chitownflyer

Have you ever flown LH or SQ F? Their new F & C product seats are amazing, and even their older F or C seats are good. What differentiates them is their amenites on the plane( caviar, fine champagne, 5 course meals), and on the ground( Frankfurt Lufthansa First Class Terminal).

emcsweeney

Interesting thought...now that you mention it...you might just be right about that...I was actually thinking about Rainey

UA-NYC

Not my point at all...? $misek went way too far in forcing the PMCO culture on PMUA, and now looks very tone-deaf to the needs of PMUA elites.

I don't *think* Parker will be that short-sighted.

LarkSFO

If US takes over AA, then we will find out, won't we?

Time will tell if Smisek went too far or not. Despite your incessant complaining (), you are still here, right?

SS255

Smisek took a page out of Parker's playbook from the US-HP merger. Not only did Parker force the HP culture on US East employees and elites, he went ahead and ripped all of the closets (and between 4-10 seats) out of F on the A321's and the A320's. And eventually he started charging all elites for "choice seats" (with no extra legroom) in the front section of coach.

For those of you who think that Parker knows how to execute a merger and run an airline in a customer-friendly way, just go onto the US forum and do a search for "Shares," "closets," and "choice seats," and you'll see how great an airline US is. Shortly after the merger, Doug Parker was quoted in the press as saying something along the lines of "If there is one group of customers we can charge high fees to, it's Chairman's Preferred's." It's just a different way of referring to US's best customers as "over entitled."

If the US forum seems like a safe haven of tranquility right now, it's probably because the remaining US elites have been beaten into submission.

FlyWorld

Just as we are.

ozstamps

Well US Air has hardly become the leading domestic carrier as a result.
.

Boraxo

I can't comment on SQ but I would disagree with your evaluation of the old C seats on LH. And old is far more relevant than new as LH has barely rolled out the new C (zero planes that fly here to SFO). They are horrific angled seats that cause you to slowly slide off when fully reclined. The IFE is also mediocre compared with UA's international business class. The food in C is nothing special, either and did not find the service to be better than UA (if anything it is worse because they take 3 hours to serve a meal, and sometimes an hour just to get drinks out). F is really not relevant - most businesses won't pay for F if C is offered and most non-US airlines don't fill their F cabin with upgraders and mileage users.

No question DL, UA and AA lounges are mediocre compared with non-US carriers, but among the US carriers there is no clear winner.

Yes, it would be nice if UA treated all its C/F customers like SQ but apparently UA is willing to cede the paid C/F to SQ and its ilk and simply fill its cabins with upgraders or those flying on negotiated corp fares.

overEntitled

Greetings!

I have been following this forum for several months and have been very impressed by the useful information supplied by the regular posters. Thanks for the education as well as the entertainment.

In reading the posts I have come to the conclusion that I am an over entitled infrequent flyer. Some background info:

UA customer for 25 years
BIS of 930k at 12/31/11
Lifetime Mileage of 1MM after conversion on 1/1/12
Still below 1MM BIS today and will probably not reach that level for several years.
Estimated lifetime revenue to UA of $100,000 - nearly all flights international "last class"
Mrs. OverEntitled receives MM companion benefit with lifetime BIS of only 30k
Only paid travel is once a year trip to Africa with CPU for domestic portion
Usually take 1 award trip per year with Mrs. overEntitled using credit card miles

I can't see how I've earned *Gold status for life. Consequently, I'm very grateful for what I've received and completely sympathize with those on this forum who feel that their elite status has been devalued by including the likes of me. Last year I was upgraded to Business Class on a flight from Europe to Africa because I was * Gold even though I was on a K fare. I didn't ask for it, they just gave it to me when I went to the * Alliance lounge.

Many thanks to United Airlines and all their dedicated employees for the great service and many kindnesses to me over the years. As you can see, I didn't deserve them. Yes there have been a few problems but these were the exception, not the rule.

And in the spirit of the season, I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

pigx5

Hey,
I can totally understand how you feel. Next time, if your wife and you get
upgraded, simply give your seats to other people in Y and you will feel much
better. I wish you a Merry Christmas!!!

snic

Huh, well, in about the same amount of time, I have barely more than 500,000 lifetime miles. So I'd say that if I *had* traveled 1 million miles in that time, I would feel like I'd have traveled way too much in the last quarter century, and stayed way too loyal to UA, and so therefore, I would feel perfectly entitled to *G benefits.

dgcpaphd

-
The article is a little dated but it is still in effect:

After reading the article/SEC filing, it becomes very clear who the "over entitled" person is:

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/120417/ual8-k.html
-

UrbaneGent

^

username

I remember in the 90s, CO was such a turn-around story. Bethune basically stuck to the simple principles of having reliable and clean planes and keeping their business passengers happy. It seemed to work and CO was successful.

What went wrong with the merger? Did they just lose the common sense? Or, the UA crowd is simply too hard to please? Or, the common sense sort of went away with Bethune?

bocastephen

The common sense went away when the BoD fired Larry K for declining to pursue a merger. Bethune was an aviator and a leader - today's airline executives (including ours) are neither.