UA-NYC

As I posted, I got one yesterday. While waitlisted with an upgrade instrument.

Non-elites may get even more "favorable" offers.

adambrau

I found R on a flight Saturday JFK-SFO about 5 days ago, the day I need to travel. I guess less business travelers and the Y cabin is showing 'Full'.

The game will continue to change, and I can accept that. MY gripe is if UA is going to stack everything in its favor to maximize profits (which is smart) at least spend some of the revenue on a website that is transparent and easily allows changing flights. The number of hours I have wasted in the last couple of years to accomplish relatively simple tasks (aka the 30 minute call), apart from when I can multitask, those are hours UA will never give me back.....

Kudos to UA reporting good earnings last quarter. The load factors surprised me. I frequently encounter int'l flight half empty in F and C....but clearly there are a lot of gluttons for punishment out there


Adam

nycflyer222

Flew JFK-LAX in Y+ and J on AA's new A321T. Service, plane, etc. were all great. Is UA planning to compete with this upgraded 3-class transcon service, or no?

edcho

They just completed revamping PS by switching 3 class transcon (F/J and Y+) to 2 (Lie Flat BF and Y+/Y). So no... there are no current plans to switch back to 3 class.

EWR764

UA will tell you they already do. The p.s. J seat is the same model as the AA A321T, although the AA birds have a slicker IFE suite (IMO) and AA meals are better. In Y, I prefer the UA seats. The major differentiating factor in favor of AA is their F product, which was recently discontinued by UA on this route and is rumored to be under serious review by AA, especially on the SFO flights.

Overall, I think AA offers the best all-around product on the route but UA does not (nor will it) need to make major changes to compete.

PV_Premier

absolutely not. in fact, there are musings that AA might pull the F cabin from their 321Ts due to low paying customer load factors. however it's unclear how they would reconfigure them, since switching the F cabin to J would result in too many J seats and not enough Y. again this is all rumor, but a highly discussed rumor at that.

Kacee

UA has cut its cheapest discount business fare (P) in half and is selling buy-ups for $299 in lieu of advance upgrading elites.

That's UA's strategy for competing with AA and B6.

PV_Premier

to be fair, this is probably mostly due to significant pricing pressure from B6 and to some extent DL (who is routinely offering a $799 one way on certain flight #'s available most days of week). i'd say that the "new" pricing of the UA P fare is much more in alignment with the value of the product, however AA is offering discount biz fares at the same price point and i'd surely choose them over UA...if i wasn't busy choosing DL or B6 already.

nycityny

As long as folks are comparing to Delta and AA...

Delta varies its aircraft on the JFK-LAX route and it looks like not all BusinessElite cabins have lie-flat seats. Is this true?

According to seatguru, the AA Business seats have a width of 18.5-19.5 inches while United's width is 21 inches. That's a pretty big difference if it's true.

I fly United exclusively and find their BusinessFirst seats on ps to be very comfortable. I'm not very tall so that helps.

UA-NYC

AA and UA are using the same J seats

PV_Premier

It's true that DL is not 100% lie flat on these routes. However they are converting several 757 to a 16 lie flat config much like sCO 752. Until that time you'll continue to see 757 with the "sleeper seat" on a few flights a day. I actually find this seat very comfortable for daytime travel when a lie flat isn't really necessary and as far as non lie flat goes it's among the best IMO.

anc-ord772

So it seems. I was looking through the calendar and saw one 6am LAX-JFK departure with I/IN>0 over a four (or five) month period. Eek.

Kacee

They did this months ago. The real hassle is it essentially eliminates JFK for connections to TK, OS, LH, etc.

markedcw

Not per my admittedly anecdotal experience. I just returned from a long weekend in NY. Booked a reward SFO-JFK-SFO about 10 days out. Got a Saver Business for the outbound segment on Friday afternoon departure. Bit the bullet and took a Standard Business for the return Monday evening because I wanted to stay in Manhattan through lunch.

For what it's worth, both flights departed on time and arrived early. Crews and catering were fine. Nothing approaching the doom and gloom regularly discussed here. I've been flying transcons in front cabins regularly since the late 80s. Sure you can argue the food service used to be more elaborate (though chateaubriand carved at the seat would gross me out today; I gave up red meat years ago) but the lie-flat seat and AVOD entertainment trump the former recliners and main screen video.

I feel like my 75,000 miles and $5 in taxes was well spent. Would not hesitate to repeat.

UA-NYC

What's your benchmark? PS isn't comparable to the rest of domestic F by any means. Plus, those crews are some of the best out there.

I don't think most of "us" have any issues with PS, save for the elimination of much of the UG/award space. It's of course a great experience - lie flats in F, food that's actually edible, low density a/c overall, etc.