nexusCFX

The flights are J given their length, I don’t know why Y is being mentioned.

s0ssos

As someone mentioned about Google, if you buy late you may get stuck in Y, because they have a price cap.

acregal

I work for a big tech company - not one of the ones mentioned here, but I know people from Google - the policy here matches my understanding. At my company (and our big competitor, where many of my co-workers worked) we are basically left to book our own travel within reason (for Y). Status matches are available but getting status automatically is rare (for airlines - hotels and cars is as simple as signing up).

wanderingkev

A couple of thoughts , unless they have a hard fast single carrier agreement most corporate travel policies can be manipulated so that individuals get the carrier they
want especially anyone with some sort managerial status....been there done that.Also given the oligopolistic state of the US industry the time and effort of price shopping has little value.
I agree with you that most are not loyal, I think loyalty has always been a poor descriptor. What customers are though is very incentive driven , for redeemable rewards to pay back families, status driven for forums and dinner parties,to be an airlines no1 passenger when there are much better options available,or at a more pragmatic level which I suspect is the larger group to make travel easier , not pay never ending additional charges and the hope that help might be there why things go wrong.

FrequentTPAC

A correction - it looks as if my typos (Y instead of J and Y/F instead of J/F) induced a firestorm. Wow! I thought that these would be easily identified from the context - I missed the typos myself, repeatedly.
So yes, we are talking on business flat-bed seat on TPAC - coach has no role in profitability. Otherwise, all my comments stand - UAL is toast - bet on DAL to rebound much, much faster.

ryman554

It's not just a typo when you kept repeating it. But glad you made the clarification.

You are also mistaken in saying that coach has no role in profitability. Quite the opposite, in fact. Even if the individual coach passenger is unprofitable (you can't just fly a plane with no paid J passengers -- internationally, domestically, I think you'll find you can), you also can't just fly a plane with only J passengers. Those economy pax make the difference between success and failure on a route where business loads are constant.

EWR764

To clarify, when you say "toast", do you mean a Chapter 11? I believe it's within the realm of possibility, but still unlikely at this point, for UAL. Taking into account the payroll grant, government-backed lending, cash on hand and the this week's equity offering, the company has access to around $14b in liquidity right now, with more levers to pull, and an undrawn $2b credit facility. Cash burn, while currently unsustainable, is declining, and should continue to decline. United isn't in the same position as Delta, or even Southwest, but it has the cash to weather the storm, assuming the worst shock (near-complete emergent shutdown) is behind us.

If you mean "toast", as in UAL will actually be forced to cease operations in the intermediate term, that's just not credible.

FrequentTPAC

No, I believe that there is less than 30% chance for anything close to that scenario. What I do believe is that UAL will become the place where investor money goes to die, besides being a challenge to any passenger looking for quality service. UAL leadership (primarily Mr. Kirby) believes that he is competing with LC and not with DL/B6 and truly detests, besides his own employees, revenue business customers expecting competitive J/F cabin. This is not sustainable - neither for UAL nor for any clientele that lacks masochist tendencies. No one who tried Mint on domestic, NH on TPAC or LH/Swiss on TATL will willingly spend money with UAL. The real hope is that Mr Kirby will be shown the door to follow Mr. Smisek - the healing will quickly happen after that.

PsiFighter37

My impression is the hard product on LH J is pretty poor, especially putting 2-2-2 with the footsie seats on an A350. I will take the better hard product (Polaris) any day.

FrequentTPAC

I need to learn to be more precise - my apologies. "LH" means LH group: LH/SWISS/Austrian. And yes, they do have some bad J layouts but have absolutely superb F - SWISS product is superb across the board. As far as the Polaris goes, this does not encompass all UAL metal (years after vaporware rollout). Have you tried their decrepit 767 (or, horror, 757) on TATL? Even all 777s are not Polarisized ....

UA_Flyer

I do a lot of Asia-EU and transatlantic flights each year, and I typically book away from LH unless I can upgrade to F, LH C hard product is below average. LX C seat is nice to look at, but a coffin to sleep in. I will admit that UA’s soft products (such as in-flight catering) are below LH/LX, but I prefer seat comfort.


NH is fine but for business travelers, point-to-point is very important. Unless I am going to Japan, I’d pick UA for the direct flight and schedule.

WineCountryUA

Some dated info
There were very few 757 TATLs preCOVID, over 3/4 763s have been retrofitted (and some of the remainder were previously slotted to the boneyard), essentially all 777-200 used for international have been updated

Sykes

We're getting a bit off topic, but that's not universally accepted. While the food and the service is good, personally I think the SWISS J seat is total garbage. On the 10 or so trips I've taken on it, I haven't gotten a single good night of sleep in that seat. I sleep much better in Polaris, or even the old UA J. UA's seat is just dramatically more comfortable to me.

Repooc17

You have gone from "UAL is finished" to "less than 30% chance". Which one is it?

Hard/soft products are meaningless at this point. As of now, every airline is fighting to survive. The aviation landscape is going to be very different even in a few months.

nexusCFX

I don't even enjoy UA as an airline as I think their soft product and employees are some of the worst in the entire aviation industry and they're lucky AA is around to make them look comparatively better. That being said, my company is their biggest customer and I am not concerned at all about the possibility of their demise because there are key cities that need their route network. For many businesses it would be catastrophic if their routes out of SFO disappeared.