lhrsfo

From my personal experience, I suspect PE will be a winner for UA, but a loser for us elites.

My wife's company permits PE for 8+ hour flights. So, on business, she always flies PE for those flights, despite her UA status. She, like I, fly UA on personal travel because E+ is markedly better than E and we're not prepared to pay the $800+ premium for PE. But, with the densification, the equation changes, especially combined with what seems to be a reduction in the premium required for PE. So her next trip will be using BA's LGW-OAK service where you can combine E and PE in different directions, and doing so requires a premium of only about $300.

The other interesting point is how much PE products vary at the moment. There are some that are very good (eg Norwegian, Virgin) and some which are mediocre (eg BA). The intriguing thing is that a) the premium for the better products seems to be holding and b) if anything, there is some move towards retrofitting existing PE products with better versions.

airzim

airzim

EWR764

To its credit, TK had an excellent PE product based on what was essentially a previous-generation business class seat. Certainly in a different category from what PE products were at the time and continue to be today. Pair this with an aggressively-priced business class with hard product that was already beginning to lag competitors and it's not difficult to see how TK's Comfort Class may have negatively impacted J demand. I also don't believe TK's pricing and revenue management was sophisticated enough to generate the kind of premium their PE product needed versus standard economy, given its low density and large cabin footprint; even considering TK's favorable cost structure. TK PE almost became a de facto *A Gold seating area, as I experienced several times.

halls120

Maybe it will be a loser for GS/1K, but for Plats and Gold, how so? We don't play the GPU lottery.

Artpen100

"No, it is real."

Like the IAD Polaris Club UA originally announced? I'll believe it when I see it.

Just a reminder of what UA said about Polaris in 2016: "A total of nine lounges are slated to open in airports worldwide: Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York/Newark, San Francisco, Washington Dulles, Hong Kong, London Heathrow and Tokyo Narita. The U.S. locations will open in 2017, with international locations becoming available starting in 2018."

PE can be really good. I like AF's and BA's. But as to UA's, it is too soon to review something that does not exist and may not exist for a long time.

spin88

I think a military coup, mass arrests, a falling Turkish economy, and a more and more repressive government has more to do with people electing to skip Turkey as a connection point. Three years ago I would have had no issues connecting in Turkey, today, no way. Much of TK's J traffic was connecting fares, my guess is that a PE like product is better suited for most of the (relatively smaller) turkish domestic middle class market.

I do think it is important to realize the income level, and the total number in each market who can pay air fares at particular levels, impacts heavily product demand. For example, Kirby was talking about how the coastal markets have much higher revenue premiums for United than its mid-con hubs. I say "well dugh": the median family income in SF/San Mateo/Santa Clara is $115,000. Marin is slightly higher, and Contra Costa and Alameda County are not far behind. The greater Detroit area? Well it's median family income is $56,142. Metro Atlanta? $56,850 (a 2014 figure).

EWR764

TK was walking back Comfort Class long before the Turkish political unrest. By 2012 they were already accepting 77W deliveries without PE and officially killed off the product in 2016.

If TK ever went back to a PE product (I think they'd wait until it was more widely adopted along its key traffic flows, especially by a competitor like EK), it'll be a smaller, more dense cabin than its prior Comfort Class product.

chavala

I scanned through the 24 pages, so sorry of this has been asked already...
I only want to know how GPUs will work. Will we need to buy PE (which would be the equivalent of W) to UG to J? Or Buy E and only able to UG to PE? How is AA handling it?

milypan

spearsba

With this logic, if I buy a W to Y class ticket, I can select a PE seat?

cerealmarketer

I guess that explains why Delta's new A350 files with only 32 J seats, all between doors 1 and 2. Losing J sales for years - forced to deeply discount it.

Reality is the plus-sized UA premium cabins on international were a nice outlier that benefited the discount flier, a holdover from the 80s and 90s. While DL and AA have gone to much lower J:Y ratios over the last 10 years. Partially because there's a lot more premium cabin capacity international to Asia than there used to be, which has compressed the fares.

I hope UA keeps a higher J:Y ratio than AA/DL (which the 787-10 seems to vs the DL A350) but not holding my breath.

Separately funniest thing on that call was Kirby saying several times about how they changed the *Dallas* - Sao Paolo frequencies last fall.

schley

If they retrofit planes with the regularity they are with Polaris then we are years and maybe a decade away from the intended fleet from having PE.

Christefan

P fares are reserved for C across the network. Most likely UA will introduce a PE fare similar to LH (G E N)

EWR764

It sounded to me like he was saying Dulles, and this was just a transcription error.