worldtrav

And Bombardier just won its appeal of the 292% tariff imposed by the US Government, what better time to order!

spin88

thanks, all very interesting, so it all is in UA's court at this point, and I had understood UA's pay rates were lower. Hopefully they add the c100/c300, both far nicer A/C than the junky -900s they are so obsessed over.

The Trump/Boeing case was a ridiculous joke to begin with, and I would note that Trump/Boeing lost UNANIMOUSLY. When actual judges looked at Boeing's ridiculous arguments they did not fly. Bombardier wins big over Boeing in trade dispute - Jan. 26, 2018

So taking stock, Boeing made a bunch of ridiculous arguments, which the Trump Admin followed, which caused Airbus to Buy the c100/c300 line, making them a fearsome competitor, putting Boeing in a weaker position. At some point Boeing is going to have to start making good A/C that passengers prefer, rather than playing politics all the time.

minnyfly

I'm curious. From a passenger perspective, would you consider the 199-seat DL 757 "junky"? Ignore the AVOD angle for a second. Judge it based on layout, space, and comfort.

EWR764

Well, I prefer it to Delta's 739, because DL's slimlav layout on that airplane is terrible. But the midlav on the 757 sits smack in the middle of C+, so that's no picnic, either. I actually prefer UA's 739 configuration to both.

cesco.g

Amen!

spin88

Well the AVOD is a material difference. Delta wins, United doing it's ULCC act. But hey, I much prefer the 757, even in DL's rather strange 20 F configuration to any 739. This said, I much prefer the A321 to either. In AA or DL or VX configuration its a much, much nicer plane. Width is nice and the overhead bins don't take up so much space.

The 737-900 is a total piece of junk.

CruiserCLE

I would too however your chances of getting to your destination during any sort of weather/ATC are significantly higher on that 737, IMO.

Antonio8069

This from WSJ January 25, 2018:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/airline...ans-1516820046

Per FT Rules on external links

Quote:

Jan 24, 2018
Airline shares tumbled on Wednesday as investors fretted that United Continental Holdings Inc.’s expansion plans threatened profit margins and could spark a price war if other carriers follow suit.

WSJ has a paywall

goodeats21

You have denied UA had more 2 cabin service in previous years. mduell was kind enough to post the data that proves you are not correct.
If you have DATA showing something different, post it. Otherwise, you have lost credibility on this.

Overall, Kirby was very specific about the connectivity issue being key to increasing yields - that United needs to compete for small market share when there is competition.
I maintain that throwing CR2s against 2-cabin RJs and Mainline is not a winning strategy.

cerealmarketer

3Cforme

Another way of interpreting the fare data is that a hundred million passengers were willing to pay, on average, $20 more to fly Delta than to fly United. What is it about the Delta vs. UA experience? What is UA doing to improve wage (specifically) and total cost productivity to be profitable with that headwind? These would be uncomfortable questions for UA execs.

prestonh

UA has to discount in markets where they go head to head with LCC and DL to fill their planes, that is the whole reason for BE fares. Also, where to you get that UA is more reliable than DL?

1. lower OTA
2. greater chance of IDB
3. Higher bag mishandling rate

UA can't 'earn' a revenue premium domestically because they don't have the assets and product quality to compete against DL head to head. There is still no integrated FA contract which hobbles their costs and now it appears that the c-suite wants to use the scope clause as a wedge issue again for pilot wage concessions to deal with their RJ problem instead of just ordering a decent set of lift to compete.

Plane-is-home

For me it’s very simple if the flight is with a CR2 I am not flying. Either other airline or other time slot or connection.

DCP2016

I read somewhere that UA admitted they were losing money with Basic Economy and that they were going to change it up a bit, including giving passengers the benefit of paying for seat assignments/upgrades. Was this mentioned in this conference call or did I get this info from somewhere else?

minnyfly

I never said there has never been more 2-class service at DAY. Anyone who goes back can see I never said that. I'd appreciate it if you don't misconstrue statements. I asked you if you had any evidence multiple times after you made the first claims that UA has been "getting their clock cleaned" on ORD-DAY, yet your answer is essentially "trust me because I commonly fly from DAY". The burden of truth is on you. You made the claims. I do have some evidence to either support or deny your evidence when we see it. But not before.

Let's revisit a December post of yours, where you claim UA is ceding market share. Now again you don't have evidence to back it up, and you make inference that it goes beyond the IAD/EWR-DAY specifically talked about (ZW doesn't even fly EWR-DAY). So as a data point of interest, let's take all of DAY and see what UA's share of traffic has been there since 2012, the first year of fully combined UA/CO ops (starting with that year): 17.4%, 17.9%, 17.4%, 18.3%, 17.6%, 17.0%. mduell's table indicates about a 10% increase in capacity this year, so they could have their largest share there this year since after the merger, meaning UA is planning to compete for more DAY market share. I guess we will find out as the year goes on whether your belief that it won't increase market share isn't a "winning strategy". Either way UA has had a very consistent market share at DAY in the past 6 years, providing evidence that the issue isn't UA for shrinking schedules, it's DAY demand as a whole. As a whole airlines are shrinking there.

No, that would be a very incorrect interpretation. That assumes universal choice of carriers, which we know isn't true.

Ironically a lack of choice is a key factor in who pays more for the "privilege" of flying certain carriers. And a simple hypothetical question tells us that in a commodity market that the "experience" has little to do with it, unless we're talking about negative operational "experiences", in which case DL has had many troubles lately. Let's ask a hypothetical question in a simple market. Let's say DL raises their prices to be $20 over a directly competing carrier (a generic UA), in this case a fixed $240 instead of a fixed $220. The demand in this certain market at a fixed $220 price level is a combined 80% load factor, meaning there is excess capacity available. In this example, the exact load factor ratio between the two at the $220 price level doesn't matter. After DL universally raises their price to $240, do you believe their load factor would hold constant and their PRASM would increase by that 9% yield increase, holding every else constant, including the same basic service (transportation) and product that DL offers now? Or is it conceivable that the competing airline would gain load factor and possibly PRASM?

P.S. UA's is doing remarkably well on the cost side versus DL and AA. Not sure how they're doing it, but the difference was large in Q4.