notquiteaff

Many of my trips start with a roughly 100 mile flight on Horizon. No service; the FA on the Q400 usually don’t even unbuckle. “Longer” QX flights (200+ miles) tend to get drink service with limited choices (beer, wine, juice, water). Many passengers around me decline. Frankly, I have no problems with not getting a cup of water on what usually amounts to a 30 min flight. So if this is a service cut by UA (never been on such a short UX flight), I honestly don’t care. And I suspect if I really needed a drink, I could probably get up during the 10 or so minutes that the seatbelt sign is off and walk to the front or back and ask for a cup of water.

catocony

I remember the days of United Express J19 puddle jumpers where there wasn't even an FA. They covered routes out of Dulles to spots in Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. If a flight is scheduled for well under an hour, there isn't time to really do a beverage service beyond cups of water.

The problem with no catering on a flight is when the 35-minute flight turns into a couple of hours of sitting on a runway.

seat38a

I don't think it is. Been on CRJ200 between MKE and ORD. The FA didn't even get up from her jump seat. Funny though she did make the announcement that included info on how there would be inflight service etc. etc.

Brick

So do I understand correctly that people are complaining that they will receive no free beverages for a brief 30 minute period during their day? You pass by how many drinking fountains in the airport terminal while making your way to the departure gate, but no, the real crime here is you don't get a cup of water on your really short flight?

Halo117

1. WN
1. WN
1. WN with credit card allows points you to book any airline but at poor value.
1. SQ later this year.

UA has issues with the value proposition and tacky cuts to non perishable snacks don't help.

chermorg

I am fairly certain at least a beverage and snack cart will need to be loaded due to United's tarmac delay plan. Either that, or they're going to be sending planes back to the terminal after less than an hour.

spin88

+1 I live in Noe, so SFO is 17 minutes garage to garage, I'm not going to fly from OAK. But if I could, I would, and the last thing I think anyone can reasonably suggest as a +1 is the supposed reliability of UA's west-coast routes ex-SFO, they are the first to get delayed, and unlike the old days when you could just switch to an earlier flight and keep your decent seat/upgrade, now UA is a choice of an uncomfortable seat in the back or taking a delay.

I already notice the difference in service, actually got upgraded on UA SEA-SFO the other day, no lunch served (I would have gotten real lunch on DL or AS/VX) and only a rather cheap snack basket with nothing that was even remotely interesting to me. United already is not competitive with DL and AS/VX on the amenities (pillows, blankets, food) and another down grade from the folks who bought you "$3 Water for sale" is not going to make UA more competitive.

You can't run an airline profitably only relying upon those who are hub/corporate account captive, or are living off the fumes of unconditional love for CO/UA, and United keeps driving away those with options by offering inferior hard product, soft product, and service, while often trying to charge the same prices. The play book Kirby is trying to use is the hold HP playbook, offer less, try to keep fares high. We saw the end result of that with HP, falling PRASM until the airline was only kept afloat by lower labor costs as the Unions fought. I don't think Kirby will be so lucky a second time.

narvik

Apparently not (at least in my case). My fault, so I should elaborate:
I didn't (and usually don't) accept any catering items on this flight: no snack box, drink or stroopwafel
My complaint is that after making quite significant improvements United almost always backtracks, and strips back those improvements back to level that is worse than what it was previously.

The original post was describing my excitement of the overall impression of the flight. Despite it being short, they were truly trying their hardest to offer something great along the way. Only to find out that they're taking it all away.

(I regret now not taking the Stroopwafel for later consumption, as they might disappear! )

Hope that explains it a bit better.

williambruno1975

emcampbe

It's not hard to offer catering even on these really short flights. You leave a cart by the gate, with those water bottle minis and stropwafels (or whatever). FA doesn't have to get up at all, and folks can enjoy their snacks when they want. GA, during boarding can announce pax can take a water and snack.

Carts already exist, since they do this with delayed flights (albeit, with a wider variety of snacks).

I also don't have a problem with zero service on the extra short flights, but get annoyed when they announce they aren't doing service 'due to the short duration of the flight' when I've been on that route a hundred times, and they do it all the time, even when flights are completely full. I've seen this increasingly over the last few years on CVG-ORD and vv., and even on ORD-YYZ which should never have that restriction in normal circumstances. I get when its bumpy the whole flight and the FAs shouldn't get up, or on under 30 minute flights where there is basically no time at cruising.

milepig

What an odd random thing for the FA to say.

EWR764

UAX aircraft are (or were previously, before free snacks came back) provisioned with shelf-stable extended delay packs containing, variously, snack mix, cookies, pretzels, etc. Those, plus a few bottles of water stowed in compartments or boxes, would satisfy United's obligations without actually having to 'cater' the flight with a bar cart and time-appropriate snacks per the brand spec.

chermorg

If we're talking about E45s, there's a square-ish "box" that goes above the galley shelf that contains the snacks (from what I've seen), and water would certainly not fit in there. Drinks would require at least a cart (unless they are going to provision these at a bare minimum, which would result in still them going back to the gate if they ran out during their tarmac delay service).

I can fully see them removing the bar cart from single-cabin flights of less than 1 hr block time, but I don't see them removing drinks altogether. I doubt very much that they would try and shove enough water for a whole plane in the small box above the galley.

Another point that may be useful getting input from a pilot is how the catering affects weight/balance calculations - would small planes such as the E35/45 series be affected by the lack of carts in the galley? If they're going to have to put the empty carts in for balance purposes anyway... wouldn't it make more sense to just put catered carts in so there's no chance of a mixup (i.e. a 20 minute flight getting catered carts while a 2 hour flight gets empty ones)?

dmurphynj

I've had one of those "bricks" during a tarmac delay at, I believe it was ATL. It reminded me of a sugar wafer cookie. Basically, just a carb bomb.

That and some water was this flight's meal service, when we heard "We are now #74 for departure."

Tstorms at ATL can be brutal.

sannmann

I fly the 90 mile STR-ZRH Flight on LX (actually a wetlease with OS on a Q400) often. They offer everyone in Economy a bottle of water and the opportunity to grab a chocolate or two out of a basket.