LarkSFO

I'll have to go look - 800 mile flights on UX are supposed to have full meals during meal hours? That sounds good to me! (except for your experience)

733 miles. Is this one of those 'special' routes?

channa

Flew a midcon dinner flight. Choices were grilled salmon, chicken jambalaya, or a vegetarian paneer masala. I told the FA that if there's one thing Jeff Smisek knows how to do, it's outsource, so I'll have the Indian food. She got a kick out of that.

Food was quite tasty and good consistency. Indian dishes tend to reheat well and are high on seasonings, so they're great on planes. Declined the ice cream sundae afterwards.

Next flight was a 2,000 mile redeye. New meal windows mean this was downgraded from cold plate to snack basket.

Net net, typical United inconsistency. First flight was better than it used to be, second flight was worse.

UA-NYC

Yes - a carve-out route listed on the UA site:

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...spx#exceptions

Note sent to 1KVoice - if they reply, will post the response.

littlea905

This is the first report we've had with actual meal service on the CRJ-700. Good to hear they are finally getting to all the UAX aircraft with first class as promised by the end of April.

channa

So I got the survey on this flight and hammered them on the meal since it was a downgrade from what it was previously. The survey asked all sorts of detailed questions about whether I liked the salad, the bread, the entree, etc.

It seems even the survey expects a meal on this flight (like there used to be) if they're asking questions about that stuff.

andrewwm

You'd be welcome to take your business to American if you want a meal...except they don't serve meals on redeyes either.

Or perhaps you could fly Delta, except they also don't serve redeye meals.

So my suspicion is your complaint is going to end up in the Wacker Drive circular bin.

This joke would be funny except pmUA had the largest ratio of express to mainline of the bigs and had no catering operation of their own (as opposed to Chelsea catering0. Would have been funnier 5 years ago if directed at Tilton.

channa

The issue is not whether or not there's a meal on the flight. There doesn't have to be, frankly.

The issue is a truth in advertising one -- cutting meals while marketing a "Multi-Million Dollar Investment in Onboard Food" is why they got dinged.

If their own surveys are asking questions about salads and bread on a non-meal flight, clearly they're doing something wrong.

andrewwm

I suppose like not updating their survey. I guess this will probably not satisfy you.

I guess it is also not possible they are speaking the truth about a multimillion dollar investment if the overall net change is remarkably positive but there are a few small givebacks.

I mean, you just admitted here you don't care if there's a meal. You're just complaining because you want to complain.

channa

Not at all. I'm complaining because there was a takeaway that was marketed as a "multi-million dollar investment."

It's not much different from "changes you'll like" while making cuts, which was also a marketing blunder.

andrewwm

So if United removed one olive from salads but otherwise started serving filet mignon, prime rib, and lobster thermidor, you would still be writing in to complain?

TAKEBACK! Fire up the outrage machine! And you still haven't proven that UA is not, in fact, investing millions in onboard enhancements.

List of positives:

1. Increased meal choice, better meal quality
2. Over a hundred regional flights now get real meals
3. Better bread selection
4. Better alcohol selection
5. Higher quality desserts
6. Decreased distance necessary to qualify for food
7. More exception markets

Takebacks:

1. Deletion of 1:30pm-4:00pm meal window for some midcon flights
2. Deletion of crappy redeye snack

The above list strongly suggests to me that the overall changes cost UA a lot of money.

If the take back doesn't matter to you then it isn't really a take back.

channa

Do you have any data to show it cost United a lot of money? I don't. There are tremendous savings from the hundreds of flights they stripped meals from. That must have saved them a ton of money.

It's possible that the "multi-million dollar" cost was in the improvements, and they're ignoring the savings they're reaping from the cuts on hundreds of flights. That is, if they're accounting like they're marketing -- counting the improvements while not counting the cuts, rather than being up front with customers.

As for your olive question, I would think it's insignificant. That said, your olive example doesn't have meals removed from a flight, so it's not an accurate comparison. Now if United had marketed a multi-million dollar salad improvement, while also removing salads from hundreds of flights daily, that would be an issue.

andrewwm

1. The redeye catering was garbage before, was bad during pmUA. I doubt it cost them much money
2. Afternoon flights in the 1:30-4:00 window between 899-1299 miles are not "hundreds of flights"
3. Afternoon flights that lose meals are likely about even with the number of express flights that gained meals.
4. Not to mention all of the 800-899 mile flights that get meals.

