Often1

The most sensible post in this thread. Consumers vote with their feet. If people believe that DL is superior, they ought to fly DL.

I suspect that UA doesn't market its DEN-ATL service to compete with DL for the O&D market. This is likely for people who connect via DEN to the SE and need a segment to make it to ATL.

Why on earth would UA run a 120-seat aircraft for a frequency where 75 seats will do? Especially if it can sell those seats in high fare buckets and bump a couple of low fare types in a pinch.

sbm12

DL feeds far more onward connections over ATL from DEN than UA does from ATL over DEN. UA picks up its O/D customers and a few others in the Mountain region. DL is flowing the whole southeast or Europe connections on those flights. Different demand-->Different capacity.

minnyfly

The operational problems of the aircraft had nothing to do with the pilots. Sounds like the full flight and a possible mechanical issue caused some small issues for the dispatchers and ground crew. The pilots are only there as a safety check.

And I wouldn't say DEN-ATL is a major route. But be thankful for smaller jets. It most cases it allows for increased competition. In this case three carriers offer at least 3 flights a day. You pay less for your flight because of the existence of RJs.

It's a large difference, but entirely logical and speaks to how UA is competing at about the same level as DL on a relative basis. The size of the hubs are not even close because the local and connecting markets are not close in size. DL's ATL hub is the largest in the world and many times larger than UA's in DEN, and so they will almost always offer more frequency and capacity than the competition.

DL doesn't universally offer better reliability or service than UA. It's a fantasy if anyone thinks that. From my experiences, I have a much better chance of getting good service on a UA flight than a DL flight.

UA competes very strongly with DL when you recognize and understand markets. It's simply wrong to say they avoid it.

Then keep doing that. It's your choice. UA isn't losing half their passengers because of an RJ. They can't just throw in a mainline flight and gain 50 passengers.

All the majors have similar high load factors. There is a revenue sweet spot with systemwide load factors, and it appears airlines have found it. It can suck for passengers, but it also means a healthier business, and passengers need that too.

EWR764

UA has been Express on DEN-ATL for years... long predating the merger. There have even been CR2s on the route.

The fact that DL is much larger gauge to ATL than UA out of DEN is more testamant to the power of the ATL hub than United's distaste for competing with DL.

Across the board, from ATL to competitor hubs, Delta typically has much better frequency and larger gauge than the other incumbent carrier. It's true of ATL-MIA/CLT/DFW/IAH/EWR/ORD/PHX, etc.

DENviaLAX

Well both sets of employees are contracted out in this situation so the only thing United is the name on the side of the plane. But that's what they get for trying to cut cut cut. Its sad that any company would think the little money saved in contracting out to the lowest bidder is worth the damage to their reputation when stuff like this happens. Will never make sense to me.

scruffair

I cannot imagine how you could possibly say this and get away with it.

First of all, are you aware of published statistics on reliability?? Feel free to read some of them but I'll give you the summary: DL blows UA away on pretty much every metric.

Second, in terms of service (which is admittedly more subjective), I flew UA for 8 years as an elite and just switched to DL last year after the last straw. I have flown 30 segments and can tell you that on virtually every single one I have experienced a level of service that UA doesn't even come close to. More upgrades, better food, better planes, more wifi and IFE, gate agents thanking me for my loyalty by name at every boarding, overall happier employees just to name a few.

I would love to hear some of your data points that warrant a statement such as "I have a much better chance of getting good service on a UA flight than a DL flight." A someone who has heavily traveled both, I am most intrigued to read your differing experiences.

Complete nonsense. What about CHIDTW?? Why does DL put UA to shame out of ORD and MDW? What about EWRATL?? You can't use your ATL hub excuse on those. I could go on listing markets where UA can't seem to compete against DL.

Kacee

By all objective, and most subjective measures, DL is indeed quite a bit superior to UA in each of these areas.

I said that UA doesn't compete into DL hubs. This is true now, and has been true for so long as I've been flying UA.

Madone59

Yes, this is what is holding UA back from being a world class airline. It's their DEN - ATL and vv route lift/ equipment. ***SARCASM***

Someone, tell Jeff! Quick!

CO_Nonrev_elite

On almost all city pairs, competing airlines offer a significantly better product. Living in NYC, I rarely book on UA anymore as aside from their performance being awful, almost every flight that is under 4hrs is on an Embraer 145 or a prop. While I know they are working to reduce the 50 seaters, it has not happened at all on any of the routes that I have needed. I have booked a lot on DL this year, and I know that at least 25 of the flights have been because DL offered me something other than a EMB145.

