cesco.g

Exactly. Same way as eye-shades & toothbrushes are being offered on p.s. flights.

JVPhoto

This is why I don't bemoan the lack of p.s. amenity kits as some others here may. I don't need anything other than the little toothbrush kit, so I am fine when they come around with the basket and let you pick what you'd like.

FlyWorld

It's nuts that the bar is so low that we now have threads celebrating the addition of drinkable coffee, slippers, and cookies to flights. And, each of these tiny improvements actually qualifies for an entire thread!

However, it does seem that there is an ongoing effort to re-evaluate the cuts that Smisek made and reverse at least these decisions. One can only hope that smarter people are working harder to re-evaluate the tougher cuts that he made in his war against customers and maybe, just maybe, we'll start to see some substantive and valuable enhancements in the future.

sinoflyer

The slippers by themselves are insignificant, but the totality of the "enhancements," including drinkable coffee (presumably, we'll see in March) and snacks (these are actually a return of previous cutbacks) reveal a whole lot about the Smisek regime (much of which we were already painfully aware of, regrettably) and perhaps Munoz as well.

About the slippers, on the Asian transpac carriers that I've been on in recent memory, NH, BR, OZ, JL, and CA, all provide better quality slippers than UA. And they are encouraged to be taken home judged by their packaging. But they are not significantly better than UA's single-use ones, which might be technically correct, but I've certainly used them more than once. I use them in my hotel rooms in Asia, and I leave them in my rollaboard for my domestic trips. YMMV, of course.

dmurphynj

It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that fuel prices are at historic lows, could it?

Just playing devil's advocate for a moment here ... What if the reason for the turnabout is the fact that they were able to turn $1.7b of net income last quarter due primarily to low fuel costs? Maybe it wasn't JeffS that was evil, but the cost of Jet-A?

FlyWorld

Smisek was in control while jet fuel was declining in price and was already at historic lows for much of his reign, so it would not be justifiable to suggest that Smisek was cutting cost to counteract rising fuel costs.

Furthermore, everyone knows that jet fuel may increase in price again. It would be profoundly stupid to set expense levels as a function of fuel levels because that would imply the need to cut the coffee, cut the cookies, and cut the slippers as soon as fuel goes up, which it will.

If we assume that the current leadership is reasonably intelligent (now that Smisek and Rainey are gone, I'm willing to assume some degree of intellect is being allowed to flourish at HQ), then a correct business strategy is to set service levels at the minimum required *to be competitive* and to take the costs associated with those decisions. Obviously, there's a ton of judgement in what it takes to compete, but an intelligent airline executive who recognizes that firing huge swaths of high value customers was a negligent strategy might see that the optimal service level is somewhere higher than the lowest in the country (fighting with Frontier for position at bottom).

So, if we assume intelligence is being applied to these decisions, then I'd assume there was a recognition that being the worst airline in the country is not a strategy that maximizes long term shareholder value, and therefore, there may be some commitment to spending more money to become better than worst, and thereby attract flyers on something more than lowest price or hub captive gouging.

If this is true, then, I'd expect there is an intent to maintain these decisions even in the face of higher fuel prices.

This, after all, is how a team of executives would behave if they were seeking to maximize shareholder value, rather than seeking to maximize quarterly bonus payments to Smisek, which has been the supreme operating objective since 2012.

goalie

TOPIC DRIFT ALERT

Please remember that this is a discussion about slippers coming to all Asian flights and not about jet fuel prices or other assorted off topic subjects

goalie
UA Forum Co-Moderator

kettle1

How much do those slippers cost UA? I would guess 50 cents? I have 30 pair sitting in a box that I am going to give to Goodwill.

ua_sp_102366

Is this just for flights to / from Asia or to other places in the world as well?

cesco.g

Throughout the years I have never seen slippers on any other long-distance/overseas flights.

ORDnHKG

With OZ I always worry about the problem you mentioned will happen sooner or later, as OZ is the only one that doesn't offer sealed slippers in both F and C. With F slippers in the drawstring bag, C slippers just flip the button in the plastic sleeve, so there is always a chance that someone use the slippers and put it back into the bag, the cleaners wouldn't inspect if the slippers had used or not, or no instructions about any slippers left behind must throw.away.

ORDnHKG

Odd enough not all asians carriers offer slippers, e.g. CX only has slippers in F but not in J, TG has no slippers other than F, but even in F, there are none for short intra asia flights like BKK-HKG

mh3265a

Haven't been on a UA flight to Asia, other than Tokyo, for some time. I say it's a nice edition. Sure the slippers aren't the best but it shows a good effort by UA

Kacee

I just got slippers in TG J on NRT-BKK (and back). They're equivalent quality to the UA version (paper thin, but sufficient for a single flight).

Agree they don't give them in F on BKK-HKG.

username

Maybe it is because only SOME Asian cultures have the slipper custom?