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Originally Posted by Cargojon
(Post 24924567)
...I'd rather be on a UA 175 than a DL or AA MD-80.
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Originally Posted by 6P&E
(Post 24925270)
I fly J for my international trips. I hate paying a J fare and then being stuck in a ERJ/CRJ from BNA to EWR and back again. I can't even get the emergency exit row for a bit more space. I would have no problem if it were an E170/5 with an F cabin.
I've managed to avoid UA for over a year for that very reason (and lost my Elite status)- although I do have one J TATL coming up and I only booked UA as the fare was better than AA or DL. |
Originally Posted by Cargojon
(Post 24925727)
This is an excellent point (which of course I didn't think of because my stingy employer makes me fly Y overseas.) I wonder how much premium traffic UA loses because people don't want to make their gateway connections from XXX-EWR or XXX-LAX or XXX-IAD in a flying pencil with no F.
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Originally Posted by LaserSailor
(Post 24926194)
Any flight under 3 hour flight time I don't even look at the equipment. It's irrelevant to me. No carrier can lure my business with equipment type, just by saving me time and money, in that order.
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Originally Posted by LaserSailor
(Post 24926194)
Any flight under 3 hour flight time I don't even look at the equipment. It's irrelevant to me. No carrier can lure my business with equipment type, just by saving me time and money, in that order.
But I can assure you if I were paying a J intl fare, say STL-EWR-FRA I can assure you I wouldn't spend 2 hours in an ERJ while paying J prices for a ticket. Now if I were in F in an E170, sure I'd do it. |
Originally Posted by Ber2dca
(Post 24920931)
Dimensions don't just go East-West, Minneapolis is at the Northern end of the country as Minnesota borders Canada, Houston is by the Gulf Coast i.e. the Southern end of the country.
Also, I'd say IAH is at least as important to UA as MSP is to Delta. Now, Delta does fly some smaller planes on such routes to "enemy" hubs as well but UA always tends to go a bit smaller than the competition. Delta goes with a few A319/320 and 90 seat CRJ900s so UA uses the odd B737-9 but primarily goes with 70 seat ERJ-170s and even the odd ERJ-135 with 37 seats.
Originally Posted by Bear96
(Post 24925227)
I just picked a random weekday in July on DL's schedule MSP-IAH and all flights its are on a CRJ-900.
I've made the argument before that hubs aren't equivalent and that there's a big difference between ATL vs EWR/SFO in that EWR/SFO are top destination markets. So despite the fact that ATL, EWR, and SFO could all be described as captive hubs, they aren't the same because EWR and SFO will have substantial non-captive trafffic from people from people traveling *to* them. We can also identify these differences in hub types by looking at non-alliance foreign carriers flying to a given airport - though you do have to watch out a bit for multi-airport city effects.
Originally Posted by Cargojon
(Post 24925727)
This is an excellent point (which of course I didn't think of because my stingy employer makes me fly Y overseas.) I wonder how much premium traffic UA loses because people don't want to make their gateway connections from XXX-EWR or XXX-LAX or XXX-IAD in a flying pencil with no F.
1. If your origin city is an a non-UA hub, UA won't compete for international passengers flying out of that city, and probably not to that city either. 2. Is there a closer UA hub that you're really supposed to be using as your international gateway? 3. Does geography dictate that there's a more natural AA or DL international gateway closer to you? In this case I suppose you'll be taking a short hop on a flying pencil on AA or DL, right? I wonder how much analysis of premium passengers flying out of secondary cities there is? There certainly wasn't much quantitative analysis going on 20 years ago when I was working in this area. |
Originally Posted by Ber2dca
(Post 24920931)
Also, I'd say IAH is at least as important to UA as MSP is to Delta. Now, Delta does fly some smaller planes on such routes to "enemy" hubs as well but UA always tends to go a bit smaller than the competition. Delta goes with a few A319/320 and 90 seat CRJ900s so UA uses the odd B737-9 but primarily goes with 70 seat ERJ-170s and even the odd ERJ-135 with 37 seats.
The objective for UA going MSPIAH is totally different than DL going MSPIAH, so you can't make these apples to apples comparisons. Unless I am missing something there are not a lot of business ties (unlike, say, YYC or YEG to IAH) so there probably is no need for point-to-pint and you have opposite traffic between down line and hub stations. If you have traffic from CDG AMS feeding from MSP into IAH (and vice versa) then of course you can justify bigger planes, whereas CDG FRA MUC traffic going to MSP will probably go via EWR or ORD. RJs suck but so do airlines that bleed money and require government bailouts. I book accordingly. If there's no alternative, I just deal with it. At the end of the day a seat is a seat. And if the seat is so bad, I'll use a drink chit. |
Originally Posted by Cargojon
(Post 24925727)
This is an excellent point (which of course I didn't think of because my stingy employer makes me fly Y overseas.) I wonder how much premium traffic UA loses because people don't want to make their gateway connections from XXX-EWR or XXX-LAX or XXX-IAD in a flying pencil with no F.
