PMCO 738 planes
 

For the second time in about a year, I ended up on a 'ghetto' PMCO 738. These lack any sort of IFE and have dark grey leather seats in F. The first row of F has a ton of legroom, set about 4 feet back from the bulkhead. The rest of F is pretty tight.

These planes don't seem to exist on SeatGuru, etc.

Here was the flight last night: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/U...514Z/SKBO/KIAH

Here it is on Cargo: http://www.unitedcargo.com/utilities/cp1/fltInfo.jsp

This plane sucks. Is there any way to avoid it? Or if I know I will be on it to be sure to get row 1?

These planes have temporary seats and there are a few of them in the system. Hopefully it won't be too long before they update all of them.

IIRC there was a FT thread on PMCO's seat company losing its license (something to due with records on fire retardent tests I think). These are in fact newer planes with temporary seats. I see them IAH --> SEA --> ANC somtimes. Not sure of any consistent way to avoid them.

Koito.

That's all you need to know to understand why these are a mess. They are mixed throughout the fleet and not dedicated to any particular routes so avoiding them is not easy.

I was on the Boeing Sky Interior version of one of these last week - and I loved it (but in Y). Brighter cabin, check. Bigger bins, check. AC power, check. More comfortable (maybe just newer) seats than the regular PMCO padded park benches, check.

The best part - no DTV, so visual peace and no $misek smirking in my face.

Of course, I'd be pissed if I was in paid F.

Well that just sucks. :td:

According to this there are eight of these beasts that have been flying in the PMCO and now UNITED fleet since August 2010.

Imagine that: CO/UNITED doing something fast rather than right....

I sure hope they do a better job with other new planes they buy...like the 787s. @:-)

I sort of get it that UNITED does not view most of South America as 'international', but c'mon. You'd think they could at least keep the ghetto birds off of the intercontinental routes...

There was no AC power on the FC seats in the 2 ghetto birds I have experienced. Not much leg room, either.

I do agree that not having Jeffrey smirking at me was the one positive of the experience.

I had this ghetto jet for a new hub to hub flight, IAH-SFO, which I was at like #18 on the upgrade list as a 1K, and this was pre 03 March!

That said, it didn't matter anyway, since no one got the DirecTV for free...there was nothing. I couldn't believe that they'd put a flight that was completely packed, serving two (presumably profitable) hubs on this horrible plane.

Finally, not hearing Jeffy Jeff is always great, however, if you want to see his smug look of pinching every penny from every passenger face, just flip to the Hemispheres magazine, he's always got a close-up of himself at the front of every issue...

What a douche :rolleyes:

-jeremy

:confused:

What would the "right" option be? To not take delivery of the planes at all since they didn't have seats certified to be installed in them? That was the other option at hand. That the company was able to get a config certified and seats delivered as quickly as they did given the near nil notice that the contracted seats were suddenly no longer legit it is actually somewhat impressive that they were able to get them at all. It isn't like buying a commodity part from the hardware store. As it was they had to delay the deliveries a few months while sorting everything out.

Yup...though row 1 should have a ton of legroom on most of those planes. Has to do with them using the AS seats for F there.

I understand what you're saying here but I don't agree. CO had the option of paying for the plane and letting it sit somewhere collecting dust while the seat fiasco gets resolved or paying for the plane and letting it make money for the company. Guess which option they were going to choose?

-RM

They also had the option of going with better seats to begin with.

Sometimes the cheapest option is not the best option.

The right option would be any or all of the following:

1) Choose your supplier more carefully/better

2) Don't make your customers pay for your poor management decisions

3) Fix your poor management decisions in less than 2 years.


After all, as the customer, although I am curious about them, I am not that impressed with UNITED's excuses. I want them to supply the product advertised. Period.

I think we are sort of agreeing, but using different words. My opinion is that they chose to do it fast rather than right and let the customer randomly suffer because they care more about saving a few bucks than they do about the customer experience.

Sorry to hear that.

Check this site out all about the UA fleet https://sites.google.com/site/theunitedairlinesfleet/ to learn more about the 738 and you will get a complete list of the 737-800's.

I had one of those ghetto planes going EWR to LAS on 3/27 for my son's wedding. Used miles to upgrade to F and it was a trade off--being annoyed at the lack of IFE or the joy of not seeing $miesk's smirking face.....The bird did look very very new and I just wrote the event off and read my book and slept. Oh, I did see the day before when I checked flight status that there was no IFE on that plane but it was way too late to make a change.

Thanks, neat site!

So it appears there are actually 11 of the beasts out there.... :td:

So it was bad management because somehow they didn't predict that after a decade or more of working together a supplier would falsify data? Of course. Definitely a management issue. :rolleyes:

And they did. They even put in seats that they are legally allowed to fly.

The option to certify an entirely new line of seats on the 737s with the IFE installed is certainly there. It is also horribly expensive and so very much not worth IMO it when the net effect is on so few planes.