Just curious, but if CO already ranks higher in actual customer satisfaction why the need to break them from their habits?

I know that you are not a satisfied customer but certainly that doesn't mean that everyone else isn't.

I just want to know when, with my CO plat status, I get to stop having to speak with India when I need telephone help with my UA rezzies!

Because of market segmentation.

Those awards indicate CO is appealing to a general mass, which is fine, but they are also potentially neglecting a valuable subset of customers at the same time. I'm not sure what the average Platinum or 1K is worth, but probably on the order of magnitude of $15K or $20K -- some more and some less, obviously.

Your paid F customer is not necessarily of significant importance to a mainstream survey like J.D. Power. But I can tell you the party of 3 in paid 3-class F on my JFK-SFO was of significant importance to UA.

The problem with any mainstream survey is that all votes are equal, and whether it's popular or not, different customers have different value to any business.

To some extent, at least, the reputation for excellent service is no longer entirely merited as CAL has been coasting on the coattails of Gordon Bethune's airline for some years now...

After all, since the Bethunian heyday, look how far we've come:

1. No more pillows
2. No more blankets in Y
3. Checked bag fees
4. Fees to book exit rows (remember Larry Kellner's sworn promise that CO would never charge a fee to assign any seats?)
5. CO has been a leader in imposing the industry's highest sets of fees (change fees, rebooking fees, OP mileage redemption fees, etc.)
6. Soon no more free meals in Y, as diminished as these have become
7. No internet available on any a/c
8. No free IFE on domestic Y

Now, of course, most airlines also have some or all of these items/issues as part of their service; the point is that CO simply can't claim to have the commanding lead in customer service it once did.

And, of course, CO continues to have the least comfortable Y seat in North America.

In the meantime, a lot has been happening around the industry, and outside of IAH, where the combined airline will maintain its only captive hub (I don't include CLE because it's too small), the potential customers of the new UA will have choices if Smisek is too aggressive at cutting cost and thus service.

Very good points, as most of the quantifiable stuff probably puts CO as an "average" carrier at this point, possibly below average in terms of F amenities with the pillows/drinks thing.

That's probably why when they talk about service these days, they can't talk about anything quantifiable. They've resorted to more marketing mumbo-jumbo. Read Jeff's piece in this month's mag, and he's boasting about the "Working Together" culture, whatever the heck that means.

Call it whatever you want, I just want to see service improvements on the customer side. Once they start kicking butt again, they they can pat themselves on the back.

In the meantime, they're just an average airline

I have always found this claim interesting. If EXP really is so awesome as many folks here - whether CO, UA or AA elites - claim then why does UA have any elites left? If passengers at IAD, DEN and SFO have so many choices why wouldn't they fly AA for the better top-tier benefits rather than stick with UA? After all, EXP is better, right?

The reality is that the folks paying full fare - the ones claimed above to be most valuable - are shopping on schedule, not on coddling. They always have and they always will. Everything else is (very) secondary.

AA EXP is better than UA 1K.

I think that AA's schedules don't work for some, and their status challenge policies are prohibitive. People don't want to lose the top status while they earn it back.

I have a feeling that will change, and AA will be aggressively poaching CO/UA Elites after this merger.

That's just not the way a free market works.

You know all those intersections all over America with three or four gas stations? How come people don't just buy all their gas at one of the gas stations?

The answer, of course, is because each gas station is forcing the other to be competitive.

Same with airlines at non-fortress hubs...

And, yes, this principle only applies to some extent in the airline business, as, even in markets such as NYC or ORD, where there are lots of choices, some routes are primarily handled by one carrier or an other.

Regarding your full fare passenger example, I think the contrary is more likely to be true. To the extent there is real choice, say UA PS JFK-LAX or AA Flagship JFK-LAX. The schedules are essentially the same, the prices are the same. Passengers will pick the carrier that provides them the best service for their needs (aka coddling).

When there is no real choice (i.e. full-fare pax on a specific schedule served by only one carrier) then it's simply a commodity.

But again, the commodity principle is removed the instant there is real choice, especially for full-fare or premium-class customers.

Perhaps below average when you consider another point of mine from my earlier post:

"And, of course, CO continues to have the least comfortable Y seat in North America."

To me, that is the absolutely most wretched part of flying CO. I could even live with the brutal lack of leg room.

But I will never forget getting out of my CO Y seat in LAX after a transcon and quite literally going directly to a chiropractor...

There are so many, far superior seats in the airline business today.

Bocastephen accurately waxes about the terrific AC seat. But I recently flew JFK-HKG on CX on one of their refurbished 777's. Their new Y seat is wonderfully supportive and comfortable. I walked off that 15+ hr flight feeling perfectly fine...

OMG, you literally have me cracking up over here. Not because of your pain, but because I have used the chiropractor joke so many times and I have been berated by the COol-Aid COntingent for exaggerating, and here you are claiming to have done just that.

It is so far from being a joke...I still vividly remember hobbling out of the plane, stumbling like the Jack Nicholson character at the end of "The Shining."

Full disclosure: I have a chronic lower back problem and sciatica, so for me, this type of problem is a big deal.

That flight was actually a big turning point for me.

As an OP Gold in 2005, I went 0 for 25 on upgrades (flights all over the U.S. on all different kinds of fares).

