UA Will Never be a World-Class Airline Until They Get Rid of CRJs on Major Routes.
#46
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Company management in a public corporation has a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of shareholders. Ask the SEC.
Now, many understand that taking care of customers and staff is an excellent way of taking care of the shareholders. I think most corporations, including UA, understand that.
But there are limits.
Now, many understand that taking care of customers and staff is an excellent way of taking care of the shareholders. I think most corporations, including UA, understand that.
But there are limits.
Customers, employees, vendors, etc are all stakeholders as well as the shareholders.
Companies who find the right balance of balancing the interests of all stakeholders do well.
#47
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Or looking at SFO-ATL, UA flies two 737s while DL flies seven planes (the 737 is the smallest and there are several 767s). So more people are connecting from SFO via ATL to Europe and the southeast than are connecting from ATL to the west and to Asia? Again, I don't really understand how the issue is primarily related to connecting traffic.
Or ten 717s (DL) vs. six 737s (UA) from EWR to ATL. OK, the DL planes are slightly smaller but still DL has more capacity to the primary transatlantic hub for each airline.
Last edited by eefor jfp; May 27, 2015 at 7:24 am Reason: added second & third paragraph.
#48
That said you are correct that I know nothing about pilot hiring practices, but I do hope the pilots are similarly professional whether flying an RJ or a 747.
With that in mind, it's not unreasonable to assume that on average, a pilot flying a UAX RJ does not have the same amount of experience and isn't being paid the same as a pilot flying mainline on a 737, let alone a widebody.
As the Colgan Air disaster showed, there was a standards gap between mainline and regional pilots in terms of training, regulation and so forth. In the wake of that crash, measures have been taken to address those issues, and one would hope that they've been sufficient to at least address the safety aspect of this discussion.
#49
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#50
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I do not know whether the experience of a pilot on one small plane mirrors another (a 737 is also a small plane) - is there a hierarchy where the most junior and inexperienced fly the smallest planes and as you get bigger your planes do to? Well if age has anything to do with anything, the pilot who flew me on a RJ this morning (on US Air I must add - US is not only airline that uses RJ) was at least in his 50s and didn't look inexperienced (but who knows he might have taken on flying late in life); in contrast I have seen pilots who look as young as mid 20s flying 757s. BTW if UA had no RJS and same happened on an A320 then would we not then be calling them inexperienced or whatever compared to 787 pilots? Where does the comparison end?
Old-looking pilots don't always equal very "experienced" pilots. The captain of the Colgan crash was 47 and was hired by Colgan just 3.5 years before that tragedy. Like most RJ/turboprop pilots, he had relatively few hours of flying experience. So your RJ pilot who looked to be in their 50s may have had lots of experience but might not be so experienced.
#51
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Typically, less experienced pilots fly small planes and more experienced pilots fly larger planes. You won't find any 30-year old 777 captains at AA, DL or UA. By time they work their way up to those planes, they're old and usually very experienced, with many thousands of hours of flying.
#52
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This is certainly true of captains, but with the current upheaval in the ranks of pilots at the majors (lot of retirements, expansion, merger-related movements, etc.), airlines like UA are putting new-hires into the right seat of 757s and 767s. That being said, 747/777/787 right seats are considered plum because of the desirability of scheduling/trips and nature of the flying (or lack thereof...). It all depends on where the vacancies are at the various basis when classes graduate.
#53
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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.
It is a night and day difference in service and culture at Delta, don't take my advice, look at most customer satisfaction surveys...
#54
Join Date: Feb 2008
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Company management in a public corporation has a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of shareholders. Ask the SEC.
Now, many understand that taking care of customers and staff is an excellent way of taking care of the shareholders. I think most corporations, including UA, understand that.
But there are limits.
Now, many understand that taking care of customers and staff is an excellent way of taking care of the shareholders. I think most corporations, including UA, understand that.
But there are limits.
The year before Jeff announced his "savvy" plan, and all of his "changes you will like" UAL made $1.3B (ex specials), and $840M with them. Delta made $1.2B (ex specials)
Jeff promised any extra $1.2B in "synergies" each year ($800M extra revenue, $400M in savings), which should have gone to the bottom line.
Well from 2012-2014 with his plan in place, United made $3.659B ex specials, but if you include the massive specials for integration, etc back in United has only actually made $1148B. Given they were supposed to (and I expect they did, they were just swamped by other losses) gain $1.2B in profit each year its a stunning failure.
Delta? Well under different management, with a goal of having leading product and CS, it made $8.8B ex specials (the figures including specials also include taxes, which are not actually paid, so are less relevant.)
Given the bump that Jeff got from consolidation of two airlines w/o overlap (in extra revenue of $800M/year) and ability to save on joint functions (of $400M/year), its hard to think of a better example to show that slavishly focus on wall street metrics like Smisik has ("there are limits") do better for their shareholders.
#55
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yes, b/c DL has to send everyone to ATL, where UA can offer direct flights from DEN to the destinations beyond ATL. Pretty simple explanation on this one.
#56
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not to mention, there are those that are even more tenured pilots flying an RJ than a mainline a/c.
#57
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From ATL, UA has to send everyone to DEN to destinations beyond DEN, while DL has nonstops to many more places, so UA should have more feed to DEN than DL has.
#58
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ETA: doing a little bit of research shows ATL has nearly 1,000 daily flights for DL. UA doesn't even break 600 at ORD or IAH. Really hard to compare when the magnitude between largest hubs is that stark.
Last edited by PsiFighter37; May 27, 2015 at 12:34 pm
#59
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While there are some head to head comparisons (IAH-ATL, EWR-ATL) with a similar level of market penetration, this one is caused by three factors. First, United has chased away much of the O/D market share at DEN to OALs (it currently only has a 40% market share, SWA is 25%), as a result they just have fewer passengers who fly them ex-DEN than DL has ex-ATL. Second, the "connecting traffic" that is pulled through the hub at ATL is much greater than what UAL can pull through DEN, hence more passengers on the connecting ATL-DEN and DEN-ATL flights on DAL. Third, more of the regional traffic on UAL gets pulled into other hubs (ORD, IAH) on UAL than into competing hubs of DLs (MSP, SLC).
Part of this is natural (as to DEN) and part of it is self inflicted, with the loss of passengers then causing downgrades to RJ, which chases away more passengers. At some point it comes unsustainable (see CLE) as there is too little high yield traffic on the RJs as it has booked away.
#60
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But many of those people on DL from ATL to DEN would not have started their journey in ATL. Essentially DL is operating flights between DEN and X destination, with ATL as stopover, so the comparison is not between 8 DL flights Vs three UA but between DEN and a chosen city pair (which UA may or may not fly directly to). DEN is not that a big hub (for example to European or African Flights) as ATL is so the UA feed of DEN has to be smaller I don't think this is a helpful comparison except for those starting and ending the journey in ATL and DEN.