I don't even park the miles to Delta, as even without status, I am still treated far better on Delta with no status than I am as a 1K on United.

LarkSFO

Wait, is there some kind of penalty?

If so, lotta' people round here gonna' be in biiiig trouble!

EWR764

This is true... EWR is still Q and ERJ heavy. I don't mind the Qs in and around the Northeast, but an awful lot of the flying east of the Mississippi is still on the 145s. We never saw the CR2s, thankfully, but only now are we starting to see limited 175s and I think it'll be at least another year before there is a more noticeable transition on short haul flying...plus the Q400s are on their way out.

nikolastojsin

... it starts delivering what it promised.

For example: my last three out of four long-haul flights were supposed to have wifi, had the sticker on, but it was INOP, or whatever. (I am not happy about being disconnected for eight or ten hours, and pick flights based on wifi availability.) On all of those, FAs tried to fix it, but could not, and apologized profusely. That is appreciated, but it does not really help. And I do not care about compensation either - just have the thing work, or do not advertise having it.

More: my two out of last five domestic flights were mis-catered (as in no food for F cabin). Last three times I needed it, power plug was INOP on my seat. The other day, pilot comes on and announces a wrong destination city (SFO instead of SEA). Just yesterday, a kind GA offers to put me on an earlier flight - in the last row middle Y seat, while I have a paid F ticket (this on a four hour flight, that lands 90 minutes earlier than my original flight). Thank you - but no! Also yesterday, I asked for a drink without ice, got it with ice - then politely asked again, and again got it with ice. (My seatmate was laughing so hard, he had tears in his eyes.) I can keep going... it is quite hilarious, actually.

To paraphrase kapkap46, amateur hour indeed. And someone needs to tell 'em that one who never strives will never achieve. And that next economic downturn is coming...

TennisNoob

Exactly Jeff clearly says "Not only are we the worlds biggest airline, but we also want to become the worlds LEADING airline". Better translation, the worlds leading airline in terms of profit


------------
Even if they got rid of all the RJ's and the joking F seat it has now, it still won't become an "class" airline. No class without legit F seats IMO.

Cbmaz

From todays United Employee Briefing.



757-200
Retaining the full complement of 767s longer than we originally forecast enables us to use them on trans-Atlantic routes previously served by the international 757-200s, which we can then deploy on domestic and shorter international routes

777-200A
With 767s replacing 777-200s on some Atlantic routes, we will reconfigure 10 777s from the three-class international configuration to a high-density domestic configuration to use on domestic hub-to-hub and other high-demand routes. These 777s will join the existing nine high-density 777s we use primarily to Hawaii, and all 19 aircraft will share a common configuration after modifications over the next two years.


We're also converting orders for 10 787s to 10 777-300ERs, which can provide an unbeatable combination of range, efficiency and capacity on long-haul routes that we plan to announce next spring. We expect to take delivery of the first 777-300ER in late 2016 and the rest throughout 2017.

319s and 320s / 737s
The 777s will replace some of the Airbuses and Boeing 737s on domestic routes, and due to their higher capacity we'll decrease frequency of some routes. For example, one 777 from SFO to ORD might replace two narrowbodies on the route, which can then be redeployed to routes previously operated with express aircraft, like DEN-MSN.

Airbuses and 737s will replace 50-seat RJs on some shorter flights, as we continue to remove from the schedule more than 130 50-seat aircraft by the end of 2015, reducing our reliance on this aircraft from 8 percent at the beginning of last year to 4 percent at the end of next year.

The introduction of Embraer E175 76-seat aircraft to our fleet in 2014 has also enabled us to replace 50-seat regional jets to be more competitive on routes such as IAH-MSP, IAH-ATL and ORD-DTW. In March, we started operating all of our weekday flights to ATL with mainline aircraft and two-cabin RJs equipped with first class and Economy Plus seating.

Additionally, we recently announced that we plan to take 11 used A319s in 2016 and 2017 allowing us to further decrease our dependence on regional jets.

ACVBear

That employee briefing is promising to some extent but one wonders why they had to make these moves (some might call "mistakes") to then change back - like they did with a lot of other things.

Guess we will see how it goes moving forward