Artpen100

United flies the routes people need. That is why I fly them.I think they know this and that is why they don't bother much with service.And it works in the sense that almost every flight I am on is full.Though it also means they need to be the low cost carrier on any given route, or they will lose to the better airline.Whether that is a recipe for profits, I don't know.

BearX220

United Airlines earned its dominant "brand story" over decades. Each new mini-outrage gets disproportionate media oxygen because it coheres with the incumbent United story arc.

Every airline does dumb stuff, yes. But UA's dumb errors are now interpreted as clear expressions of United values / attitudes / incompetence. Although the two may not land so far apart KPI-wise on any given day, in the cultural meta-narrative, Southwest is the airline that goes to lump-in-the-throat lengths to assist customers in crisis; United is the airline that clubs Asian doctors, murders dogs in front of small children, breaks guitars, etc.

When reputational rot runs this deep it takes a LONG time to unwind, and takes more than painting the planes and handing out Polaris bears. I don't see how they make the financial and managerial investments necessary -- not while they're way underperforming, ROI-wise, in an optimal economic climate.

Jack Welch at GE used to ask: If we can't be number one or number two in a given business sector, why compete in that sector at all? Let's get out. UA must be asking itself: if the best we can do is come in fifth or sixth in a nine-horse (domestic) race, yet we're obviously not getting out, how do we manage through perpetual, acknowledged mediocrity?

Other companies with UA's level of brand death hang on: BP, VW, Wells Fargo, Comcast, Equifax. Many, like UA, are firewalled by lack of competition and reduced consumer choice. It is absurd to predict United's demise, and almost as absurd to predict a turnaround.

It sure looks like United cannot or will not muster the will (and money) to change an anti-customer brand narrative that has been deepening since the '80s. It also looks like they don't have to. They can poke along in the back of the pack, making some money and doing enough things right, enough of the time, until the end of time.

Jack Welch notwithstanding, why expend the energy to evolve when too many folks on the inside don't want to, and enough customers are price-driven and don't care that much?

cjermain

These threads come up from time to time, where everyone dumps on UA regarding their service, saying it could be so much better. Sure, it could be better.

People look back to the halcyon days of the early 2000's and earlier, and think: service was great, flights were empty, upgrades were plentiful, and fares were low. But here's the thing: shareholders and creditors supported that nonsense for decades after deregulation, effectively throwing good money after bad for no reason other than it was cool to be associated with 747's. This had to end. US legacy finally learned in the years after 9/11 how to make money. That you compete on price (for leisure travelers) and route (business travelers) and nothing else, at least domestically. As far as costs: cut, cut, cut. And finally, after decades of making aggregate losses, they are profitable (though to be fair, low oil prices have helped, but airlines were still a mess when prices were low in the 90's).

All of the stuff we complain about, well, it's what the market wants, it's what the shareholders want. Things are not going to go back the way they were. And it's not so bad. Most of my UA experiences are good, most employees are efficient and polite, despite the occasional annoyances. I still don't pay very much to fly wherever I want, even from a fortress hub. For all of that, I'm willing to deal with old IT and being packed like sardines into Slimline seats, as well as the occasional horror story (I just hope it doesn't happen to me ). Life is not bad at all!

CO_Nonrev_elite

Most of the time United is just the one that people want to bash. I am in no way suggesting that they do not deserve it, and I am not suggesting that they do not have issues, but the press seems to run with it more with United. For example, Delta misrouted a puppy across the country today, but no one cares, whereas, if this was United, you’d have senators foaming at the mouth.

I am a 15 year 1K, and while I have certainly seen my fair share of grumpy employees and bad attitudes, I do not live in fear of being dragged off a plane etc...

narvik

I reckon that sentence is missing a second part. In my opinion it should read like this:

US legacy finally learned in the years after 9/11 how to make money and subsequently became avaricious.
It is greed that has the board of directors appoint such talent as Mr. Kirby with the shareholders being their ultimate desire of pleasing.