pauljacobson958

Jeff Smisek just did a lengthy interview with CNBC's airline reporter Phil Lebeau. It's on the CNBC web site.

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000118271&play=1

HumbleBee

Very interesting. SMI/J is definitely not a clueless idiot, but saying the mistakes are fixed and ontime performance is OK is silly. There's an issue with management at United but it doesnt seem to be him.

Funny to see him shining with mention of the 787, although he's 100% right its a huge edge for UA over it's domestic competitors.

Would love to meet him.

Thumbs up to the the reporter as well.

pauljacobson958

I agree. Phil Lebeau is a veteran airline reporter who knows the industry really well. He put all the tough questions to Jeff (I'm sure Lebeau reads FT) and Jeff answered them with candor. After a really tough summer, it must feel good for him and the employees to have a big win to talk about. I'm excited -- booked on the inaugural DEN-NRT flight on 3/31/13.

HumbleBee

A healthy contrast to the WSJs guy

RockinRon

I was impressed with the reported asking some tough questions - maybe he's a FTer?

At least he wasn't in denial about their issues.

chinatraderjmr

What win? The 787 is not a cure all for a broken system. How does a 787 improve employee & customer moral, fix all the MX's on other types, fix the millions of problems w SHARES? It's certainly not as big a game changing aircraft as the 380 & while it may now allow a few new routes to now be flown profitably, more attention needs to be paid to making the current fleet & routes a little more profitable for UA which can't happen unless they make the service better for the customer. They both go hand in hand

FlyWorld

Interesting how he totally blew off the question about SHARES bugs. He deflected his answer only to the topic of the outage, and to that, he shrugged his shoulders and said "these things happen" then he ignored the underlying aspect of SHARES bugs that the reporter asked about.

It's clear that all he wants to think about is the 787 and the route network and the SHARES issues are not even seen as an issue worthy of discussion, much less fixing. Consistent with what we experience on the ground. Broken crap, nothing getting fixed, nobody cares. 787, 787, 787, 787, 787, 787, 787 ...

I, for one, could care less about the 787. For one thing, it's not even scheduled to fly out of SFO. For another thing, I'd gladly take reliable service and an upgrade on an old piece of crap dinosaur aircraft than to sit next to the lavatory in the back of a 787.

EWR764

The 787 is due to fly out of SFO 5x/weekly during the initial shakedown period.

As would anyone, but I'm not entirely sure how this is relevant... I'd rather sit in F than an undesirable Y seat as well. I don't think there are any stink-shield seats on the 787 (outboard D-zone lav doors open aft).

TWA Fan 1

The next time I'm flying on the ERJ-145 (which represents 90% of my flying on UA), and the flight deck goes dark (which has happened to me, on take-off), I will remember how great the 787 is...

spin88

Other than the poor operational performance question, I thought it was a typical CNBC interview that did not push too hard. For example, the written press has noted, as have analysts the very poor revenue performance of the airline. He was asked no questions about why that is happening. They are under performing by about 5% the revenue trends of their major US competitors, not a question about it.

Only thing "new" was the comment about flying the 787 from "east coast hubs to high yield markets, like Heathrow."

FlyWorld

It's relevant because rather than put all this energy into the 787, I'd rather have a fraction of the energy dedicated to fixing SHARES.

Fundamentals first.

Didn't know 787 was flying out of SFO. Looks like it's SFO/IAH.

TravellingMan

ROTFL.

Flight delayed - Think of the 787
Reservation issues - Wow, the 787 is great
No upgrades - The 787 is truly a game changer

LOL

spin88

5:45 pm flight IAH-SFO, then the red-eye return. All domestic proving flights are ex-IAH. I remember when I was flying CO and they did this with the 762s. Was always cool: they had espresso machines and gave out upgrades to elites. Now they sell the upgrades and don't stock the espresso stuff.

oenophilist

Wow, he totally blew off the customer service issue. Completely dismissive. That is very telling. It is clear that the customer relationship issues are coming directly from the overpaid CEO.

NiceLanding

Yes, I really don't understand how a 787 is an improvement. I'd much rather fly a 767 internationally on UA because the seat configuration looks more comfortable: 2-1-2 in front and 2-3-2 in back on the 767 vs. 2-2-2 and 3-3-3 on the 787. (I'm still annoyed that they changed the 777 from 2-5-2 to 3-3-3!)

In the past it seemed like new wide-bodies came with some improvements in seat layout, but that's just not happening here.