biggestbopper

Note to United Airlines
by Mark Kleiman
Category: Uncategorized

IF you’re going to run a 15-hour flight on a plane with no laptop power and big, bright TV screens that show first a hyper-violent movie that is more or less an infomercial for Extreme Fighting and then a series of sitcoms, with the constant flickering making it impossible to sleep;

and

IF you plan to serve for dinner a tiny portion of tasteless Mystery Meat with Anonymous Sauce and over-boiled vegetables, and for breakfast the same Mystery Meat as tasteless sausage and “French toast” made virtually without eggs, accompanied by flavorless corn syrup;

THEN you should omit the commercial before the safety announcement in which your smug, self-satisfied, oily CEO brags about an upgraded fleet and world-class chefs, complete with video of fancy-looking sushi plates. Maybe you have no alternative to running a poor-quality airline, but there’s no good purpose in lying about it to a captive audience whose members can see the truth all around them.

http://www.samefacts.com/2013/02/unc...ited-airlines/

The comments to this blog post are worth a look for what the non-FT folks think about the issues.

entropy

I think he's dead-on.

United loves to brag. ($misek in particular) They talk about their fleet (those brand new 787's, now grounded), their food (awful, see posts about the 'grilled cheeseburger', amongst others) and CS (again, awful since SHARES).

Now, the fact of the matter is, that once you're on the plane, you're either happy (up front) or squeezed in back. The last thing you want in Y is to hear about how great the food is (up front), and if you're in J, you probably have seen the ad about 20x so far.

The big problem they have, illustrated by this blog post, is that their bragging doesn't match what most people experience. Great new 787, but 1) its not flying and 2) when it does 80% of the seats are close-packed Y. Even in F and J, the food is becoming pathetic.

rurouni212

This always seems to go back to the same thing. People will complain to no end about current air service standards (which in all fairness aren't all that great on current US legacy carriers), but then continuously book a ticket because it was the cheapest.

WineCountryUA

Not sure the post / blogger break any new ground.

Would be curious why the individual picked UA for their travels? Was it the cheapest price?

As some say, you get what you pay for.

mherdeg

He's certainly right that the 747 coach hard product is pretty horrible (no AVOD, no power). I think Smisek acknowledged this in a conference call with investors a while back when he was fairly new to the CEO-of-United job. It's a huge weakness in the product and UA has been pretty consistent in communicating its planned improvements.

He makes an interesting point that the pre-flight "Congress of Chefs" video doesn't seem to jive with international coach meals. I actually happen to like UA's coach meals (transatlantic catering) but I can see how normal people would disagree.

I can also clearly decipher the between-the-lines messages of things like the pre-flight video's "at 30,000 feet your taste buds change and we have to season more" and the in-flight magazine's "we don't have very much room on these plates and need to make food that fits in 2 inches of altitude on a meal cart" -- it is very obvious to me that they are trying to apologize for the compromises they think they have had to make without saying "sorry". I can see how the non-apology "explanation" nature of this month's pre-flight video & magazine feature might seem a bit "rah rah!" to normal people.

(They are really hitting the food angle hard right now!)

FlyWorld

^

That sums it up.

A smug, self-satisfied, oily CEO ... lying to a captive audience.

This is the worst thing about COdbaUA. And, everything else starts from this.

FortFun

This. Not that it will stop people.

FlyWorld

All true. Then, stop lying.

Turn off the bloody videos except for the safety briefing.

Don't tell us about "changes you're going to like" then deliver wave after wave after wave of negative changes.

It's the lying that's most infuriating.

Just shut up and shuttle us from A to B in the cheapest possible manner. If that's what you're aiming to do, just do it. And, let us get through the experience in peace.

iluv2fly

Another thread that's going to go nowhere but downhill very quickly.

I can't understand the need to start a new thread everytime someone blogs or tweets something terrible about United.

I am closing this thread unless someone can convince us otherwise.

iluv2fly
Moderator, UA