ptc8329

Hello all.

I know that I am going to get skewered for posting this so please keep the following in mind when responding. 1) I have generally been fairly critical of UA since the merger; and 2) I travel extensively so am familiar with competing products.

I recently completed a trip from SFO to Europe and had some observations:

Outbound trip

SFO - IAD: Downgraded the plane from an international to Hawaii config 777. Obviously the loss of international BF seating was not ideal but I finally got to experience the beta test of the personal device streaming video. For all the critics of UA and the removal of IFE (of which I am one), I was truly impressed. This was a great service and I think if it is rolled out across the entire fleet, it would be a leading product, IMHO. I am a bit surprised that the FAs don't make an announcement that the service is available so that more people know. Perhaps this will start once the beta testing is complete.

IAD - FRA: sUA Int'l 777. BF seat is still very good in my opinion. Granted it is not as new as when I was flying it in 2008, but it has held up well. I agree that the 4 across seating is not luxurious, but if it means more seats available for purchase or upgrade, I will take that over fewer seats. The food was generally pretty bad. I was very surprised that there were no in-flight snacks offered either after dinner service. That seems unusual to me.

FRA - DVR: Croatia Airlines A319. For all those who complain about domestic F, being on a European carrier in EU business should be an eye opening experience. I lived in Europe for a time, so I am used to it, but honestly, the seats are horribly uncomfortable and make UA domestic F seem like the Ritz.

Overall: I thought this was a decent trip with generally positive FA and customer service experience. Solid B and well worth my discounted business fare.

Return trip

DVB - FRA: Much the same as noted above. I would rather stand on a plane for 2 hours than sit in that seat again. And before people say that the new UA seat is the same as these, that is not true. I have been in the new UA seat, and frankly, it seems like a barcalounger compared to these seats.

FRA - SFO: 747 upper deck. Service was fantastic and the food was quite good. As I should have noted above, for all the talk of downgrades in food, there have been some noticable upgrades. The salad is much more plentiful. Also, on this trip (probably because of length) there were a variety of snacks available throughout the flight and a pre-arrival snack (the chicken flatbread wrap that I have read so much about. I didn't eat it because I was sleeping, but I will say that for the length of the flight, I felt quite full and well fed). Also, although some of it can be attributed to the upper deck, it was one of the best crews I have experienced. The pursar's announcements were so professional and courteous. Ironically, for all of the chatter on here, there was no mention of being there primarily for safety. When we landed, the pursar actually said "I hope you found the service on today's flight to be to your liking and of what you would expect of a Star Alliance carrier." (You can insert a joke here if you want saying you would expect nothing on United). Objectively, I would say this was one of the best crews I have flown with on any airline and I would also say that the three UA crews I encountered on this trip were all very accommodating and attentive. While I realize experiences vary, I have mostly only positive things to say about UA crews since the beginning of 2014.

Overall: The 747 is definitely aging, but the total experience was very positive and I would put it against any experience I have had on LH or BA.

Beyond this trip, I have been pleasantly surprised by the progress that UA has made from a cabin and airport crew perspective in 2014. Mergers are a difficult time and clearly this one was not the best from an integration perspective, but I do think that things are looking up. The one area where I wish UA would focus their attention is on operational reliability, particularly in their regional carriers. This has been one area of significant frustration for me that has caused me to divert business, but otherwise, it seems to me that things might be heading in the right direction.

As a general comment, I have flown DL and AA. I think AA's domestic F is a stronger offering but it is also dependent on the type of aircraft you get. The DL experience is always disappointing to me because I find their seats to be uncomfortable and confusing as to why they have no headrest. All airlines have their pluses and their minuses, but this board seems to always destroy UA for everything whereas the DL and AA boards have such positive comments. Its humorous to read the posts and watch them devolve into the same negative comments. I am not making apologies for UA. They certainly have their issues, but when DL loses an elderly woman in the airport, the answer is "These things happen. Think of how many flights and passengers they have a day." When UA does the same, the answer is "Those horrible employees at UA probably purposely lost her so that they could give their non-rev friend the seat AND displace a paying F customer to boot." Obviously that is said tongue in cheek, but I admit that I used to be a steady reader of this board and left due to its negativity. There must be some good things out there!

Thanks for reading my long and rambling post.

All the best and safe travels.

Air Houston

Thanks for sharing.

PV_Premier

DL already has a streaming product fairly widely deployed. I agree that if this is the future of IFE in the skies, I'm liking it.

EnvoyBoy

I hope you'll write into UA about the crew on FRA-SFO.

Great service should be encouraged, recognized, rewarded!

kettle1

I think it was WN that left a woman at the airport:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/south...ng-mother.html

DL is the one that released a UM to a convicted parent (Mother).

