halls120

I agree that immediately after the merger, GF and BF food went south in a hurry. But I guess I've been lucky on my international flights as of late, because I've been pleasantly surprised at the variety and quality of the meals I've been served.

Hadrian35

I missed this post... I'm glad to see the company has some buy in with its employees. They need customer buy in as well.While I think they need to stop tightening the screws on you and me both in regards to the downgrades, the pleasantness and extra effort from folks at the gate, on the plane, on the phone and behind the scene make a huge difference.

Keep up the good work. Those of us that believe in you have been hanging in there and I for one can see a big improvement these days.

If we cross paths, you'll know me as the guy with the super big smile and kind thank you. I try to return the efforts as much as I can in my capacity.

Thanks.

uastarflyer

How is it of any benefit for flights out of SIN, SGN, DEL, MEL, SYD, stations with only one or max 2 options daily?

For such a change to be whipped up to be awesome it needs to apply to more than just CLE-MEM (the typical CO frame of reference) type trips.

That said: Kudos for bringing back the theme. Time to actually deliver some semblance of it.

LarkSFO

So, it is not a benefit for you so therefore it is not a benefit?

My flying is domestic, and my schedule changes often.

SDC is a huge plus for me.

uastarflyer

This is what you said:

You didn't caveat it. It's of zero use to at least 10,000 passengers daily. And limited value to anyone that has to pay a fee to use it.

So you are left with some 1Ks hurtling between 2 cities 750 miles apart with more than 1 daily frequency. Yes it adds an option for them (which arguably they had pre-merger with free standby, I've done that before)

The ad campaign is intended to all customers. The "taxi" ad is for folks boarding outside the US, where SDC is either 100% or 90% useless.

So yes I'm sure under the right scenario it is a positive. But I sense it is usually thrown out there by those so sensitive to defend the new regime in the wake of so many devaluations in the MP and travel experience. And an objective analysis will show it (SDC) is pretty meaningless ON AVERAGE.

So enjoy it. If just doing that constitutes "friendly" then this thread has probably reached its end.

username

Many of us board outside the US to come home and do domestic flying too

FlyWorld

I agree with everything you've said.

If I'm flying < 750 miles, between cities with high frequency, and have a meeting that unexpectedly ends 4 hours early, I'll enjoy the option of hopping on an earlier flight and don't care as much where I sit. Frankly, for cities meeting those criteria, WN is often a better choice than UA, and I don't know what WN's official SDC policy is, but I know I've shown up and asked to be put on an earlier flight with WN, and never had any problem with it.

If I'm flying transcon, most likely, I want to protect my seat, which more often than not was purchased > 3 weeks in advance and is the best available option for my preferences, and I'd not want to give that up to sit in a middle seat in the back of the plane just to get home a bit earlier. And, since transcon frequencies are not significant and flights are often full, it's rare that a meeting will end so much earlier as to make an earlier flight possible, anyway. If I get out 2 hours sooner than expected, in such a case, I'd rather use the time for a nice dinner before the long journey home.

And, as you point out, SDC becomes less and less applicable for scenarios beyond these, such as the wide range of destinations both domestic and international that have a frequency of 1 or 2 x per day.

SDC is nice but it's something I've hardly ever used in practice and the last time I had a genuine need to use it for a transcon because of a significant schedule change, Y was full and I was forced to pay for F anyway.

I don't doubt there are passengers who use this a lot nor do I doubt there are cases when it's something to really appreciate but overall it's largely been a non-topic for me.

And, still, I don't get what's so new or friendly about this. We've had SDC with UA long before CO was ever a whisper around here.

spin88

I liked the old web-site graphics and the ads. They were evocative, but better then the dumb slogans and silly globe ads from PMCO. I can't track any of the bad financial/revenue performance to the crappy ads UAL has been running under CO management, but they can't have helped.

I'll believe the web-site gets better when I see it, its not very functional for what I need to do when buying tickets. I don't think you can say "operations are improving" they are actually stuck at sub-80% OT. SOS. Yes, better than spring/summer 2012, but that is not saying much. Certainly not the operational excellence needed to get me to look at UAL for more of my travel. I've been messed over too much on connections, I just don't them any more, GS was not there for me when I needed them, and the rest of the airline was (and at sub-80% OT is) just too dysfunctional when I need to actually get somewhere OT.

I don't like the CO 737s, they are not comfortable, that that level of discomfort was put in the 787 for long haul, with yet narrower isles does not speak well of UAL. I am (like most) not a fan of the 747 in coach. BUT, the actual seats were not bad (better than the current 787 ones) AND the isles are wider. Would I take a 787 in CO config over a UA 747 in Coach? Yes, but just barely. [And with PMUA R was almost always opened up for SWU, not like today.]

yes, the 757 is the same width as the 737, but if feels bigger and wider for some reason. It does not bother me the same way the 737 does. And the Y seats are comfortable on it as well.

I agree re employees. IMHO they usually try to do a good job, and while not as outwardly friendly as DL/AS employees, that is not my issue. My issue is policies by Management that restricts them and gives them little to work with.

A new slogan will yes, raise expectations by passengers and employees will raise to try to meet it, but absent some real improvements in the tools that employees are given and the level of service that they can offer, that excitement will turn to disappointment.

If Sully is right (above bolded) then it might work, but if he is wrong (and I don't believe the current management is interested in anything but cuts) the cycle of passengers being disappointed, taking it out on staff, staff taking their disappointment out on passengers will only deepen.