Strictly on which flights have a meal basis, UA is probably a net wash in terms of total flights that have meals.

If the number of flights that have meals is about the same (probably less than 2-3% change+-) yet the quality of meals went up as did the alcohol and sides, do you think that "probably" cost UA money or not? Or maybe UA just invented a machine that prints free meals and their estimation of costs is a total lie.

EWR764

We've discussed it before, but are we really talking about "hundreds" of flights" which lost the cold plate? I think that observation may suffer from the same sort of inflation as your impression of United's "multi-million dollar" food service investment.

What about the >7pm transcon departures that lost the cold plate but gained a full service?

bamboola

Customer Care just offered me 8,750 miles for the two missing meals combined.

channa

You also forgot the evening flights that had a cut. Like my IAH-SFO 9:00 PM that is no longer a cold plate. I had to run between connecting flights the other day (inbound was 50 minutes late into IAH), stopped off at the first food place I saw, asked for the fastest thing they could put in a to go box, paid and made it before door close.

Poor quality or not, the cold plate was something one could eat in a situation like that (which is likely more common on UA than other carriers, given UA's poor operational performance). The pomegranate chocolates that United did have worked as a dessert.

Anyhow, add up the redeyes, the late flights, and the mid-day flights, and it's easily hundreds of flights. The redeyes alone is probably a good chunk of that.

Also, you mention the quality component. Much of the meal cost is not in food cost, rather in logistics, so it's disingenuous to state that the redeye catering wasn't costly. Food itself is cheap, and if you're already serving food, incrementally a dollar per meal can make a big difference.


Probably about right. So you have some flights where you didn't have a meal now getting it, others where you did get a meal and now are not. In some of those cases, you could have used the meal (e.g., IAH-SFO above), and others you could have cared less.

I would agree that it's more a reallocation of meal resources and long overdue menu refresh.


As I mentioned previously, food costs can be low, and none of us have that data. Some of their menu choices are strategic. Items like the Indian dish or chicken jambalaya, are large, stew-based items that reheat well, have good flavor, are made in bulk, and can have low food costs. That's not a bad thing, but it's not necessarily a cost increase, either.

The only data I do have is how much I spent on dinner the other night that I wouldn't have had to spend before the cuts from United's "multi-million dollar investment in onboard food."


If there were an easy way to do it I would, but think about every redeye -- from every West Coast city, as appropriate to EWR, IAD, ORD, CLE, then SFO/LAX hubs to any mid-west/east coast city (e.g., BWI, BOS, MSY, ATL, PHL, etc.), the shorter redeyes to IAH (SEA/PDX/SFO/LAX/LAS/etc.), and that some of these are multiples already (LAX/SFO-IAH can be 3x each sometimes, SFO-IAD can be 3x, etc.).

Then there's the shorter Hawaii stuff (HNL/OGG/KOA/LIH-SFO/LAX). Again, some of these are in multiples. Hawaii-DEN (e.g., OGG-DEN) on the later side.

Then the mid-afternoon midcons, and those are huge (DEN-much of the east coast, and sometimes in multiples -- IAD, BWI, etc.), and the reverse (IAD/BWI-DEN).

And the shorter midcons that are mid-afternoon or late (think 1,000 miles out of IAH, which are plentiful -- MIA, FLL, TPA, MCO, PHX, LAS, etc., or 1,000 miles out of DEN -- DEN-MSY/SFO/SMF/PDX/SEA and possibly reverse).

And the longer midcons that are evening flights (IAH-LAX, SAN, SMF, SFO, SEA, etc.).

And then the transcons that run on the later side (EWR-SFO/LAX; IAD-SFO/LAX, etc.).

And midcons to/from ORD (e.g., LAS, PHX) either mid-day or late.

Then there's oddball stuff (e..g, IAH-SJU) that gets caught up in this. Most flights out of Alaska are redeye.

And so on...

This is not an insignificant number of flights that had meals removed.