LaserSailor

My I-Robot was forced to travel in checked luggage and was thus inhumanly treated. No compensation was offered. I, on the other hand, had champagne served at the wrong temperature, and received 666 miles for inhumane reatment. My spouse also prefers I don't travel in GF, I suspect that feedback has made it back to ZuA too.

Always Flyin

Over an open flame? No one does and everyone is aware why. That is not a serious comment.

But should I tell you about how CX asks me how I want my eggs fresh cooked for breakfast?

If you flew some of the competition, you would find that simply is not true.

Only to Tokyo. And it has been that way for at least a decade on United.

Well, at least medium rare.

COdbaUA is a two-class of service airline. They just inherited some three-class of service aircraft in a merger. GF has not been expanded one iota since the merger and is about to become extinct. CO just doesn't want to spend the money to pull out what is already there.

CX steaks are pretty darn good.

Not with this company. United DOES NOT CARE. Period.

There aren't GF paying passengers willing to fly UA to interest United. Even this passenger was an upgrade.

Not a chance, but it will hopefully have a better C cabin.

I won't eat fish on an airplane. Spoils far too easily.

Except discounted P fares are not upgradeable except with a huge surcharge.

Since UA doesn't want to have a competitive GF product, UA might as well dump it and continue its decline to mediocrity and below.

UrbaneGent

This is what they used to do for me not only for the beef, but also at a time when they served lamb chops. They had no issues cooking them both a little bit more if it was too rare.

Another note, no airline has an open grill - can you imagine (!!)? I would never...and have never...paid for GF since the merger. I'll take LH, EK, NH, BA or SQ in paid F.

embarcadero1

As for the inhuman (my word, not "inhumane", which you used, perhaps fittingly) treatment, revolting food and fraudulent business practices, these are all a matter of public record. UA didn't rack up all those DOT complaints because of their awesome service. They weren't hauled into court to hear judges call them on their consumer fraud because they were operating in an above board manner. Photographic evidence of the revolting food has been repeatedly posted on this thread.

Treating these as "humor" could be one of the reasons for UA's dead last ranking for consumer satisfaction. And maybe even those DOT complaints. And the declining traffic numbers. And repeated bludgeoning in the press by outraged passengers. It's just conjecture, of course, but it's worth a thought.

The additional detail helps here. While violently ill, you remained in a public area, emitting contaminated bodily fluids for 30 minutes. Had I been there, I might have called for medics to help you and so that you would stop emitting bodily fluids in a public area. While I sympathize with you plight, I would think twice about remaining in a crowded public area under such circumstances.

My points were two: First, you seem to confuse food poisoning and illness caused by food contamination. This distinction is likely too subtle for most people, but given your lengthy discourse on food preparation technology and its impact on in-flight food safety, I thought it might be helpful to point out this distinction. It is key to food safety when handling pre-cooked food.

Second, you ought to reserve judgment about other airlines until you've experienced them. You said you had not, which would help explain why you were unaware of the vastly better service ("pampering", if you like) available in the "sub $15K" price range on so many other airlines. In the absence of first hand experience, one might also go on reports from others, many of them posted here. But that's another issue.

I've also been ill from airline food, so I can sympathize. Seeing photos of that awful meal UA serves ex ICN, I'm reminded of how I was unable to eat for 10 hours after doing nothing more than seeing and smelling that food.

halls120

Seriously - UA can't afford to stock more than one bottle of the good stuff for GF? That's really cheap.

Agree with all of the above. While the food is fine, the wine up front continues to be barely drinkable swill. Flew UA to Europe and OS back, both in business, and the difference was amazing. Austrian offers a wide selection of good wine, and they actually board the wines listed on the menu.

How does that figure? All the expense being directed at the GF results in shortchanging the BF product? In what universe?

BearX220

I think it must be a very small cohort of customers that book international first class but don't care much about the food, the drink, the IFE, the service, on-time performance / cancellation rate, etc., etc. I know they exist because I read their posts in this forum but the majority have higher expectations.

UA's longhaul reliability record is pretty woeful -- it's not really an either-or choice.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ts-2015-a.html

gaobest

Or their employer has a contract dictating UAL even for paid F (?). Could ual have a corporate contract with adequate discount so that the ual F is significantly cheaper than LH f for sfo/fra? Do such discounts exist?

Thus maybe OP contact who paid for ua C had a contract with discount, so the paid C actually cost the equivalent of discounted Y (eg S T fare) for more typical pax who book on .Bomb.

I'm just curious what would prompt a passenger to pay GF on ual instead of any intl competitor. I thought Schedule, then pondered ual/LH having similar times for sfo/fra. But perhaps ual schedule for sfo/syd is much better than on qantas. Or sfo/Shanghai is better than what CX can do.

if someone is paying GF, then they don't really need MP or a loyalty program!

tom911

They certainly do a good job with presentation, too.

kevanyalowitz

GS

Exactly my point. If you remove GF you are going to have a lot of GS paying for P/Z rather than D/C/J.

The 2-cabin B'F' experience (from checkin to landing) out of EWR confirms UA has already passed mediocrity.

ironmanjt

Not sure if this is sarcastic, but personally I'd MUCH rather have a comfortable lay-flat seat than food that will (a) taste better on the ground and (b) in no way justifies the premium over lower cabins.

...of course, why can't we have both like SQ, NH, etc

1kBill

Or else a price level that is appropriate for the service level provided.

LeviFlight

As mentioned before, Global First is really a Business First product. What UA call Business First, well Business at best these days. Just because marketing people call it something doesn't make it so.

Darlox

Meh... while there are undoubtedly a small handful of GS who will upfare their seat in order to burn a GPU, in my experience, most are buying D/C/J because of the timeframe on which they book, or the flexibility they require. Not because they just want to give UA more money when P/Z is available.

If that's the subset that UA is working to cater to, well... they're in worse financial shape than I thought. That teeny-tiny subset of "whales" is the equivalent of finding a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk, and then trying to build a business around the assumption that you can find more. In fact, if the best business case mgmt can make for GF is that "it gives our GS members something to upgrade to", then that's even worse than the mind-bogglingly stupid strategy they have already dragged the product down with!

No sale. GF is doomed because mgmt. doesn't see value in the product. Its continued presence is not to "save" the business of some miniscule slice of the GS crowd. (Don't take my word for it... just ask Rainey!)

ironmanjt

Personally, I think it's a joke to call anything UA serves "the good stuff."

Always Flyin

I agree. If I am flying in Y.

If I am paying extra for C or F, I expect more for my money than what I expect in Y, which is just getting me to my destination.

And there is better--in fact far better--for the same money. There are very few routes with GF where there is not competition that is far better than UA, so why would I pay the same money to fly UA?

Not in international first. For the fare premium, a passenger has every right to expect far more. Good enough is not first class. Frankly, it's not even business class.