halls120

And they are going to add 3-class A321's on the NYC-west coast routes. So they still must see a market for F.

grahampros

They haven't even confirmed the order for the 787 so who knows what will happen there. But good chance few of them will have F since they are intended to replace the 767 which have not had and F cabin for years.

Seat 1F

I disagree that the financial investment to make international F decent is too vast to be worthwhile. UA already have a new hard product and AA will be introducing an improved hard product when the 773's come on board later this year. I think the hard product is reasonably competitive with the likes of BA, AF, QF, and LH. So the bulk of the financial investment has been made or committed already. It's never going to match SQ or EK and I don't feel it needs to. The major gulf with other carriers is on the soft product. Food & Beverage is a huge gap but doesn't cost much to fix if they decide to improve it. The amenity kits, blankets, PJ's, etc can all be upgraded at a reasonable cost. For me, the core remaining issue is service levels of the FA's. It's not a cost issue but rather a cultural issue. I am quite certain AA/UA can easily upgrade the international F experience from current levels without it being cost-prohibitive. Whether they can get the F FA's to provide a service level equivalent to what you see in BA or AF is another issue.

Some of them will also replace 772's. They will have a variety of missions. Don't forget that some of the 2-class 772's will replace some of the 763 routes where the 763 was too small. Look for 2-class 772 aircraft flying to LIM, MAD, BOG, SCL, GIG and others. I could see half the 787 fleet being 2-class and the other half being 3-class.

Anyway, back to UA F discussions.

FlytheTail

All it would take is for UA (and other US airlines) to assign flights to FAs based on performance, not seniority -- in fact, I have found the two are often (not always) inversely related. But that's for another thread...

+1

ORDnHKG

LX sure but not LH if it is old F. The seat has no privacy and the PTV is so tiny like Y in UA's 772 before reconfig. The PTV is also so old that the quality is horrible.


Do you seriously need to see pictures in order to know the poor quality in UA F ? This is well known for any UA flyers for years.


Really ? Since when did AA start serving caviar in F ? And multiple choices of desserts in F ?

If AA doesn't have neither, it is still far from LH.

UA-NYC

I clearly did not say "equivalent to LH". I've flown LH F before, it's in a league of it's own. But I maintain that the food quality from my flight the other day was closer to the LH end of the scale than UA.

AA F did offer up three different dessert choices.

tonyflyer

I flew SFO to HKG, the UA F lounge at SFO was pretty nice, plenty of snack and wine, including some sushi rolls. The on-board food was disappointing though, here are some pics (sorry for the large pics):

mgs 1k

Anyway, it was all good, so, on the strength of that, I upgraded my C seat to GF for my flight from IAD to GRU later on today. That's on a 777, so I'll let you know how it compares.

Regards,

Cypher[/QUOTE]

Let me know how that flight was. Usually the GF on the GRU routes is full of United workers and families.

muoitrieu

Makes sense. US carriers simply cannot compete. I'd save the miles for a real *A carrier (e.g. SQ) or just go with BF since it really isn't that much of a difference IMHO.

tuolumne

Yes and no - AMR is retaining F for their most premium intensive intl. ops, along with transcons. UA is still installing IPTE into the 777s, but look for CO management to chase the middle of the market and turn away from spending the capital and mid/long-term effort into building a next generation F suite product, leaving said traffic to smaller boutique carriers. Smisdk's protege has long appeared to be Mr. Anderson, and channeled him Mr. Smisek has. CO is following the road spelled out by DL.

Personally, I'm very content with the company offering a product that's superior to the middling (at best) current C offerings. I enjoy sleeping, and said products offer noticeably less space than the suites up front, unfortunately.

5khours

I'm sure it's different for everyone, but the ability to UG into GF and get award tickets on GF is probably the main reason I stick with UA and *A.

UA-NYC

Agreed - 2 years ago, I did paid C to China and booked UA so I could ride in PS F/GF the whole way.

Now in the middle of a paid C/UG to F trip on AA. A nice benefit.

Sykes

Really? Because I just got off my first flight in AA int'l F (DFW-NRT), and the food was by far the most disappointing part of the flight. The crew was wonderful, the seat was comfortable, and the ground handling far exceeded anything that UA has offered; however, the food was decidedly mediocre, and generally worse than anything I've had in even BusinessFirst on UA.

... and neither was even remotely close to LH.

UA-NYC

I guess it's a YMMV situation then. Love the hummus and chips as a pre-drink starter. Main was a Richard Sandoval spiced chicken or something like that - excellent.

TimCypher

Heh, no families or UA workers...GF cabin was full, and the purser, who greeted each passenger in turn with a 'thank-you for being a 1K/MM member' showed the cabin to be full of frequent flyers.

I thought it was a good experience - it was nice to have the full GF suite, rather than the trimmed down middle-suite on the 747. FAs were great, but the food was a bit lacking compared to the SYD-SFO offering - steak was a bit tough, plus there was no deli-platter option served upon arrival. As I'm not really a cereal or omelette guy, I went without.

There was also precious little in the way of mid-flight snacks - not even a bag of potato chips - disappointing given that a specially-prepared, cooked offering was available on the 747 service. The other airline I fly often, Virgin Atlantic, now have a 'graze' menu in their upper class cabin where the staff will happily prepare you a burger or a chicken salad upon request - and that's not even a full first class product.

On the plus-side, coffee was served on my own silver tray complete with milk jug and petit fours, which I've not seen before on any GF flight - usually, you just get a mug with sugar sachets. Oh, and I scored two of those ever-welcome 'do-it-yourself' sundaes.

Regards,

Cypher