My only upgrade that year was a IAH-BTR, a 30-min jaunt on a 735...

I discovered that CO was only pleasant as long as I got upgraded. The coach experience was deeply wretched.

After that, I shifted my business primarily to B6.

Now I fly whatever airline gets me to where I want to go the quickest at the lowest cost. That still includes CO.

Yes and no. If the customers have a choice in carrier schedule and price are a bigger deal than the logo on the side of the plane for most folks. To extend that gas station analogy, if I'm headed north at that intersection and the Shell station is on the southbound side I'll almost certainly go to the Chevron even if I am a "Shell customer" so as to avoid the annoyance and extra troubles of navigating across traffic and dealing with that. The extra effort to be loyal is not repaid in any meaningful manner. The product is the same (enough) and my time is worth more than that loyalty is. I firmly believe that many airline passengers behave the same way, despite reported trends on FT.

How many routes have real competition? Shockingly few, IMO, if you are hub-based. Even if that hub is DEN or IAD or SFO rather than EWR or CLE or IAH. That's the point I'm making there. CO has so-called "fortress hubs" while UA apparently only has regular hubs. Yet passengers from those hubs fly on UA all the time. Why? Schedule and price, just like the CO passengers. The connecting passengers are the ones who have true choice and they always have. And those guys fly on schedule and price more than loyalty program or in-flight amenities, too.

Sure, but let's use more airline-related loyalty items in your value proposition. If you were accruing Chevron points, and you got double points because you filled up there weekly, and after every 10 fills, you get a free tank or whatever the reward is, you've the completely distorted the equation. It's no longer that you just don't want to make a left turn. Now you may make that turn, or find a way to hit that station on the way back when it's on the right side, or maybe hit a different Chevron near your origin or whatever. If they tinker enough with the value proposition, then all of a sudden you may be more inclined to do it.


It really varies by the person and situation. If you're a conference speaker, and you must leave SFO at a certain time, and go back to Houston at a certain time, then yeah, you're stuck. But many business travellers have some degree of flexibility in their travels. Most managers won't care if you took the 2pm SFO-IAH or the 2pm SFO-DEN-IAH or the 2pm OAK-HOU, if you're trying to get to a business meeting the next day. So long as you made it, and didn't take off excessive time on the day before.

It's definitely possible to maintain loyalty and status as an airline while being a business traveller -- many customers do it. In fact, to your point, with CO's fortress hubs, it's probably easier to do it on CO than it is on other carriers, simply because of CO's COncentration of flights at EWR and IAH.

Compare to say UA at ORD or SFO, where UA doesn't hold nearly the same market share as CO does at EWR or IAH. There are relatively few markets ex-IAH where a competitor has more service than CO does. The same cannot be said for UA at say SFO. CO has 2x the flights SFO-EWR than UA does. UA has only one SFO-MSP while DL has 6-7. DL has several SFO-ATL, while UA doesn't even serve that nonstop. SFO-IAH has what 6-8 nonstops on CO, but just one on UA. SFO-DFW has at least 6 on AA, but just 1-2 on UA. SFO-JFK has high frequency and high-end service, but so does AA and DL. SFO-MIA is an AA route, but not a UA route. US has more SFO-PHL than UA does. And so on.

There are many markets out of SFO where UA is not optimal, yet UA maintains strong customers here (and often widebodies to hubs to connect them to the destinations they need). I'd have to look up the market share numbers to get the exact numbers, but IIRC UA at SFO is some like < 40%, while CO at IAH is close to 80%.

Now take similar markets out of IAH, and you'll find that CO has significant service to those same markets, even when faced with competition (e.g., both CO and AA have significant offerings IAH-DFW). If CO is not the leader in service to those markets in terms of frequency, they're often a close second.

That's why the "fortress hub" concern keeps coming up (and it has historically been reflected in CO's loyalty program). IAHers may technically have a choice, but CO doesn't have to expend a lot of effort and resources to get business they would have likely gotten anyway. UA doesn't have this sort of luxury with competitive hubs or low market share at their hubs, and as such has to offer stronger perks and rewards and better Elite customer service in order to win and retain these customers.

First, you have no data regarding the flying habits of UA frequent flyers (neither do I), but as far as your assertion that there us shockingly little competition, I do not agree.

Virtually every route has competition. At big hubs, there is a lot of competition.

If I want to travel NYC to Los Angeles non-stop, I can fly AA, B6, CO, DL, UA or VX.

Even to most smaller markets, there is at least a choice of two carriers.

The competition to major overseas destinations (LHR, LGW, FRA, CDG HKG, NRT, PEK, etc.) is fierce.

Clearly, the choice is lesser from smaller airports, but even here there are usually two carriers substantially serving that airport.

On the other hand, there is no question that one of the major objectives of frequent flyer programs is to lock customers into that airline (or alliance). So the customers remain loyal to a given airline not so much because of a lock of competition but because of a perceived benefit from remaining loyal to a given carrier's frequent flyer program.

Which brings us back to the original point: If there were truly no real, or substantial competition, there would be no need for loyalty programs.

Their very existence demonstrates that competition means the airlines have to work hard to foster their customers' loyalty.

It's time for this thread to rename itself. :-)

In all seriousness, we need the mods to create a 'merger' sticky. The *A one worked well, although it came late.