Sulley

Lots of misinformation in this thread from all parties. I don't have time to go through it all.

However AA54 pushes the limits quite often

spin88

I think that this is nub of the issue.... No one is complaining about JFK/EWR-MAN or FJK/EWR-EDI or similar. England is closer, far less risk of divert, and there is not the traffic for a widebody.

What CO has been doing (EWR-LON, and then IAD-CDG) was doing two (or more) flights on 752s rather than one on a widebody.

Anyone who thinks that this makes financial sense needs to have their head examined. 4 pilots rather than two, two landing/take off/gate fees, and fuel and AC expanse for two 752s rather than a 777 or 763/764 is a loosing proposition for UA.

CO did this as they did a poor job of fleet planning, had too little widebody lift, extending it to IAD was a mistake, and they lost reputation/HVFs.

And then trying to do the same thing to 2ndary markets (like Berlin) which are another 300-500 miles or more away is just a mistake. That plus that EWR is further than JFK is where CO has gotten in trouble.

As others have noted, UA is converting UA 763 domestic/Hawaii lift into 763 international lift. Clearly this is a recognition that doing things the CO way was a disaster. Too bad they damaged the brand/corporate accounts before they reversed course.

hobo13

In the land of UA, almost is usually good enough.

andrewwm

Nonsense. AA flies the 757 to markets such as JFK-CDG, which, if I recall correctly, caused outraged posts from certain members when UA tried this from IAD.

Moreover, AA's ORD-MAN flight is blocked at 7:45, and the distance is almost exactly the same as IAD-CDG.

channa

I'm sure it's huge. The other piece of it is the delay in arrival affects the next run. This was especially true at IAD where there were little to no spare CO aircraft to reassign.

As for the costs, that's where CO's stall tactics with IRROPS help them. There were so many stories of people being refused OAL rebooks and other amenities such as hotels, it almost makes me wonder whether the policies about IRROPS (which were and are reasonable) were being deliberately circumvented.



Why would anyone pay Full F on CO? A Platinum gets an F seat with a M fare. A Silver gets an F seat with a B fare. Why the heck would anyone pay for F on CO if they're an Elite frequent flyer?

In addition to all the service, reliability, and operational problems that came with the 3/3 system downgrade, I'm sure the Y/B/M-Up policy eroded their F/C revenue as well, at least domestically. And a handful of TOD upgrades is not going to recover it.


They also simply did not understand it. I recall one CO DO with Kellner, the CEO at the time, where he said that a 757 with that few seats could not be profitable. Meanwhile, UA proclaimed P.S. as their most profitable domestic routes.

Same was true for E+. They were opposed to it until they saw UA's books. CO had said repeatedly that removing seats could not generate more money.

Fundamentally, the issue is one of mindset. While I agree that they were not accustomed to competition at CO, one of their main obstacles is they have difficulty thinking beyond some of the most simplistic logic (e.g., each seat nets $X so the more seats the merrier, rather than fewer seats means more space, which we can market and sell for more). Think about trying to explain the business logic of E+ to a first grader. They're not gonna get it. That was the mindset problem.


But CO might be okay with that (see mindset issue above). People complained for years that they could not buy an F seat on SFO/LAX-EWR sometimes 1-2 weeks out or more. Not that an upgrade wasn't available, but it was F0. CO always claimed the complexity and costs of running a subfleet of larger F planes outweighed the benefits of the extra revenue. Now keep in mind, as you pointed out earlier, that CO did not have the type of F revenue that UA did, and that may have changed in the merged entity, but the legacy CO mindset may still be present in the organization when these decisions are being made. After all a lot of business decisions are based on assumptions and weights, and it's very easy to get those wrong.


No, but it was CO's fault for relying solely on one aircraft type for their widebody strategy. They put all their eggs in the 787 basket, and it cost them dearly. As risk averse as CO usually was, this was certainly a risky move they took, and they paid for it.


Huh? So people wrote in that they didn't like the plane, and they switched it? The media attention to the diversions and poor customer handling played no part?

channa

The distance is shorter (about 225 miles), and IAD-CDG is 6% longer than JFK-CDG. 6% may not sound like much, but when you're approaching the max range like these flights are, you don't have that much cushion.

Also, the block times at JFK are generally higher than IAD because of ground and line-up delays. While that does cost fuel, it doesn't cost nearly as much as actually flying the aircraft.

andrewwm

If it were soley diversion rates, then why haven't any of the routes that diverted at much higher rates (e.g. EWR-TXL, EWR-CPH) been switched?

You quoted me comparing ORD-MAN to IAD-CDG. ORD-MAN is almost exactly the same distance as IAD-CDG and they likely have very similar diversion rates. The point being that if IAD-CDG shows that, according to tuolumne, "United puts profits ahead of safety" then why isn't he saying that about AA?

channa

Didn't TXL-EWR switch back at one point after some probe by the German government? They were trying to go after CO for false advertising (non-stop when it wasn't reliably one).

andrewwm

Nope.

TWA Fan 1

A number of airlines (including all the U.S. legacy carriers) fly the 752 TATL, including:

1. AA
2. DL
3. EC (open skies)
4. FI
5. UA
6. US

(BA formerly operated 752's TATL and now operates LCY-JFK with an all-J A318)

elitetraveler

In the WSJ.com poll, 62 percent of the 2700 voters said the practice was not acceptable - so it was actually at least over 1700 people who registered their feelings against the practice.

http://online.wsj.com/community/grou...ed-fly-smaller

halls120

United used to have the IAD-CDG contract. DL has it now.

What many people don't understand is that it is very easy for government travelers to select a non-contract carrier, as long as 1) the other flight selected is a US flag carrier flight and 2) the non contract carrier offers a DG fare that matches the contract fare.

For example, If I was flying to CDG next month, the current YCA fare is 1325 on DL, and the penalty fare is 868. UA offers the same YCA fare, and a slightly lower penalty fare, and I'm allowed to select the United flight.

Last year when UA still had the contract but was flying the 757s, many government travelers opted for the DL flights. On the rare instance where auditors questioned why we didn't choose the UA contract flight, all we had to do is mention the Gander fuel stop, and the inquiry ended.

andrewwm

I don't doubt that passengers hate unscheduled stop, but honestly what do you expect people to answer on that poll? There's no mention of possible offsetting benefits in the question like the qualifiers "if it lowered the ticket price" or "allowed the airline to serve an otherwise unprofitable route".

elitetraveler

Clearly a difference from "10" people as another poster claimed.

TWA Fan 1

One of the most fascinating aspects of the story is that Boeing stopped making the 757 in 2004 and its use as an ETOPS TATL a/c really took off after that.

Since then, as was discussed earlier in this thread, Boeing has not made any product truly capable of replacing the 752...