CO_Nonrev_elite

I'd say it's a lot more about culture than about getting things certified. DL has wifi on almost all their express planes. They ordered them that way. United did not order them that way, hence why they have nothing in them.

I'm sure that the DL 737-900's go into service ready to go and not dark also. They come with an 11' monitor on every F seat, and 9" in the rear (sorry, couldn't help it). Power, Wifi through out.

B787938

UA is cheap. They have figured it is probably cheaper to outfit planes themselves to pay Boeing to do it. What I don't get is why they don't install power, DTV and WiFi all in one go @ MCO during induction.

Back on topic on the 320s, again I think cheapness is playing a role here. It is cheaper not to rewire the planes for audio after the new seats are installed and just ditch the monitors, too.

I love the new United - you never know what you are going to get! Wifi, DTV, E+, power, NOTHING? It's just so exciting to have surprises with the inconsistent product!

fly18725

No, it is not about culture. You're trying to read into this way too much.

There's different types of wifi and IFE. Gogo is cheap and easy to install on domestic planes (can be done overnight). United and Southwest have chosen a different path with wifi and we will see how it works out long term.

EWR764

I suspect UA may be done with LiveTV. They've clearly hitched their wagon to the streaming wifi IFE solution, so that will likely be the system installed on the midlav and dark 737s.

Aside from wifi, in which UA is woefully behind its competition, the other factors you cite are reality at other major carriers, too.

United is drawing on its experience with LiveTV and limited work with Gogo, and I understand that they want to implement a wifi solution which they can control pricing, margins and content. Unfortunately, waiting for the system has cost valuable time and customer perception, even if uptake rates are still low.

Duke787

Was on an a320 last night LAX - IAD that is equipped with the new United WiFi and I was generally disappointed with it. I tested it out at the beginning of the flight playing around on united.com (which you can access for free) and while it worked, it certainly wasn't in a hurry. It was priced at 12.99 which isn't awful for a 5 - 5.5 hour flights but if someone was depending on it for streaming content I have close to no confidence that they would've been able to do so. On top of that it seems that mid-way through the flight it stopped working as the gentleman in front of me rang the FAs who informed him there was no way to reset the system and he would need to contact customer care to get a refund (aka he'll never get a refund).

On the plus side it still had the old seats and had channel 9 on so that was a positive. It'd been a very long time since I'd been on an Airbus (only been on a couple this year) and I was reminded why I prefer that seat in E+ over the seats on the 737-XXX

Kacee

Definitely a mistake. They are rightly perceived to be far beyond much of the competition in terms of on-board entertainment (particularly B9, VX, and DL; heck, even US has functional wifi on much of its fleet). And we know when UA finally does start installing, the implementation will suck (already, to the extent wifi is currently available, it is highly unreliable). Very poorly done, UA.

dcsnowwake

so will any aircraft have channel 9 then? So something they pushed and pushed as a difference maker is now dead? Like the airline

spin88

I think you are correct, and Direct TV is done. UAL management has a green eye shade approach to everything. They look at Direct TV, ask how much they get in profit from it, then ask the direct costs of having it (weight, maintenance, ear phones). What they don't think about is the overall customer experience, and the perception of the brand.

I am afraid that even if they get what they want actually installed in two years (Wifi with streaming content and power in F and E+) and they actually get it to work well (which is doubtful, see below) it will still leave them at a competitive disadvantage in the perception of the public. E- is dark, no IFE, and no access to ch. 9 unless you pay for streaming. But then UAL appears to have zero interest in having anything but a bottom feeder, stick it to you in fees, reputation at this point.

Well those old seats will be gone, and far faster than WiFi gets added...

But more generally, I think the "our IFE is $12.99 and it may stop at any point" is a bad way to go. If you have no IFE people think you are cheap/low service, but if you charge and then it does not work, you are pissed off. So UA has chosen a business model with is highly likely to piss off its customers.

So next time ma/pa (UAs target market) book they think, (1) no pretzels/peanuts, (2) they charged me for a bag, (3) no power, (4) and they charged me for wifi that did not work.

yup. More "savvy" management by UALs great team.

Ha, ha, ha, ha... tell me another funny joke. I recall a year and a half ago they said CH 9 was going on the sCO planes, never happened. Now its off the a319/320s. UAL's management (all from the CO side) has no interest in doing anything they way it was done under PMUA. If Ch. 9 had been a PMCO thing, it would have already been rolled out. But ain't gonna happen. CH 9 is something that makes people want to fly UAL, and UAL's management does not understand these push/pull factors.

fly18725

There is no correlation between the speed of the wifi and the ability to stream content as the content is stored on an on-board server.

EWR764

Can we really say that this platform will be a mistake at this stage of the game? Objectively, it's way too early to pass judgment.

Isn't that what management has a fiduciary responsibility to do (emphasis mine)? There may be disagreement about execution, but as a strategy it seems fairly sound.

No matter what, consumer perception of an airline brand is going to be dismal. People hate airlines. On the other hand, people are still going to fly. From a business perspective, UAL may as well endeavor to squeeze every dollar out of the average, non-status passenger, because with $10 or so more in fare, market research shows that customer is likely to be on another company's airplane.

To be fair, it is installed on all 16 767-400ERs and 7 787-8s in service.

spin88

I am very interested in where you have this information from... not the type of 411 a "banker" has... This is deep technical knowledge...

I spend some searching time, and it appears that on the 744s that have been retrofitted (and there are a few), IFE streaming is free but internet connectivity is not. The only planes with streaming are those with internet. And (1) I can't find any speed reports on the IFE, only the internet speeds (which suck, certainly compared to the LH (Boeing) system) and (2) there is no indication if the wifi router for the IFE is the same or different.

There are no reports that any domestic planes have IFE (they only have wifi) and nothing I have seen indicates it will be a dedicated server on the plane, as it APPEARS TO BE on the 744s.

fly18725

Notwithstanding the continued obsession with my background, it is generally seen as a sound lending practice to understand the asset collateralizing an obligation.

It seems relatively straight forward to understand that the speeds of connecting to the internet via satellite (or air to ground for conventional Gogo) will be slower than accessing content stored on an on-board server, even if the same router is used. I see no need to indulge your sudden desire to support positions with third party links.

AeroWesty

Just so this error isn't repeated, the airfleets.net listing can be deceptive if not read correctly. As these planes were acquired through the merger with Northwest, the delivery date to Delta is listed as the date registration was changed from NW to DL. Click on one of the links in the list and you'll see the earlier delivery date to NW.

Duke787

Just to be clear I wasn't referring to the streaming content stored by United on their on-board server, I was referring to streaming content generally (i.e. YouTube, Netflix, espn.com highlight videos, Skype, etc.), all of which are impacted by the speed of the WiFi (though looking at UA's FAQs about the WiFi on their website it appears this type of streaming is actually disabled which makes sense to me because again the speed would've been far too slow to stream a Netflix movie or watch a YouTube video).

fly18725

In that case, there is 100% correlation between the speed of wifi and the ability to stream content from the web.