1k-all-the-way

UA under Smisek is working overtime to have the worst branding, advertising and image building of any airline - from killing the tulip, the washed-out livery, not having a message....... A few decent college interns could do so much better, for what i assume would be a smaller budget.....

UrbaneGent

Such horrible branding, it's so generic and once again, a loss for an opportunity to shine. Where's the excellence? Where's the greatness? The take away, "Is that B.D.Wong?"

Surprised actor didn't say "Domestic first class is like international Business First," to really confuse it up a bit.

You got it!! I was JUST thinking about that, I was thinking that this cost them probably $500K and you don't see anything UA in the video. It's a generic airline commercial that any airline with lie-flats could use. Maybe UA can license the commercial out to another airline like Royal Brunei or Garuda...

DaviddesJ

Which other airlines offer flat seats from SFO to JFK? This is the only one; that's the whole point.

UA-NYC

Um - AA? And even if not flat (IIRC), DL and VX are newer and seemingly successful entrants on the route.

anc-ord772

Are we sure the new UNITED knows what kind of company they want to be?

BearX220

They want to be a business. Not an airline, a business. You know, a he-man kind of business. One that laughs at marketing and branding stuff. Real businesses don't need that stuff.

DaviddesJ

You're just wrong. AA, VX, and DL all fly SFO-JFK but with seats that don't lie flat and are much inferior to UA's new Z seats. Even AA's three-class 767 has first-class seats that are not competitive with what UA is offering (and at a much higher cost). That's the whole point of the ad. If you ignore the point and the facts then no wonder you don't get it. UA is just rolling out this upgrade that puts them well ahead of the competition on this route (for those flyers willing to pay for business class), it's no wonder that they want to advertise that fact.

UA-NYC

Get your own facts straight - AA's delivering brand new planes that have flat beds too. UA has a whopping 3 of the reconfigured planes. And they gave up 3 cabin F to AA.

DL/VX/AA ground product also CURRENTLY is superior to UA, and catering-wise, UA is nothing to write home about these days (though apparently sundaes are a differentiator).

If I didn't know what the UA seats were like, based on that ad, I'd have little idea - they barely showed the product.

DaviddesJ

AA has zero planes flying flat bed seats between SFO and JFK. That's the fact. Will they compete with UA by offering flat bed seats in the future? I hope so. But it doesn't exist today.

If you actually want to sleep on the redeye then UA's product is way, way better. Of course, as you say, it isn't on 100% of their planes yet, either, and the ad doesn't emphasize that (but isn't that good marketing?).

Do you have actual information about AA upgrading their first-class service on this route? What type of aircraft are they going to fly? When?

halls120

Then why didn't they give the product more prominent placement?

mgcsinc

Actually, I thought the product received very good placement. But I seem to have "gotten" the ad in a way that most other didn't.

UA-NYC

Can you buy a ticket on UA for the route and know for sure you're getting the new product? Nope. Case closed. The issue will be revisited in 2014.

AA is doing 5 rows of 1-1 seating in F on this route. Every seat a window and an aisle. Lot has been written on it. They have their own ads too that actually show the product!

DaviddesJ

So you're excited that AA has ads that show a product that doesn't even exist yet, but critical of UA for ads that show their product that actually exists?

Haters gotta hate, but it seems silly to me.

P.S. The answer seems to be that AA is going to fly A321's on this route, but the first planes won't arrive until at least November 2013.

http://www.aa.com/i18n/amrcorp/newsr...nouncement.jsp

I guess that explains why UA is advertising their superior product now.

Infinite1K

United has 4 planes reconfigured, however a quick check on Fightaware shows that only 2 of them have been flying the p.s. routes of SFO/LAX-JFK. The other two seem to be flying everything between short hops like SFO-LAX to longer flights like SFO-BOS. Which is great for passengers that usually get stuck on a 737 on those routes, but a bit of a head scratcher that they wouldn't be deploying them on the actual routes they are supposed to be flying.

As to AA, check a couple of the entries above. There is abundant information about the type of planes (A321) as well as cabin features.

Last but not least, if you've actually tried these new "lie flat" seats, the only thing going for them is that they are "lie flat". In everyother aspect they are not great:

• Seat length: one of the shorter seats out there
• Leg room: Unless you are lucky to get a bulkhead seat (which does have the disadvantage of galley/lav noise/light issues) you will have to force your feet into a wedge like space
• Seat width: narrow and the side arms are fixed so you cannot slide them down when you want to sleep
• Ergonomics: as some have pointed out above thread, most of the controls are located behind your head making you contort your body to plug in or reach for your glass of wine/ramekin of cost effective nuts.
• IFE: while the amount of content is impressive, the encoding is really bad so that the resulting quality of video is pretty bad. Feels like you are watching bootlegged DVDs that you bought for a $1 off a street corner.

And that is just the hard product. Won't even bother with the soft product.

DaviddesJ

You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel with these "complaints". I mean, seriously, who cares? You're going to choose the crappy seat because it has less video compression?