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...oved-list.html

I get your point and great review.

phkc070408

I'm yet to experience the streeming content, but I've been on five flights with wifi internet (four of them working), and I am yet to hear the FAs make an anouncement about it.

kettle1

Perhaps the FA's are shocked it is on-board, or can not believe it is working. Good for UA. Perhaps they are taking those surveys to heart. Food improvements, wifi, etc. Perhaps management took a look at FT the past year, or they flew on DL or AA. Maybe one of them took DL from NRT-BKK?

uanj

Same to you and thanks for posting.

I share your views, especially about intra-European C which for LH has now expanded to include North Africa and the closer points of the Middle East at times. It makes me especially appreciative of p.s.

This year United employees finally seem to be rallying around customers, I think the friendly skies campaign has given them a focal point. Yes, there are exceptions, but less and less. (But I still think their entire Council of Chefs should resign!)

Kmxu

Thank you for sharing.
My B747 experience (ORD-NRT and NRT-ORD) was either excellent or poor. The outbound FAs were very attentive and very helpful. The inbound FAs could not finish the dinner service without FAs from downstairs.
My biggest grief is the operation excellence. There was no smooth sailing for every of my and my family's trips this summer. For xxx-ORD-NRT, my original booking was ORD-DEN-NRT, but DEN-NRT was MX and cancelled that day. I took proactive action to switch to the direct flight, but had to wait at ORD for six hours. For YVR-EWR-xxx, there was a crew delay for YVR-EWR flight leaving at 11:40 am, resulting in misconnection and overnight stay at EWR. I had to switch to YVR-ORD-xxx myself (UA did nothing). For another trip, my wife's last segment was MX and cancelled, resulting a late arrival of more than three hours. For my son's trip from zzz-EWR-xxx, he would misconnect and stay overnight at EWR if I did not switch him to an earlier zzz-EWR flight, but he had to stay at EWR for six hours.

787fan

Thanks for sharing. Should this thread be under trip reports instead ?

azzurro

Great to hear! I must admit that most of my flights are much better than you would think given the tone of many posters here. With few exceptions, I actually think most FA's do a great job at both safety and service. But those exceptions are duesys.

Cargojon

I recently flew DL and UA on consecutive weeks. The experiences were very similar with IRROPS on both returns home, and UA came out the clear winner. People on the DL board cuss DL too on here, but you'd think it was utopia by the way some write.
I agree, business class in Europe is a joke, the worst domestic F here is miles ahead with the exception of full hot meal service on a 2 hour flight.

lhrsfo

I disagree completely about domestic F vs European C. I've recently done LAX-SFO and vice versa, LAX-LAS and vice versa, LHR-BRU and vice versa and LHR-FRA and vice versa in domestic F or European C. The LAX-SFO legs on both UA and AA, the LAX-LAS on AA and the LHR-BRU and FRA on BA. UA and AA had no lounge access included, whereas BA has lounge access. UA but neither AA nor BA offered a PDB. UA offered a snack (eg a banana) whereas AA offered only a tiny bag of pretzels or similar. BA offered a full hot meal, even on the BRU flight which was the shortest of the quartet. UA and AA offered undrinkable wine, BA offered, amongst other things, real Champagne, together with coffee afterwards. UA and AA offered a wider seat with about 6" or so more legroom. BA offered a standard seat but with the middle blocked.

I guess my priority on such a short flight is to be nicely fed and have lounge access. The food is especially important as it means that you don't have to waste time in the airport finding somewhere even vaguely acceptable to eat. I don't need the throne thing. I guess the OP's priority is the bigger seat and not the lounge access or the food. Of course, it would be nice to have both, but it won't happen. I suspect that it's a straight cultural difference at work here, with US customers wanting the space and European wanting the catering.

JDS747

Very well said! Glad I'm not the only one that feels this way. I've been thinking it a long time but haven't said it.

I've also noticed on the DL and AA board that the mods seem to curtail the negativity a bit more by closing threads when they get out of hand. The new mods on the UA board seem to be handling much in the same way and I think that is a good thing.

I really believe once they get a joint FA contract things will improve even more... especially the operational aspect of things.

RandomBaritone

OP, thanks for the great post, and thanks for including it here instead of the Trip Report thread. I took a three-month break from the forum myself because of the negativity. It just got to be too much. At one point a teenager flying UA F for his first mileage run (awww) wrote a glowing report and was mercilessly ridiculed by regulars here, even accused of being a paid shill. It was pathetic.

I've found the food in J and F to be generally mediocre -- except as you point out for the food out of FRA! Must be the catering there. The food on my FRA>SFO flight a few months ago was spectacular.