Right now with UA having the 773 on that route also ups capacity considerably over 752's, so that may be a reason they are taking domestic F connection traffic.

I love that this line can be used to defend the company's actions no matter what they are. Remember when many people said the exact same thing when UA pulled out of JFK??

:D

And as we all know, there are lies, da*n lies, and statistics. :D

But in this case, Kirby is the one on the inside with access to the data. All the rest of us are on the outside looking in, correct? ;)

I don't have a position on what the truth is here (I know for me personally the change has probably cost UA about $100K in revenue, but I've also seen the premium cabin loads into EWR behave in a way JFK never did)...

... but the challenge here is really the "damn lies" problem. Both Kirby and his predecessors had reasons to interpret the data in a way that supported the decision they were after in the case of the latter, or to say his predecessors were doing it wrong in the case of the former. I don't think Kirby is any more reliable than someone on this board - he's conflicted.

ding, ding, ding, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner here! Smisek and his acolytes could have interpreted the data to support their position in the past, and Kirby could be doing the same now. Yet some here cling to the quaint notion that there is one immutable truth as to whether closing UA operations at JFK was or was not the right idea. ;)

The difference seems to be that prior management took a very narrow view of cost/benefit, and generally failed to consider the ripple effects of its cost-cutting. Everything from closing JFK, to taking away agent flexibility during IRROPS, to broken cashews.

Current management seems to have a more wholistic (and I would say, sensible) view on how to run a successful business.

They were both right.

The Smisek team looked at the route from a very simplistic perspective...is it making money, and the answer was no.

Kirby is saying the ancillary damage from that pullout caused others to leave, causing harm across the network. In other words, they underestimated the importance of having those flights to customers. I'm sure they factored they'd lose *some* customers who didn't want to use EWR. But it seems what they didn't factor in was that those customers would cause corporate customers to flee for other, unrelated trips.

Go back to the grocery store analogy. One item may not be profitable in and of itself to sell, but if it's a staple item that customers want, they risk losing more than just that item's sale -- they could lose part or all of that order if the customer now chooses to go elsewhere for their whole order, or split their shopping across two (2) stores.

Kirby specifically talked about customer behavior in his comments -- the customer who was a loyal, pure UA/MP flyer now has to fly another carrier for this route he wants, so now when he's shopping for other, unrelated flights (that used to go to UA), he now looks at both or or multiple carriers, and UA doesn't win all of the time, when in the past they used to.

This is not difficult to understand, and the statements that appear to be contradictory actually are not.

I more objective perspective is to say that the decision to depart JFK was made based on data on hand at that point in time, which would be heavily weighted on historic profitability of the routes and station. An assessment could be made about the impact on broader business, but any forward looking assessment would be qualified by the network strategy at that point in time.

Kirby's comments benefit from having actual data about the impact of JFK's closure on a broader network. It is reasonable to assume the actual impact deviated from the assessment. It is also reasonable to acknowledge that United's network strategy has changed since 2015.

Trying use broad brush strokes to paint Smisek=bad/stupid and Kirby=good/smart reflects a simplistic view of how decisions are made and rapid changes in the competitive environment. It is entirely possible that Kirby could have made the same decision regarding JFK based on the analysis available at that point in time.

I recognize JFK is a staple to many people. The reality is United to doesn't sell that product any more and providing opinions on how you'd remerchandize United is not going to change that.

If this were the only short-sighted decision of the Smisek regime, then yes, you'd have a good point, give him the benefit of the doubt.

Problem is, there are numbers of them from that era, and this fits the small-minded thinking pattern, so I don't think it's unreasonable to say this is a function of a perspective (or lack thereof), not data at the time.

I'm so glad this community embraces the values of tolerance, acceptance, and support. What a horrible environment this would be if we unequivocally prejudged entire groups of people based on personal disagreements with past decisions.

Whoa now, context matters. Jeff was badly failing, the results were bad, and someone saw a short term cost savings in axing JFK. either through lack of second order effects analysis (not looking more deeply) or not wanting to look more deeply, as it raised deeper harder questions, Jeff's team pitched a loss at JFK as a "win." We can all understand them trying to justify the decision with half truths, or more accurately incomplete half truths.

Kirby though is publicly calling out a prior bad decision. He has no incentive to do this unless he has some support for it, as it antagonizes people in the organization. No way he just goes out and spouts off about this with no data. Kirby was signaling, and saying how hard it will be to recover, but There is no angle in doing this without data to back it up.

AKA the Henry Kissinger "declare victory and go home" strategy.

People here are attributing motives and thought processes to UA management without any evidence - purely based on a personal distaste for those individuals.

I don't know if I agree with leaving JFK but I can see the logic behind it. Those Continental guys rebuilt their airline in no small part around EWR. These guys grew up in a corporate environment that treated EWR as a viable New York airport and alternative to JFK and overall was not unsuccessful with that approach. It's about 8 miles from EWR to the Southern end of Manhattan. That's actually considerably less than it is from JFK. And in fact a lot closer than Heathrow to Westminster or from CDG to the Ile de la Cite in the heart of Paris. In other words, if it was within the city limits of New York, no-one would consider it especially remote. I can entirely see how CO guys thought that with a fortress hub within 10 miles of Manhattan, why incur extra cost by flying to JFK?

Now this thread and others have shown there is indeed strong opposition to that thinking among many flyers. There are intangibles to consider which CO guys were perhaps more likely to disregard when push comes to shove. Someone like Kirby who came in from outside and comes in with a different perspective on it is probably better positioned to see that.

except lots of people posting on this thread said at the time it was a major mistake, for the exact reason why Kirby says it was disastrous. It was not that no one could contemplate the indirect impact and the loss of major valuable business, it is that Jeff's team was either too bad/stupid to do more complete analysis, or they were in such bad shape they were willing to goose the bottom line short term by cutting JFK, even if that meant far more damage to United in the future.

Jeff and his team were wrong, and a lot of people called it at the time. :rolleyes:

on it now, we started boarding 17 minutes late, then 10 minutes after our schedualed departure they declared a mechanical delay (that is what the pilot said) United app says it is "opperational"

I'm in 3L. Love the tray table, very well done. ^ The windows have a place to stuff the bedding (between the seat and the wall) which is very nice. Otherwise no place to put it. Also like that there is a little space under the footwell. My bag can go there, which is very useful.

Rest of the seat is "mehh" much nicer than prior CO/UA J seats, but nothing revolutionary. Seat is too narrow for my taste (my 46L shoulders hit on both sides) and I can just fit my 6'2" length into the seat. The footwell (at least on 3L) tapers in, so the seat is not actually quite as long as advertised.

what is particularly cheap about the seat is the cover. It is scratchy and warm and does not breath. Wearing shorts it is uncomfortable on my skin. I can't believe they could not find a better fabric to use, or use leather with micro holes in it.



Well on multiple days I found SFO-DCA or DCA-SFO via PS that was as cheap, if not cheaper than other UA options. I never, ever find that on DL.

But it is not just me, the guy I talked to standing in line also got a cheap connecting fare in J. He said it was a "Dao Discount" but I think it is just filling the plane with connecting traffic on discounted Z fares.