UA upgrades...is it "mid-year" yet?
 

Hi there, just putting this out to the FT universe. Why is this seeming like the *A transition, where an announcement was made and some non-committal time frame given, and as that nebulous time frame approached there was still no better detail being delivered? Maybe we’ll be told after it has taken effect like the R1 program changes (yeah still cranky about that). ;):p

CO Insider PM'd me the exact start date, but he told me I couldn't tell anyone else.

Sorry.

Not midyear yet. Not even E+ season yet :rolleyes:

HAHAHAHA Sure he did :)

I heard that with UA being the new rulers, UA elites would have access to upgrades on CO but that CO elites would not have access to UA upgrades or even E+.

I don't see why they can't announce the exact date if one exists. I suspect they're having integration issues between reservation systems and are not able to predict this yet.

Either that, or the merger work -- due diligence, regulatory paperwork, oversight by legions of lawyers, etc., has pushed this to the backburner.

Leaving tomorrow on a UA trip... had to pay for E+ despite being CO Gold, I hope for the last time. (But at least they have an E+ option which CO doesn't).

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Very amusing. However, the likelihood of this happening is zero. One thing that is sure to happen is that CO elites will be given the extra legroom in E+ on UA but UA elites will receive nothing comparable when flying main cabin CO--but this is old news.

The two are going to happen at the same time.

I'm sure they have an idea but why commit to a specific date before it is actually fully baked. Yes, people just don't know right now but that's better than offering a target date and then potentially missing it.

I'm betting nothing will change until the merger is done and the carriers become one.

I'll take that bet.

Fed Approval
 

As soon as they get past the bureaucrats

(They most likely have a scheme in mind)

They said mid-2010. They reconfirmed mid-2010. Why wouldn't they deliver at about that time?

This is a big effort for the IT departments at both airlines. Coordinating and making that happen can take time - and as we all know - schedules can slip. Hence - no reason to commit.

My view of mid-year is sometime between May-Aug. If I were to guess - I think we should be thinking more like August.

This activity was planned and is unrelated to the merger dates.

They made the claim before the merger was announced. I think the powers that be will find it much easier to develop a consistent program across the merged carriers than try and jury-rig a temporary solution while the companies are deep in thought trying to figure out how to integrate the more important facets of their business.

Frankly, reciprocity is not that important right now - they have bigger fish to fry.

I disagree. Reciprocity is now more important as it demonstrates that the two airlines will become one. You're not exactly going to get consumer buy-in to the merger if the two sides treat them radically different. This is one way where they can align themselves pretty quickly, and they probably have a lot of the legwork done already since they've been aware of it and have been working on it for some time.

Further, the merger is expected to close late this year. It'll probably be at least another year after that before they're all on one system (and/or on one code). They're not going to want to wait 1.5 to 2 years before they do this.