cons for United.

and all "L" fares are not created equal
 

L fares, etc. vary so wildly from airport to airport.....

My RT's are often approaching just shy of FC fares from not so many years ago (less than 10). (And a chunk of that difference I suppose is for the "privilege" of flying in a SAAB)

It is almost an injustice to pay so much for so little. E+ would give me some solace that I can pay extra at times for that touch. But I digress.

What is amazing is how much play this thread is getting. I realize it has come up before and even this thread is all about a rumor. However, based on responses from some long time and personally respected forum members, this whole idea really hits a nerve. There is a growing devaluation occuring over access to the principle benefit, EUA's, and availability of that benefit.

I see it as a revenue enhancer for Continental. It is a service that I'd pay for. I'm not alone.

I hope Continental is listening.

Double?? Double Zero is still ZERO. But Plus 4, I like!

6'- 02"

B7

haha!

Also, it feels like the UA E+ seats recline more. E+ on international flights (some of us can't upgrade all the time) makes a huge difference.

To add more levels to the rumor, I talked to a friend of mine who works in Houston who said that:

"to answer your question about E+, it is being looked at but the flip side is Elite upgraes will dissapear if E+ is implimented. Less seats = less money. If you remember when we put in new flat seats in J, the extra revenue earned had to justify the revenue lost from the removal of Y seats. This airline is very driven by numbers"

What's odd about that is that UA and CO have been apparently synchronizing their products.

UA, for example, has implemented their version of EUA (UDU) and retains E+.

It would be odd, then, for CO to add E+ but remove EUA.

The wags, of course, will say that this would be not necessarily be a big loss since the actual incidence of EUA's has been reducing, at least through the anecdotal evidence provided here on FT (we'll apparently never have hard numbers since airlines seem to fear any real transparency when it comes to upgrades).

However, doing away with EUA's would certainly be inconsistent with the recent policy of synchronizing the product with UA...

Never say never, but there is no way CO is going to get rid of Elite Upgrades - not only did UA change to synchronize, every other major US carrier offers them in exactly the same way except AA, who offers free/unlimited to top tiers only.

It would be business suicide - upgrades are the crust of the pizza. If they are gone, I'd bet that 80% of the people on this board would be looking for a new airline, yours truly included.

I don't read that as they're literally eliminating EUA, rather it sounds like they're thinking of removing F seats to install E+, so they don't lose Y seats.

Fewer F seats means you can kiss EUA goodbye (figuratively, at least for those of us who haven't already said buh-bye to EUA's for the most part).

Which is exactly what I warned about earlier in the thread - so in actuality, we should be pushing them NOT to install E+. Frankly, my EUA % is about 95% and the other 5% is in an exit row. I do not want E+ if it will reduce the F seat inventory.

I hope everyone will be happy flying in their E+ coach seat while the 12 F seats on the 737 fleet are never filled with upgrades. Does everyone remember 12F on the 753, 14F on the 738, 8F on the 733/NG and 6F on the 735? Do we want 8F again on the NG and 12F on everything else?

We (and especially Cigarman) worked long and hard to convince CO that reducing F was the wrong move. Let's not revisit that again.