Will UA p.s. service come to EWR?
 

Surprised that I can't find a thread on this (maybe I'm not doing the right search).

It seems to me peculiar that the "new UA" would continue its fancy p.s. service to California from JFK and not launch it from its major NYC hub at EWR. Has there been any hints as to what the future holds?

For purely selfish reasons, as a new 1K, I'd rather not have p.s. service from EWR if it means I lose my upgrade privileges. CO's current FC transcon service is adequate for me. The four-course dinner is actually pretty good and the better seat would only be truly useful on the eastbound red-eyes.

My guess is no.

p.s. is all about the O&D 3-class traffic on LAX-JFK and SFO-JFK. Not BUR-NYC, not LGA-OAK, etc. ;) I don't see them adding EWR to that mix.

That's interesting though -- you could imagine that with CO's European connections at EWR, it would be something to introduce to benefit West Coast folks -- although if they were happy enough with domestic F connections before, why change now.

As for rich bankers solely flying between SFO/LAX and NYC, JFK is not that holy is it? Is JFK so entrenched as the business-preferred airport? I'll admit, UA's operations at JFK are a bit more civilized than anything CO at Newark.

Been there, tried that... When BF was first launched there were frequent widebody services with full BF service between EWR and LAX/SFO. It was wonderful while it lasted... Whilst restoring it for connecting traffic might have made sense so long as CO had no hub West of IAH, I don't think it does for the new United with LAX and SFO as international hubs.

Won't they presumably route some 3-class international birds LAX/SFO-EWR-xxx? Unless I'm missing something, that seemed to be the approach - keep PS for the O&D on SFO-LAX-JFK, and then sprinkle in a few 3-class transcons to EWR for these premium pax to make connections there.

Well PS is moving to a 2-class product starting next year I believe. It will be a C/Y offering with C being lie flat seats, so maybe they will expand it to EWR, who knows?

Agree that since JFK is such a small station for UA it does seem to have a somewhat more exclusive feel to it, compared to the hub at EWR. Also getting to JFK is somewhat easier than EWR as there are many ways to LI from downtown and midtown Manhattan, compared to just the Holland Tunnel to EWR from lower manhattan. And thus JFK is a more attractive option than EWR to those frequent traveling bankers and celebs!

This is true, but there are so many smaller European destinations that can be reached only from EWR and not LAX that I actually think it would make sense to have more premium cabin availability between the West Coast and EWR. But to echo LHCVG, rather than extending ps to EWR, I think the better solution is to have one widebody fly morning eastbound LAX-EWR and afternoon westbound EWR-LAX for the connecting European traffic. Basically, they could move the 777 that now flies LAX-IAD as flights 950/951 over to LAX-EWR.

Folks always suggesting that it makes sense to expand p.s., for instance, to IAD, but I just don't see a market. Savvy business travelers avoid EWR like the plague and those paying C/F prices for p.s. are savvy enough to prefer JFK.

As someone who flies paid premium on 2+/hr flights, I'd love p.s. expanded as much as possible, but it's not likely.

This questions had cropped up before but the big thing against it is that the p.s. 757s have the smallest capacity in the mainline fleet, 110 seats. The A319 has 120 seats. Hub-to-hub flights are going to need more capacity than that, so there will likely be more 2-class 757s between California and EWR. There might be an international aircraft repositioning flights between SFO/LAX and EWR as there are to IAD but UA has been reducing the number of those flights. UA might move them from IAD to EWR since EWR is slot constrained and IAD has plenty of capacity.

Everything I've seen on here supposedly from UA is to the effect that JFK-LAX and SFO is essentially a distinct market niche that won't work virtually anywhere else. About the only exception I can foresee would be if they were to get perimeter exempted slots at DCA for DCA-LAX, and even that would probably require refitting a few more planes to serve the additional PS route.

Yes, if you only look at UA/CO - UA having gotten rid of SFO-CDG etc. However, if you look at the whole of *A, there are very few if any European destinations of any importance that don't have a premium class product with a one-stop connection either with UA through LHR/FRA, or with LH or LX through FRA/MUC/ZRH, or even with TK through IST (OK, so C seats on intra-European routes suck, but that's another story...).

UACO needs capacity on hub-to-hub routes and I don't see ps fitting that bill. There are really only a couple routes that I think would work as ps besides the existing routes:

1. SFO/LAX-DCA (if UA were able to get the slot-pair)
2. SFO/LAX-LGA (if the perimeter rule was lifted, although JFK would probably go away then)
3. BUR-JFK (was supposedly almost started as part of the Disney contract, but seems unlikely given that BUR is sadly now all UX)

I think LAX/SFO-IAD/EWR wouldn't happen since they are hub-to-hub. LAX/SFO-BOS probably won't happen b/c the yields aren't great.

Interesting comments.

Has anyone specifically heard that p.s. service makes money?

Seems like something of an odd product given its limited reach. I'm wondering if CO's EWR transcon service would be more profitable out of JFK. But it does seem like Smisek has decided to keep ps, at least for now. As someone noted, they are retrofitting for 2-class service.

Not necessarily. They also rotate them at the far end in many cases or put them on shorter hops between hubs depending on the utilization needs. It could go either way. But unless they have sufficient capacity to ensure that every flight will have the service then marketing it that way is a bad plan. And unless you're marketing it that way you don't have the ability to drive the revenue premiums.

Not sure on profitability, but UA's RASM on these two routes blows everyone else out of the water.