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Originally Posted by lensman
(Post 24930123)
This coming Monday Delta has six CRJ-900 flights MSP-IAH to UA's four ERJ-175s and an A320. I'd call this about even - though I'm sure some will say that that Delta's CRJ-900's are way better than an ERJ-175 and others will say that they'll only fly on the A320. Looking at the seatmaps I actually think this is one case where United wins.
I've made the argument before that hubs aren't equivalent and that there's a big difference between ATL vs EWR/SFO in that EWR/SFO are top destination markets. So despite the fact that ATL, EWR, and SFO could all be described as captive hubs, they aren't the same because EWR and SFO will have substantial non-captive trafffic from people from people traveling *to* them. We can also identify these differences in hub types by looking at non-alliance foreign carriers flying to a given airport - though you do have to watch out a bit for multi-airport city effects. I think you have to trade this off against: 1. If your origin city is an a non-UA hub, UA won't compete for international passengers flying out of that city, and probably not to that city either. 2. Is there a closer UA hub that you're really supposed to be using as your international gateway? 3. Does geography dictate that there's a more natural AA or DL international gateway closer to you? In this case I suppose you'll be taking a short hop on a flying pencil on AA or DL, right? I wonder how much analysis of premium passengers flying out of secondary cities there is? There certainly wasn't much quantitative analysis going on 20 years ago when I was working in this area. IAH is the "southern" hub for UAfkaCO, and it services an area (with the best connections) of about 300M people for the airline, and it is the "end of the line" destination for about 6.5M (roughly twice the size of the twin cities). Given these figures, I would expect UAL to have more seats given IAH-MSP given its catchment area is much much larger for traffic (which with FFPs ought to be in large part captive). Both UA and DL have about the same market penetration at the local airports (IAH and MSP) but its possible that SW pulls off enough traffic to impact UA materially on a route like this. Regardless, it says - IMHO - that DAL is competing the pants off United... |
Originally Posted by Bonehead
(Post 24926311)
I have literally gotten off a CRJ-200 after a 1.5-hour flight with a stiff, sore back. You won't find me on those birds on anything longer than that, and I usually book away from them even if it means connecting at DFW :eek:.
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Originally Posted by wtigerFF
(Post 24930757)
I flew mainline DL (not sure what type of plane; it doesn't say on my email confirmation) from BOS-DTW in the exit row earlier this year. That was hands down the most uncomfortable seat I've ever sat in. It felt like sitting on concrete. It was a relatively short flight, but I could hardly move when it was time to get off the plane. I've never felt that way getting off a CRJ-200 or any UA a/c, even with the new slimline seats. I was literally dreading my flight home but luckily, I got a different type of a/c, so I was able to get out of my seat and off the plane w/o delay.
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Originally Posted by spin88
(Post 24930802)
I am curious what type of plane it was? I have mostly flown DL in F, but the few times in Y (757, 767, 738/9, A320 ex NW) I have found the seats to be good, much better than the slim lines on the UA Airbuses which are IMHE the worst seat I have ever had the displeasure of sitting on a mainline plane). I find the Recaro (UA) seats to be far far worse than anything I have ever sat in, they are just the pits.
Add in the immovable armrests with the tray table, no recline if you pick the wrong row, and I have experienced some uncomfortable exit row seats on UA and others... |
Originally Posted by LarkSFO
(Post 24930835)
Some exit rows on some aircraft (all airlines) in my experience are very hard and uncomfortable. Is there any regulation about exit seats being stiffer since, in an emergency, people will be climbing out over them?
Add in the immovable armrests with the tray table, no recline if you pick the wrong row, and I have experienced some uncomfortable exit row seats on UA and others... Its possible that I have only been the Airbus exit rows (thats all I can recall of the top of my head, I book to OALs when its an airbus flight, which is sad as it was on pmUA my favorate A/C in Y. :td: Perhaps someone has more 411. |
Originally Posted by LarkSFO
(Post 24930835)
Some exit rows on some aircraft (all airlines) in my experience are very hard and uncomfortable. Is there any regulation about exit seats being stiffer since, in an emergency, people will be climbing out over them?
Add in the immovable armrests with the tray table, no recline if you pick the wrong row, and I have experienced some uncomfortable exit row seats on UA and others... |
I certainly didn't want to get hung up on IAH-MSP because as my example plane shows, you could even go EWR-ORD i.e. a pretty key route and about as UA a route as you can get post-merger and very easily still end up on a RJ.
I don't doubt that there's a reasoning behind it, I don't believe even UA management just randomly decides these things on a whim. But don't give me the "connecting smaller markets that otherwise don't get service" line if you fly RJs between two of the country's mega-markets which also happen to be big hubs for you. And for me this UA addiction to RJs is one reason to book around UA, comfort is one aspect, the ease and nonchalance with which UA Express i.e. RJ flights are cancelled is the main aspect though. |
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