bcj1949

UA bought Pan Am's pacific routes so there is the tie. One reason PA went under was lack of a domestic network. I see same for new UA. Building up international but down gauging domestic. I like UA but now reluctantly my third domestic choice due to poor connections and too many RJs. Am I alone?

jasondc

Pan Am literally had NO domestic flights until the early 1980s or so. United has hundreds if not thousands of domestic flights a day. They may not all be on the gauge you want, but they're there. Better reacquaint yourself with history rather than post preposterous claims.

bcj1949

Know it well. Just thinking of the concept from an investor and customer service perspective in terms of why UA continues to struggle. In this era the thousands of domestic flights may not be competitive from the peacetime of WiFi or mainframe. But again IMHO.

jasondc

United is beginning to replace their 50 seat RJs next year with the new 70 seat RJs, just as DL and AA And US have done. UA is installing wifi on their fleet. Just like the others. UA has economy plus on a early all mainline flights and an increasing number of express aircraft as the 50 seat airplanes go away. How are those things not positive improvements for customer service? I live in Chicago and AA here has way more RJ -type operations as a percentage of their total departures Han UA does. In many markets such as DEN, IAH, etc AA is all RJ while UA is all mainline.

Don't really understand your argument.

Volga981

I can't agree with the OP.

Right now an airline can survive without domestic network. Indeed, alliances can supply passengers from different corners of the country. Pan Am went under, because at that time there were no alliances or interline agreements or code sharing. At least, not at the current extent. Many airlines currently survive primarily on international traffic.

Interline agreements probably appeared (I am speculating here) with deregulation, when airlines realized that they can jointly carry one passenger and extract profit from that. At least, I can hardly imagine implementation of interline agreements without good development of GDS that happened in 1970s.

BearX220

Completely specious comparison.

FlyWorld

I don't understand this thread.

The premise is that UA doesn't have a domestic network with anything but RJ's?

That's just ridiculous.

Yes, much of the network consists of RJ's but they've got plenty of mainline capacity to be considered a real domestic carrier.

I wasn't able to find anything on the internet that shows the count of mainline aircraft by airline but I'd be surprised if UA had significantly fewer mainline aircraft operating domestic routes than any other major US airline.

mgcsinc

Not sure what all those Airbii and 737's and non-intl 757's are doing if there are no domestic flights...

kettle1

The smartest thing UA ever did was to buy the PA routes in the pacific. The dumbest thing PA ever did was sell the routes to UA (or any other airline).

DL took over (bought) the rest of PA.

PA buying National was a big mistake.

Pan Am history http://www.ask.com/wiki/Pan_American_World_Airways

Is UA the new Pan Am?... don't think so. But, UA needs some new management to think form the outside and run like a business.

Richard Anderson (DL) come to mind? Not him, but someone like him. With DL it was always someone that was DL (ATL) forever. Once they went outside the box (RA), they went through the merger and record profits. Get someone that knows business. RA also ran NW and knew putting DL and NW together was a great move. It is working.

The UA/CO merger is taking way too long to get ONE AIRLINE- UA. Are the Unions the problem? I don't know. Is management the problem, I think so.

Is UA the new Pan Am. NO. Do they have some fantastic employees. YES. Some bad apples. Yes (especially top management).

Maybe UA should sell the Pacific routes to WN. Now that would be an airline and they would have a domestic "feed". Joking.

jjclancy

SQ and CX seem to do pretty well with zero domestic service.

controller1

While I do not agree with OP pertaining to UA vs PA, I find the above statement funny. I guess IAH Term B must just be in my dreams and not a reality!

Baze

Huh? Have you seen the number of UA RJ's at DEN? They have crept all the way down to gate 49 as of last Tuesday.

jasondc

I guess I wasn't clear. I said I live in Chicago and from Chicago Aa flies mostly Eagle to citiesvsuchbas DEN and IAH while UA is all mainline from Chicago to those cities. The point is that sure- UA has RJs on a lot of domestic routes but so does AA...




I said that from Chicago AA is all RJ to these cities while UA s mainline. The point being that UA isn't the only carrier to use RJs domestically.... I made no reference to ALL UA operations at DEN being mainline. Only about certain markets from ORD

BearX220

And when the United States shrinks down to 25 miles across and one airport, yours will be a useful comparison.

sinoflyer

UA later bought PA's LHR authority. DL then bought PA's NE Shuttle and Atlantic routes including the FRA hub and domestic German routes in/out Berlin. Pan Am kept flying, and it ultimately failed when DL decided to lend no more $ to keep the rest of Pan Am operating. UA then picked up PA's Latin America routes in bankruptcy court for cheap.

I'd rather talk about this than the ridiculous premise brought by OP.