SFO-MSP going RJ?
May 11, 2015, 10:56 pm
#121
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You can 
all you want, but your premise is completely ridiculous. By your rubric, DL should operate LAX-ORD because LAX is a DL hub, and flying to a competitor's hub like ORD is just like UA going from SFO to DL's hub at MSP.
Besides, if you are so concerned about the competitiveness of airlines, you should get on DL's case for not flying LAX-LHR, or using all RJs on LAX-SFO, LGA-ORD, ad nauseam. Surely DL can compete. LAX and LGA are "hubs" (sic) after all.
all you want, but your premise is completely ridiculous. By your rubric, DL should operate LAX-ORD because LAX is a DL hub, and flying to a competitor's hub like ORD is just like UA going from SFO to DL's hub at MSP.Besides, if you are so concerned about the competitiveness of airlines, you should get on DL's case for not flying LAX-LHR, or using all RJs on LAX-SFO, LGA-ORD, ad nauseam. Surely DL can compete. LAX and LGA are "hubs" (sic) after all.
May 11, 2015, 11:19 pm
#122
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You can all you want, but your premise is completely ridiculous. By your rubric, DL should operate LAX-ORD because LAX is a DL hub, and flying to a competitor's hub like ORD is just like UA going from SFO to DL's hub at MSP.
Besides, if you are so concerned about the competitiveness of airlines, you should get on DL's case for not flying LAX-LHR, or using all RJs on LAX-SFO, LGA-ORD, ad nauseam. Surely DL can compete. LAX and LGA are "hubs" (sic) after all.
all you want, but your premise is completely ridiculous. By your rubric, DL should operate LAX-ORD because LAX is a DL hub, and flying to a competitor's hub like ORD is just like UA going from SFO to DL's hub at MSP.Besides, if you are so concerned about the competitiveness of airlines, you should get on DL's case for not flying LAX-LHR, or using all RJs on LAX-SFO, LGA-ORD, ad nauseam. Surely DL can compete. LAX and LGA are "hubs" (sic) after all.
All this SEA, LAX stuff is garbage. We are talking about SFO-MSP.
May 11, 2015, 11:55 pm
#123
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I have to correct myself, DL does fly LAX-LHR now. But I can pick another route, like LAX-MEL, and ask the same question: why doesn't DL compete there?
Bringing up LAX and SEA is a rational rebuke to your premise, because it involves DL flying from one of its smaller hubs to a competitor's large hub, just like UA trying to compete from its SFO hub to DL's fortress MSP. But to try to answer your question, iirc PMUA never operated SFO-MSP. This (as well as LAX-MSP) was purely a post-merger addition. PMNW had operated SFO-NRT, which offered onward connections to other Asian destinations, so PMUA probably didn't see enough MSP feed to justify a nonstop. Now that UA will operate either 2x or 3x/day SFO-MSP, which no longer necessarily feed the transpac flights, UA has actually upped its competitiveness on this route, when as recently as 2 years ago, it had zero.
Bringing up LAX and SEA is a rational rebuke to your premise, because it involves DL flying from one of its smaller hubs to a competitor's large hub, just like UA trying to compete from its SFO hub to DL's fortress MSP. But to try to answer your question, iirc PMUA never operated SFO-MSP. This (as well as LAX-MSP) was purely a post-merger addition. PMNW had operated SFO-NRT, which offered onward connections to other Asian destinations, so PMUA probably didn't see enough MSP feed to justify a nonstop. Now that UA will operate either 2x or 3x/day SFO-MSP, which no longer necessarily feed the transpac flights, UA has actually upped its competitiveness on this route, when as recently as 2 years ago, it had zero.
May 11, 2015, 11:59 pm
#124
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Good grief, UA customers will complain about anything, even when UA is becoming more and more competitive on a route.
It wasn't long ago that UA didn't fly SFO-MSP. It started with a single daily Airbus. Not long ago it went to 2x daily E170. You can debate the product all you want, but the change usually meant an increase in seats and of course frequency. Then the E170s were replaced by the new E175s. Recently mainline has returned along with an E175. Now it's going to 3x daily, with another large RJ thrown in. Slowly but surely UA has made significant inroads against two competitors based in MSP. And people still complain? No wonder UA has such low customer satisfaction scores. It's the customer that can't be pleased causing that.
