MSYtoJFKagain

For my personal travel I take the train. I'm quite close to the F so I just hop down to W4 and grab the A. I take out my book and get to Howard Beach before I know it. I find there are usually far less people then if I go in the other direction via Jamaica. Plus the view is better from the train.

Almost every cab I've taken back from EWR has had some sort of issue, won't go the quickest route or try to buck me out of a few more dollars. It's not a huge thing but a contribution factor. JFK gets my business because it fits my needs. EWR does not and the airport itself doesn't help.

ysolde

LH uses both JFK and EWR.

SQ uses JFK (not sure if it uses EWR, though I know it used to).

LX uses both JFK and EWR.

Yes, there are AC flights to and from LGA (though the AC terminal at LGA could use some work). I'm not even sure if AC flies to/from JFK, now that I think of it.

halls120

If transit time and cost are relatively equal, arent the only real differences flight availability and airport experience, and on that account, do you really believe EWR is better than JFK?

smxflyer

To be fair, the article doesn't say it would be wrong to return to JFK. Only that he didn't say if there was a plan to return or not.

Duke787

OS, TK, SN (Brussels), TAP Portugal, EgyptAir, SAA, LOT all have JFK flights. Doesn't count the TPAC or South American carriers since none of those would make sense for flowing through JFK from the West Coast.

minnyfly

Uh, just that, we. Or those not in in the executive group at UA, which is all of us here as you made sure to point out. Economic logic problems aren't subjective paths to solve. You can't go "I" on it.

He's given us all the evidence we need. It's simple economic logic. We know executives are paid to lie and mislead when it's convenient. Logic says his "wrong move" belief is misleading at best and a lie at worst.

I'll add another point. He doesn't mention anything about SFO-based traffic. I find it interesting that AA is a minor player in SFO-NYC now. UA dominates that market.

Kacee

The T7 experience at JFK was excellent (despite the very tired UC and crowded gates). So compact and never a meaningful wait for anything. Super nice agents, too.

sbm12

As a UA customer, yes. UA flew to 3 places from JFK (one of which was IAD) and scores of places from EWR. And T7 is a dump, albeit a less crowded dump than EWR.

If I only ever flew transcons then I could see maybe a tiny bit of incremental value in the JFK T7 experience. But I fly lots of places.

From SFO or LAX all of those airline hubs are one stop anyways. Connecting in Europe (or ORD/IAD/IAH) instead of in NYC doesn't change that you need a connection to get there. And all of those connections at JFK were a terminal change outside security.

Conceding the underlying conclusion that some customers no longer fly UA and instead spend that money on OALs, I find it interesting that the conclusion is because there are no flights between JFK and SFO/LAX for the past few years rather than because the company was an operational shitshow during most of that same time.

minnyfly

His statements imply it's the wrong move. He doesn't even hint at a return--only defeating statements like "many.....might not come back". If it was the right move to return, and hence significantly "wrong" to leave, there would be something he said to indicate a return. By not saying anything, it speaks volumes.

Now it doesn't mean they won't return, but, if they do, then we know he was misleading at best when he said UA will bolster EWR instead of returning.

BearX220

Kirby makes the most unvarnished sense of any UA executive in the last 20 years. No coincidence that he came from outside. He's dead right here.

UA is not diving back into JFK in the short / medium term because, of course:

Also, right now the UA brand doesn't have the magnetism to re-attract fat corporate contracts away from AA. Most cost-is-no-object key influencers are probably not clamoring to fly United.

GUWonder

JetBlue and Delta and American already have United left with just scraps of scraps to eat, if UA were to try to go back into JFK with a substantial presence independent of the rest of the US carriers.

Kacee

It also has the weakest t-con product compared to those three.

EWR764

I don't think there was any doubt that UA would lose customers moving p.s. from JFK to EWR, nor do I think Kirby's sentiment logically leads to a conclusion that moving p.s. to EWR has not been a successful decision in its own right. I think the idea was meritorious and I don't think you'll find anyone to make that claim that EWR p.s. has not been successful.

But, it was clearly not a move free of consequence, and that was acknowledged at the time the decision was made. It would be a bit revisionist to suggest that UA apologists claimed all UA customers would reflexively follow the company to EWR after closing up shop at JFK. In an ideal world, it might have made sense to continue to run the EWR/JFK operations in parallel, but that gets to a question of resource allocation.

Throwing previous management under the bus for their incompetence is an easy bucket, but justifiable. Hopefully Kirby is able to right the ship...

Arguably still is. United was ahead of the curve in bringing flat beds to the TCON market, but was quickly surpassed by carriers much more willing to invest in their respective hard and soft products.

sannmann

"It's never too late to do the right thing." -Oscar Munoz, CEO of United.

Wrong thread?

GUWonder

From JFK I used to fly UA to Europe and to South America. I was even ticketed to fly UA planes from JFK to Asia. UA at JFK used to be way more than just Dulles and California. And no, I'm not going back to the days of UA being Boeing -- I'm talking about UA service in the FT era.