entropy

UA post-9/11 eviscerated a lot of its services, through their bankruptcy period; remember, LF's back in those days were 50's 60%, pmUnited in 2000 I think had more ASMs as UA+CO today. But that's far different from the post-consolidation era that we're living through now.

If you can't make money with oil prices and fares at the levels they are today, you shouldn't be operating a route.


I do agree that this is the first step in killing "ps" (well, the 2nd or 3rd since the conversion to 2 class ..). In a couple years, they're going to ditch the rest of the 757 fleet and move to 20F 739s.

fly18725

Actually, the DOT has approved every proposed slot swap. There have been slot divestitures required with mergers.

The only thing remotely correct in this quote is that Delta said it's grown its share in NYC and LAX. Everything else is generally wrong.

REPUBLIC757

It's definitely enough for the routes to operate -- my point is what UA said about "moving 757s back to domestic" was misleading. The sCO 757 they are taking off Euro are clearly are only going to be operating LAX/SFO-EWR. There won't be enough 757 to go around to the other hubs -- unless they totally dismantle the 757 European network or keep more sUA 757 that are still around.

I can't see the current management team being around in a few more years to have this done.

Indelaware

Indeed, sadly. And regulators didn't do much about the other prior, equally foolish, earlier mergers.

Only for that small portion of customers who upgrade. The vast vast majority of customers ride in the back.

UA would veto such membership.

This is entirely a matter of opinion. I shy away from TATL non-stops from the west coast. West coast departures are poorly timed; one arrives mid-day. Those of us who prefer a full day of rest at destination before work find this a negative as do those who want first-day meetings in Europe.

Others find that it is best to sleep only when it is dark outside, to constantly adjust to our location. So even if we depart the west cost late afternoon, we do not close our eyes until we are over Atlantic Canada anyway.

You are welcome. With UA metal: SFO-LHR-JNB-WDH, 30h15m.
Another option with UA metal you might not have considered: SFO-IAH-LOS-JNB-WDH on UA/UA/SA/SA. Its about 34h. But for shortest total travel time, I think that SFO-MUC-JNB-WDH on LH/SA/SA at 28h55m is the winner but no UA metal.

Still, if it was me, I would strongly consider SFO-XXX-LGA, overnighting near JFK, and then continuing, refreshed, on SA JFK-JNB-WDH the next morning.

PsiFighter37

I'm surprised at the fateful sense that people think UA is going to ditch p.s. outright. I can't see them taking this step unless a) the airline as a whole is swirling the drain (which I know is a debatable point amongst those most passionate about this sentiment), or b) they have zero desire to be competitive on NYC-CA transcon business. I'm not a consultant or an expert on the airline industry, but neither seems plausible at this time. I suppose we'll see when the next economic downturn / recession comes if that is the case or not.

halls120

I agree - step one was going from 3 class to 2 class, step two is moving it to EWR, step three and final will be replacing the 752s with 739s that have 20 slim-lined F seats.

entropy

I would've hoped they would have been tossed to the curb by now, but if an activist investor gets their hands on the world's 3rd largest airline which is trading a 1/3 the multiple of its competitors, who knows.

SunLover

The 752 p.s. airframes are older and relatively inefficient and getting more costly to maintain by the day. When they reach retirement age UA will not take new/newer 737 metal and outfit them in the lie-flat PS style. sCO does not like sub-fleets.


SunLover

rtalk25

There were slot divestitures in those mergers - atleast for the latter two ones. The CO-UA merger resulted in Southwest acquiring EWR slot pairs, but there was no auction, and UA presented the deal as a way to get the merger passed without objection. And, because it wasn't forced and UA got to choose it's competition: VX was kept out of EWR for awhile longer and UA could decide to inhibit B6 to becoming bigger in NYC via EWR. It chose Southwest as it's competition, where it might have figured WN would compete for traffic to markets like STL and BNA.

However, this case isn't a merger, but a slot swap within NYC airports and it's slots trading from one legacy to another legacy (as DOJ views LCCs in a different manner), and at international gateway hub airports, not like DCA LGA or DAL which are city center airports. Rarely are concessions forced at the international hub airports, as possibly even the DOJ realizes that the carrier needs domestic routes and gates to make international routes viable. At EWR, UA is constrained for growth, so exchanging slots with other carriers, might be it's only option for long term viability.

The DOJ also blocked DL to attain DAL gates from AA, but permitted WN and VX to bid, as it didn't view Delta of the legacy carriers providing low fare competition. So, if DL isn't a carrier that provides low fare competition anyways from the DOJ's view, UA acquiring it's slots in EWR isn't a loss of low fare competition in EWR. But it's a twisted way to look at it. But the point is no LCC slots (which equates to low fare slots from DOJ's view) are affected in this slot swap.

Syzygies

I should have seen this coming. The United Club at JFK T7 is one of the rattiest in the system. Keeping furniture in that condition is like arriving at an emergency room with holes in your underwear. This was obviously a car to be sold, no more money going to the mechanic.

