joshwex90

Once they merge, there will be less issues for the PM forums, but they will still serve a purpose as you will have the PMCO flights and the PMUA flights. But when does that change? When the crew lists are finalized or when the fleet is standardized?

GoAmtrak

Well, look at US and HP. Aren't their FAs still flying separately, seven years post-merger? In any case, FriendlySkies is right. There are too many idiosyncrasies unique to each PM carrier's operations that will persist for some time to justify shutting the PM forums soon. Traffic will continue to drop on each, but there's no good reason they shouldn't stay active.

Mods are to be applauded for their yeoman's work in keeping the right threads in the right places. ^

21A

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9700; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.706 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

I'll cast a vote in favor of leaving the subfora at least for historic threads. I don't see that there would be any use in muddling CO threads from 2005 with UA threads from 2005.

It would be fine to lock down posting of new threads there, though...

aacharya

Let's see:

The FAs (as others noted) and pilots will still be split.

The planes are not one style.

There are CO and UA lovers/bashers who will still have their own threads.

Let me be clear - I'd love one thread March 3, 2012. But it would be filled with garbage from folks too lazy to search, or filled with rants about flying that weekend.

FlyinHawaiian

Speaking for myself (and not the other moderators), I don't have an exact answer for the community on this at this time; sorry.

I can say it's highly unlikely that the existing CO and UA forums will be closed immediately after this weekend. As always, we'll look to what we think best serves the members in determining how best to structure the MileagePlus Forum.

I can also share that we've been in contact with UA Insider and it sounds like they plan on trying to provide updates in the days to come, so we'll try and work on a format that can accomodate that.

FlyinHawaiian, Co-Moderator
United MileagePlus Forum

FriendlySkies

bolding mine

Perhaps you could offer a poll to all members.

joshwex90

Thank you for everything you do in maintaining these forums.

mduell

Very few travelers are flying only sCO or sUA flights/planes these days. When reservations are combined in a couple days that's a huge source of topics that will no longer have different policies. Even if the pilots are still in separate unions, they're operating as the same carrier with the same specs. There's so much more in common than different for UA FT users I think the PM forums should be closed or merged.

Should they open subforums for PMCapital, PMPioneer, etc too? Some people may still have issues to discuss...

Strom

Can you be more specific? It's been stated many times that DL has sub-forums for NW and PMDL, but that doesn't really do much for me. If the DL forum jumped off a bridge ... ?

Looking at the current PMUA forum, virtually every thread should actually be in the consolidated forum: connection times at IAD, baggage policies, being bumped from a flight, Lufthansa upgrades -- none of these relate to PMUA, but all are interesting to me as a current UA flier. There's a single thread, Remembering United that actually makes sense in this sub-forum. However, I think we'd all be happy with Remembering PMUA and Remembering PMCO threads pinned at the top of the consolidated forum, anyhow.

I don't actually have strong feelings on this one, but no one seems to have come forward with actual examples that justify having these PMUA/CO sub-forums. It feels like a weird nostalgic attachment until someone can articulate value beyond having an entire sub-forum dedicated to "This one time, at band camp...".

To be clear, I'm proposing we leave them intact (to avoid the confusion of merging years of posts), but close them to new posts. I realize no one's soliciting input and I'm not questioning the moderators' abilities to manage the situation, but I do think it's a more interesting discussion than "the DL forum did it this way, kthxbye".

FriendlySkies

Is there a reason not to keep the PMUA & PMCO sub-forums? Even if we move all relevant threads to the consolidated forum, there's still a lot of things that are no longer relevant to the current operation of the airline. However, it would be nice to go back and read about them down the road.

Are you suggesting that the old threads should be deleted, or should every (and I mean everything since the CO & UA forums started) be moved into one?

joshwex90

I think it makes most sense, as has been suggested above, and has been the policy for a while at US (until the 2 sub-forums were simply retired) that they remain open, but both sub-forums get locked, preventing new threads from being posted in them. You can leave the threads there, but people can only post in the consolidated.
I admit there's a problem with my suggestion: what to do about active threads

Strom

I think we may be saying the same thing: keep the sub-forums (for archival purposes and to avoid having to merge them), but close them to new threads. That's DL's current policy for their forums/sub-forums.

In other words, can we please change the policy to limit posts to PMUA and PMCU sub-forums to old threads (i.e. no new threads)?

Like this: Announcement: Posting Policy in the Delta SkyMiles Forum

FriendlySkies

That addresses my concerns; thanks.

Ocn Vw 1K

Speaking also for myself, as an individual moderator, we're aware of what was done for the FT Delta/NW forums and we can emulate that and look at other examples as well.

Certainly, if we considered closing forums, we would, at a minimum, need to move over from the pre-merger forums any threads that had relevance in the Consolidated forum.

Following what FlyinHawaiian said, we want to do what serves the members in getting and discussing the information they need in as helpful way as practical.

Part of our decision will hinge on when the UA/CO airline operations are truly combined and seamless.

avidflyer

I there a way to make the pre-merger forums read only and still relevant in searches? That would be the best. I have a hard time bouncing between them as the most recent stuff is here but I do like to go back and read older stuff as well.