The problem with many defenders like you is that you are unable to look beyond your own personal experiences to see the competitive environment. Hey we all get that you had to deal with crappy 31" hard as a rock Y seating on CO. I was with CO when Gordon said "we don't need more leg room, that is what F is for." We know you had no wifi since CO decided on Direct TV rather than Wifi.

But for us on the UAL side, we had E+, and it was on nearly all of our aircraft. Our AC had entertainment and CH. 9.

What we got out of the merger was LESS E+ in that the network got flooded with 100s of EJRs with no E+. We get less mainline and less E+. What for you was an upgrade, for us was a downgrade.

And I might add that for the CO folks, you got rid of "none-pass" and far more usable miles, while we got cuts in availability, especially of upgrades and saver awards.

What happened is that in matching benefits, UAL went between what the programs offered, for the CO folks it was upgrades, for the UAL folks it was downgrades. BUT, this has killed UALs revenue performance since the CO folks were nearly all at fortress hubs, they did not need benefits to stay loyal as they had no other options, while for the UAL folks we had options, and lots of us left in whole or part.

So keep believing that offering CO level of benefits and elite handling will make people come back, so far it has not. And taking a UAL slogan and slapping it on CO is not going to fix the airlines very major revenue problems.

I find your perspective to be an interesting one, and one that ought to make UAL reconsider their course. You are obviously relatively positively inclined to the airline, and have been willing to give them a chance. Yet doing so, you find them to be "not up to other airlines, but improving." Yet that competitive posture is not going to win back customers they lost, and will mean that they continue to loose HVFers, which the data on revenue shows they continue to do.

The difference in our views is that you (glass half full) see this campaign as being a "signal" that management gets it, which I (glass half empty) see it as a sign that managementh realizes that they are in trouble, but rather than addressing the rout cause of the problem, are hopping that they can trick people via a slogan into ignoring the actually service levels as they continue to cut away.

Will watch for that, if so, how much it impacts labor costs will be interesting, as well as how it impacts operational performance.

I think you have summarized many of the downgrades, I might add less upgrades with TODs, no pillows in F, more RJs, erj-145s, poor IRROPs handeling, and time to excecute any transaction.

And on the 767/777s being redone, for me its hard to see as a positive. While the 767s were dated (777s were fine) I used to see them hub to hub or to Hawaii. Now all that I see are 757-200/300 to hawaii and lots of CO 739ERs and even A319s hub to hub. For me, that is a downgrade, not an upgrade. UAL also used to run its three class birds on hub to hub turns and I would scheduled for them, that is also gone now to a large extent, or they are at times that don't work for me.

At this point I see the mobile APP as the one positive from this merger.

jasondc

Well, regardless, it's there. I guess you're unlucky but I haven't been on a CO plane without it since February. And I fly every week. So I guess you're unlucky. And frankly, who cares about your suppositions on how "Jeff" came to the decision to install E+. the fact is, it's there or on those few planes that don't have it it will be.

Satellite wifi. That means you can use it flying across the ocean. You certainly cannot do that with the wifi that AA, DL, US or Wan installed. They have land based wifi that stops working over the ocean. AA may be putting some of the satellite wifi on their new 777-300s, but they have not announced any plans to retrofit their fleet with this updated product.


Seriously, why the vicious hatred? If you really don't like United go somewhere else.

I'm not saying its perfect because it's not and there are legitimate issues. That said, there have been some positives. And these are some of them.

username

I have not seen this asked....I really like the taxi ad so I watched it again... The last ride with the Rickshaw Tricycle Taxi ... Is there really a UA destination airport where you can get to on that?

It seems to imply BKK or SGN (What language did the "driver" use?) but I don't see that - tuktuk at most...

mrjay

I have noticed that UA personnel have been friendlier over the past few months, a very welcome change from the surly attitudes that I'd grown accustomed to since the merger.

LarkSFO

Huh?

My initial post was in response to the OP who said 'in the last 18 months there has not been one single thing that has improved on UA'.

I happen to disagree.

If you agree with the OP, and UA is so awful, why do you even keep 'earning miles on UA'? How do you handle the tortuous experience?

EWR756

I speak to only what I can personally vouch for. The Flight Operations department has come a very long way. We no longer have serious IT issues, our hub operations have become much better organized and we're not seeing the sCO vs sUA issues that plagued co-hub city pairs like LAX, IAD, ORD etc.

MX has improved, reliability has improved and on time has been much better. I have no idea what the ground service folks are going through. The Flight Ops numbers tell their own story.

halls120

Do you think flight operations will show additional improvements once you don't have to run separate operations, sCO and sUA?

nuspieds

I love the ads!

Rhapsody in Blue always works for me! I really do not understand all the negativity towards these ads because even if UA may not be most flyer-friendly airline, the point is that the tagline is what they want to represent them--be it now or in the future with their planned/upcoming products and services.

So, to me, if they are emphasizing customer service/friendliness as a tagline, then I am also concluding that they are equally emphasizing the same message with employees. How in the world could anyone argue or be negative towards that directive?

Though I can definitively say that I have vastly positive and friendly experiences with UA staff, even if I didn't, I'd be glad to see that they are emphasizing customer service.

There have been a lot of rage incidents on aircraft in the recent years and that's what makes me happier to see that my airline of choice is, once again, promoting the friendly skies. Good for them!