As someone who only migrated from EWR to JFK for the p.s. equipment, I'm guardedly optimistic about my return to EWR. I barely make 1K through a combination of buying first outright at bargain flight times, and sniping to use my ten RPU, GPU certs on low economy fares. With this strategy, I'll be 42% in lay flat beds, with the stress of getting United to play fair with R capacity the big hassle. (I'm obviously not playing fair either, but it's a response to a broken system.) In the very short term, this should get easier.

We're always rightfully trashing United and other domestic carriers for falling behind world competition. Forget the books, shouldn't it be possible to connect from the west coast to Europe, entirely in flat beds? The new wide bodies to Spain are consistent with this view. Taken in isolation, this is a world class move. (I love how New York-centric this thread has become. Get with the times; the new money is in San Francisco, not New York.)

Trains are roughly a push, I've spent years on each. I knew John Nash, and my travel fears have always been a concern over ground transportation, not planes coming down. After several JFK yellow cabs getting lost on the way to the upper west side (how is this even possible?) I boycotted cars till a friend recommended a black car service (Dial7) for late night arrivals.

Some years I cut my 1K margins so close that I'd be asking "original mileage credit" for these new, shorter flights. It would be a nice gesture if United were to do this automatically, chump change for good will.

nycityny

I decided to call in today to have United rebook my ps JFK-LAX flights for Nov 22 and Dec 4. I purchased the roundtrip in January with mileage upgrades before the copay was required.

I asked the agent whether I could book a replacement flight that did not have R space available today. He said that I could but that he would need a supervisor's approval. So I gave him my preferred flights where R space was only available for the LAX-EWR leg. He put me on hold for awhile to consult with a supervisor.

He was able to rebook to the flights I had requested but had redposited the miles in order to reapply them now. But now he was facing the $500 copay and needed to override that. More hold time. He came back to ask me for my United "PIN" number which I only used once before. I gave it to him and waited during more hold time. He finally came back to finalize things (I could see the reservation was properly finished online) but he asked me for my birth date. I gave it to him but don't know why he needed it. Seats were selected and the change was made.

I suspect I had much more availability today than I would next week.

spin88

I don't think that a similar situation has arisen, but if you know of one, I would be curious to know what it is. UA's share at EWR is far higher than any airline I can think of that has taken slots in a slot exchange (which have involved DCA and LGA and LHR and NRT before as far as I know). And at DAL (airport, not airline) DOT made clear that WN would not get the gates due to already having such a high share. I am assuming something similar might happen here, where they have a say in slots.


Well, if something is wrong in what I said, I look forward to your posting some contrary information. No offense, but I'm not going to take your assertion that UAL has not underperformed at face value, given the extensive numbers I have been posting for the last three years. Likewise, if UA has claimed a growing corporate share, post away, ditto if AA has not done so.

Legally DOT's mandate is competition. That applies to hubs as well as inner city airports. Any constraints (gates or slots) is subject to regulation. At DAL, DOJ viewed Delta as not providing downward pressure on fares (correctly I would argue) but they also very clearly did not give that gates to WN, even though it said it was going to use them to drive competition in other markets, and AA was across town.

I think that UA getting any more slots at EWR (where express jet and UA have a 60% share, and the actual is higher due to other RJ partners) would be anti-competitive. DOT may ignore it, but there is already a lot of concern about EWR fares/consolidation, and DOT may say no.

REPUBLIC757

Most of the sUA 757s in the PS fleet are from 1996-1999. The same age as the sCO 757 fleet.

There are a few that are from 1990-1991 that they converted to PS (like N505UA and N518UA.) Why that and not a batch from 1993-1995 instead, I have no idea.

sCO doesn't like subfleets because they were always clueless in how to use them to their benefit and maintain them. Delta seems to know a thing or two about sublet management.

Then again, sCO 777s (22), sCO 762 (10) and sCO 764 (16) were so low in fleet total(s) that they could have been considered sub fleets before the merger as CO in their own right.

twoaisleplane

I too hope that UA doesn't abandon ps altogether, but to your second point above I will say that PMCO (the management running the current UA) showed no interest for a decade or more in being competitive on the NYC-CA transcon business. I think CO marketed EWR-LAX as a BF route in the early nineties on the DC-10's (I can sort of remember the ads for it, and flew it a few times), but once they dropped that, they ran a domestic first class service in the face of 3-class service on UA and AA, and BE service on DL, all the way until the merger. So clearly they were not worried about providing a product at EWR that was totally uncompetitive with what others offered at JFK. That mentality is what concerns me.

LAXIAD8

Just called UA to update my 3 upcoming JFK-LAX-XYZ

1. One refunded because the ongoing rate is cheaper to rebook

2. Changed the second to EWR-LAX-XYZ with instant RPU-confirmed R space

3. Changed third one to EWR-XYZ nonstop, and one day earlier

1K rep was very accommodating and courteous ^^