Plane-is-home

It only came on 45 minutes into flight after purser rebooted it. It would have been $7.99, but I didn't buy it for the little time left. Used it for the United App to make some seat changes on future flights that the travel agent booked. Speed was not as bad as on some of the YYC flights.

mgcsinc

There's no trade. Lots of these birds already have Wifi. Some of think it's rather disingenuous that they're pretending that the one necessitates the other.

Plane-is-home

Agreed, I have been on plenty of A319/320 this year that had Wifi and IFE.

DaviddesJ

I don't think anyone at UA ever claimed that.

I think getting rid of the IFE screens is smart and getting systemwide WiFi is smart (and adding a streaming video service on planes with WiFi is interesting, although whether it is smart depends on whether it actually works well, which remains to be seen). But there's no logical reason they couldn't do both, or neither. They are only connected because when they are doing the work on the plane to remove the screens then it makes sense to put in WiFi at the same time.

mgcsinc

There was an implication, and one that was taken by many in this thread (including yourself) to mean there was some kind of 'trade'.

The install work, from what I can tell, is being done separately.

DaviddesJ

"Trade" can mean lots of different things. If UA takes away the IFE, and adds WiFi, I feel I'm better off for the "trade". That doesn't mean, literally, that one replaces the other. Just that I value the gain of one more than the loss of the other.

The announcement only said that they wouldn't remove IFE before installing WiFi.

I'm sitting on a UA A320 with IFE and no WiFi right now. :-(

fivevsone

I had my first agonizing experience with these new seats. Holy crap are they awful. short arm rests, and lower too, seat cushion like plywood... Wow. Just Wow.

I am shocked at how horrible a BWI-IAH flight in 21F was. Cannot imagine being on a TCON.

Now i have to pay attention to avoid the 'upgraded' A319/320 packages as well as the regionals.

LAX

I think UA has a pretty big fleet of these A319s/A320s when the "refresh" is done. It's going to take some effort to avoid them.

LAX

LASUA1K

It looks like the seat are indeed lower. WN also lowered the seat and now my knees hurt after 2 hours.

BJfly

Flew on one of these new torture planes yesterday. Seats are like wooden benches. Not very nice when you are 2000+ miles in the air. No power. No entertainment. Bought the $9.99 wireless, and it was so slow that it was almost impossible to do anything other than the most light usage. I can't believe how significantly worse this change is from the previous flights I have had. On the plus side, my bag did come down the baggage claim very quickly once we landed. But boy, this new config is awful.

BJFly

CO_Nonrev_elite

The UA effort on refreshing these aircraft, and every other aircraft in their flight is nothing short of shoddy. The fact that five things are being changed on the airbus, at 3-5 different intervals leaving these planes as a disappointment to everyone that flies them prior to completion is ridiculous.

If the plane came out of MX with new seats, new bins, wifi, power and streaming content, everyone that flew it would be somewhat impressed with it. Instead you get wifi on a few jets (getting mixed to poor reviews), seats on a few jets (mixed to poor reviews, bins on a few jets, power on none and streaming on none.

The same is going on with the PS planes, its a hodgepodge of unknowns on what you will get.

I'll wager any money that the day DL goes live with the LAX-SFO shuttle that every single one of those 15 aircraft will have WIFI, Power etc, all complete on flight one across the fleet.

Yes, just 15 aircraft fleet, the same 15 aircraft that UA has for PS fleet that almost 3 years later only has 8 complete.

Then add in the 739's being delivered dark for some excuse about a lawsuit with a seat manufacturer. Those pplanes were being delivered dark in CO days, so assuming that there is some truth to the seat manufacturer story, it's even more ridiculous that they'd let their business be completely sidelined by this for 3-5 years. DL doesn't seem to have a problem having planes delivered ready to go.

It is pathetic how poorly they are being run.

Bonehead

Wow, this sounds really bad. Are these planes becoming the mainline version of the CRJ-200, to be avoided whenever possible?

I'm finally losing faith in the decisions being made by management. Tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but one can only take so much. When mainline flights become truly unbearable in Y, that could be the last straw.

UA-NYC

So THIS is the straw that broke things for you?

Yes, when they take arguably the single most comfortable Y experience in the fleet, and ditch those seats (which aren't even THAT old, relatively speaking), you know things aren't running in your favor.

fly18725

Changes to aircraft interiors require FAA certification. The current seats aren't yet certified with power, so you either install the seats without power (like Alaska is also doing) or store a whole bunch of seats in a warehouse until certification is complete. The lead time for new airplane seats is several years and United can't tell the manufacturer to wait to deliver the seats until the power is ready.

There's no power on any Delta regional jets, so you'll get a consistent product there.

As noted above, there are long lead times for seats. Its not like you can run out and purchase new seats from another manufacturer to stick on a plane that is delivering now or even in 18-24 months.

For what its worth, I don't think Delta has taken delivery of a new mainline aircraft in the last 3-5 years.

Bonehead

I was a CO guy, so I knew that the upgrade debacle would proceed as it did once CO management took over because of what was already happening on the CO side. Ok, whatever. But if I'm going to be spending more time in Y () then don't hose me with swarms of CRJ-200s and especially don't replace somewhat comfortable Y seats with stadium benches and put narrow, crammed-together seats in your "game changers". Aargh. I'm not a small guy; I need a modicum of comfort at the very least, and so does the poor sap sitting next to me in the middle seat.