mapleg

I find most of these types of articles boring and patronizing. Do I really need a "travel expert" to show me how to find the plug at a seat or how to recline the seat? Then the discussion of lavatory amenities...is that seriously a factor in choosing an airline?

I don't mind a few pics of the cabin and the meals/menu, but the rest of it is filler. Not really interested in photos of the taxi to the runway

diburning

You're not their target audience. Their target audience is people who have flown once, and will sign up for all of the credit cards they are shilling after reading that they can fly first class for free.

JVPhoto

Or get their "free" upgrades that don't exist.

fastair

This is my favorite thread this year. The term "agent provocateur" and the use of "shill" in a single thread. Two of my most liked under used terms. The art of language/linguistics still lives.

N104UA

Thanks for sharing, this has been my UA C experience.

spin88

I think most UA fliers would admit that at best things are inconsistent. Crews can be great, they can be awful, they can be in between. I have flown UA and CO nearly 2MM in 12 years, trust me I know. And the soft product is in no way leading, and the hard product outside of a few 77Ws is dated and often broken/worn.

Having many unhelpful/bad crews (and the OP blogger had them on his flight) tends to cost you customers when combined with nothing else that is leading, or even competitive. United has one shot with most people who will pay for J, and if it does not go well, they don't return, or they have a bad flight before they have enough experiences to balance against and don't return. They tell their friends/family they had a bad experience. Soon United's reputation is what it is now.

International J is expensive, and if United wants to sell it, other than at a 40%+ discount to corporate accounts, they really need to up their game (improved food, better wines, espresso machines, and some kind of disclosure/discount when a flight is not "full Polaris", along with much more proactive response when things go wrong).

I will say again, no one, least not the OP/blogger has claimed this. What the OP/Blogger said, and I agree with him given what happened to him on this flight (broken seat/IFE, UA allowing passanger next to him to chew tobacco for 6.5 hours before finally agreeing to move him, sub-part food, non-Aisle access seat) was that on this flight (8 hour day light TATL) he would have preferred the expereince he had had on OALs in Y.

If you dispute his judgement great, but claiming that anyone is saying Y is better than PMUA 777 C is wacko is attacking something that no one said.

FLYMSY

I agree with all the points you made about that article. In addition, I found the writing to be sophomoric and the "writer" obviously doesn't understand wine and wine/food pairing.

Exleftseat

I think with the undercooked food ( photos were in his blog ) there is no need to get intimate with potential wine pairings, no?
What's your pairing with undercooked lamb?

spin88

The only thing to pair with that half cooked lamb is the airsickness bag.

I actually had some very good lamb on DeltaOne last week. I ordered it, but when my meal came, no lamb. I just figured they ran out, so started eating what they gave me (some ok fish) well the FA came back and said "Mr. Spin, so sorry, you ordered the lamb" and I said "that is ok, I'm not fussy" anyway, she came back with the lamb anyway, then gave me a bottle of campaign when I got off the bird and mentioned again how sorry she was to mess up my order. ^

blueman2

I agree that saying UA C being worse than LH Y is hyperbole. I agree the author comes across a bit whiney. Most responses damning this TPG article focus on these types of issues, which surprises me. Who cares? Is the core thesis of the article wrong? I don't think so. UA's 2-4-2 configuration is god awful and my extensive experience with it is aligned with the author's thesis. As far as the soft product, most of my flights are pretty good, some even great. But far too many (20%??) are really bad with uncaring and militant flight attendants who should not be working for United.

So yeah, the article is not the best piece of writing I have seen and he comes across as exaggerating and whining a bit much, but overall I agree with his take away that United's Polaris product, as it stands today, is not what they promise. At least, not of this particular flight that author took.

5khours

My comments (and the thread I think) are about the UA international premium product. (I don't fly enough domestic or Y to have a particular opinion on that.)

1. Re sample size - I've flown about 450k BIS miles annually in international premium classes for the last 3 or 4 years so I think my sample size is decent.

2. As far as soft product (primarily service), UA is NOT average. They are way below average. IME, they are at the absolute bottom of the carriers I have flown in terms of international premium service.

3. Clearly the J to Y comparison is hyperbole, I don't know why anyone is even talking about it.

4. In terms of hard product, with the Polaris rollout UA will be marginally competitive (i.e. average) in terms of J hard product. However, I think the removal of GF puts them considerably below average for overall premium hard product.

5. Personally, I agree with you on the PMUA J seat. For sleeping it's one of the most comfortable J seats.

kmersh

My thing is this, UNITED will never be compared with the best out there, which is sad because if they tried they might be able to.

The Director of Medicine at the hospital has flown on a charter operated by UNITED and he said it was the single best of his life.

Granted it was a charter and UNITED will provide whatever the customer pays for, but the flight attendants were apparently amazing (I wasn't there) and provided Singapore levels of service (again according to my Medical Director).

If UNITED can pull off that, if they wanted to they could pull it off on a commercial flight too maybe (maybe not the catering, but surely the excellent service from the flight attendants).

The author had a bad flight, that could happen to anyone, it just seems to happen a lot at UNITED.

FLYMSY

A bottle of campaign, of course.

kmersh

Every person is entitled to their opinion, the author of the article and the readers.

Personally, I do not put much stock in blogs, they are entertaining, but I do not take them for anything more than a person's opinion.

Having said that, I do agree UNITED'S product can be poor, is it still better than economy that is up to each person to determine, personally, I like space so I would say that it is still better than coach, but for the prices charged I am not sure the value is even close to being there.

GloballyServiced

95% of the cost difference between economy and business should be for the lay flat seat.

If you said there was a business class priced seat that was physically the same as an economy seat but you got Polaris food/drink and the Polaris mediocre LCD display instead of having to use your iPad, I would probably be willing to pay about ~$25 more for that seat over economy.