cerealmarketer

United Rebrands Premium Cabins, Upgrades Food, Entertainment, Amenities

CHICAGO, Feb. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- United Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of United Continental Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: UAL), today announced the company is upgrading its premium-cabin services to offer customers new food and beverage options, additional choices in in-flight entertainment, and – on long-haul international flights – new amenity kits, pillows and blankets.

United is also rebranding its international, long-haul premium-cabin services, introducing:

United Global First, the international first-class experience on three-cabin aircraft.
United BusinessFirst, the international business-class experience on two-cabin and three-cabin aircraft.

entropy

BusinessFirst and GlobalFirst .. which first class is first class?

FlyinHawaiian

The first post of thread has been edited to comple comply with the following FT Rule:

http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#q91

Thank you.

FlyinHawaiian, Co-Moderator
United MileagePlus Forum

UA-NYC

(emphasis mine) - This really says everything you need to know about branding & naming at COdbaUA these days

CAPT Tee

I would like E+ to be called EconomyFirst.

dinoscool3

Looks good ^

SEA1K4EVR

Hmmmm... well this is good news I suppose but the proof will literally be in the pudding... we'll see how the food is starting in Q2. And my apologies if this seems a little jaded, but when PS was introduced there was great fanfare about the upgraded service and then over time it slowly degraded (speaking about the food & fewer FA's in F). Here's hoping things will be different now. I prefer to be optimistic I think.

I'm happy about the transcon sundaes with 6 toppings.

It's interesting they're going to call both 2 class and 3 class business cabins "BusinessFirst". I certainly can understand that it's probably less confusing for them to do it that way instead of having 2 different business class products. This way they won't have to compensate travelers who booked BF on a 2 class plane that got swapped for a 3 class with lesser service. But at the same time, it devalues the Global First cabin a bit.

joel67

The implication is that the service will be the same in 2-class or 3-class BF, which would be nice (unless they degrade the 2-class BF). Note that one long-time difference between PMUA First and Business was that only First got toppings on their ice cream, but now the middle cabin gets it, too. They just need to upgrade the GF service some more, which they claim to be doing. We'll see.

if1km

http://ir.united.com/phoenix.zhtml?c...500&highlight=

Warmed Nuts!

IAHCOPLAT

The new North American inflight dining changes were announced Feb. 10 and are discussed in another post here in this Consolidated forum.

Here is the link. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ounced-ua.html

The other changes were previously previewed in other announcements to frequent flyers, but now it is good to see a press release about them.

Let's wait and see how the marketing hype translates into reality.

milepig

From reading this message, it sounds like the new 3-class Business is very similar to what was formerly offered in CO BF - 4 entrees, possibly better wine (time will tell), sundaes WITH toppings, etc.

Since I found CO's BF to be fairly similar to UAs F, I do wonder what they'll do to truly distinguish GF.

uastarflyer

+1 to all. What a cluster. They really need to work the word "Premier" into these as well. They don't use that term enough.

Also, last I checked, the US was on the globe. Its first class isn't global? And flights between the US and South America, or within Asia, aren't "global"?

The logo is a badly drawn globe after all.

Anyone know how "Philosophy" compares to Murad or H2O Spa? Is it cosmetic Freshpoo or a real brand?

Edit: answered my own question. Doesn't look like a downgrade.

SEA1K4EVR

True..they need a real GF signature product.. bring back the caviar and vodka-on-ice cart! And Dom.

FortFun

Here's the thread about service classes:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...e-classes.html

sxf24

Who cares what the cabins are called as long as the product and service provided is improved and consistently applied across the fleet.

Of course, there are some who will complain about anything...