There's three big reasons why UA is much smaller on this route. First is hub size. MSP is a larger hub than SFO. Second is hub positioning, and this is related to #1. UA has few connection opportunities on its hub end, while MSP is well-placed for connections to populous areas. Third is that SFO is the larger market. More passengers will be looking to fly to SFO than to MSP. So the connection demand to SFO through MSP is much greater than to MSP through SFO. So to wrap it up, UA has become a worthy competitor on this route, and there should be praise for UA's success.
It wasn't long ago that UA didn't fly SFO-MSP. It started with a single daily Airbus. Not long ago it went to 2x daily E170. You can debate the product all you want, but the change usually meant an increase in seats and of course frequency. Then the E170s were replaced by the new E175s. Recently mainline has returned along with an E175. Now it's going to 3x daily, with another large RJ thrown in. Slowly but surely UA has made significant inroads against two competitors based in MSP. And people still complain? No wonder UA has such low customer satisfaction scores. It's the customer that can't be pleased causing that.
There's three big reasons why UA is much smaller on this route. First is hub size. MSP is a larger hub than SFO. Second is hub positioning, and this is related to #1. UA has few connection opportunities on its hub end, while MSP is well-placed for connections to populous areas. Third is that SFO is the larger market. More passengers will be looking to fly to SFO than to MSP. So the connection demand to SFO through MSP is much greater than to MSP through SFO. So to wrap it up, UA has become a worthy competitor on this route, and there should be praise for UA's success.
May 12, 2015, 1:51 am
#125
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It's just so darned unfair that the other airlines have stolen away all of the good customers, leaving nothing but dregs
May 12, 2015, 5:39 am
#126
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May 12, 2015, 6:21 am
#127
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UA started flying the route in 2009 with a single daily A319/20 rotation that left SFO about 10, and then the same plane returned from Minneapolis about 5pm. Schedule has changed a bit depending on whether they are doing the same plane rotation from SFO or turning an ORD or DEN arrival into the SFO departure.
The trend is very good -- they've made significant inroads in a few years.
FWIW flight attendants (I know, I know) told me that the route was started in part because of some corporate contracts in MSP that were up for grabs following the NW/DL merger, and UA could offer them one-stops to Asia with a via SFO routing that worked out competitive with NW's one-stops via NRT.
Always a hard route to upgrade on -- I remember one Friday evening seeing an upgrade list of 70 for an A319.
The trend is very good -- they've made significant inroads in a few years.
FWIW flight attendants (I know, I know) told me that the route was started in part because of some corporate contracts in MSP that were up for grabs following the NW/DL merger, and UA could offer them one-stops to Asia with a via SFO routing that worked out competitive with NW's one-stops via NRT.
Always a hard route to upgrade on -- I remember one Friday evening seeing an upgrade list of 70 for an A319.
May 12, 2015, 6:31 am
#128
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Finally, we have the explanation why UA consistently scrapes the bottom of the barrel on virtually all measures of customer satisfaction . . . bad customers!
It's just so darned unfair that the other airlines have stolen away all of the good customers, leaving nothing but dregs
It's just so darned unfair that the other airlines have stolen away all of the good customers, leaving nothing but dregs
May 12, 2015, 8:38 am
#129
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May 12, 2015, 9:04 am
#130
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. I had confused SFO-ATL, which along with LAX-MSP was started by post-merger UA a couple of years ago. All that time, I believe SFO-MSP was 1x/day.UAL press release (10/7/2013)
Daily nonstop flights to Atlanta and Minneapolis begin April 1, 2014
May 12, 2015, 10:23 am
#131
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May 12, 2015, 11:59 am
#132
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Back to the topic at hand... Yes, whenever I fly to MSP (on Delta), I always use the UA Club
May 12, 2015, 3:58 pm
#133
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SFO is different from DL's hubs. Unlike MSP or DTW, SFO has strong point-to-point demand, so UA needs to rely less on flow traffic and can feed the hub with all-important Asia-bound premium traffic with RJs. UA has the same capacity and frequency disadvantage to AA on SFO-DFW, for the same reason.
FWIW, I was on a brand new SkyWest E175 last week and the gogo wifi was lightning fast. So the RJ product is getting better.
FWIW, I was on a brand new SkyWest E175 last week and the gogo wifi was lightning fast. So the RJ product is getting better.
May 12, 2015, 5:01 pm
#135
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Code:
carrier | origin | flights | seats ---------+--------+---------+--------- DL | MSP | 11119 | 1217401 UA | SFO | 8090 | 1033632