IAH-OIL-TRASH

I think lounges at connection airports (ie mainly hubs for the legacy carriers) are pretty important. If an oily Tulsa resident was looking at Delta with a lounge in Atlanta on the way to a London vacation or United via IAD with no lounge (just for the purposes of my argument), said tycoon would probably opt for ATL, all other things being equal.

jsloan

Sure, but the major carriers all have lounges at all of their hubs, and you can buy a day pass with any of them. Or, you can get access to a Centurion or Priority Pass lounge through the appropriate membership. Each of these things is within the reach of any of these "tycoons."

The truth is, data have shown, repeatedly, that there is not a large enough market for premium leisure travel for the network carriers to find it profitable except in very limited circumstances (e.g., PPT, long-haul to HNL). People say that they want amenities, and then they purchase the cheapest airfare available.

WineCountryUA

But UA does have two open lounges in IAD.
However, few leisure traveler know anything about the lounge situation to influence that decision And I would suspect others factors like price, travel time, time of day and perhaps the in-flight food would matter far more.

JimInOhio

"Tycoon" would have to be flying economy if he/she didn't have UC access at IAD.

garykung

I can't go too much detail. But that's definitely not true.

Chris2013

I agree with you. The premium domestic leisure market is very limited and is not worthwhile to invest capital and resources in. The biggest segment that would benefit from a premium leisure market in the US would be wealthy senior citizens going to their winter homes in Florida, Arizona, or California from the Midwest and Northeast. Beyond that I simply wouldn't see much demand for that type of product as a whole.

Most people want something for nothing. Book the cheapest basic economy seat and then expect to have all the benefits of a premium cabin at a discount rate. Just isn't feasible.

DELee

United Becomes Latest Airline to Deploy Flight Crews to Pitch Credit Cards:

David

entropy

There is definitely a market for a premium leisure. There is apparently a market for people to pay $4,000 a night for the Amangiri in the middle of the desert.

There's no real market for lie flats on < 5 hour stages, sure people like them, but not at 5x the floor space of a normal seat.

I would be perfectly happy with 38" pitched seats in the current domestic F style. I do think they need to rediscover actual F catering, but that's true all over north america.
At a $50/hour premium over Y I think its easy to sell in many markets.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

That was mid-2018. Is it still an active program? I certainly don't recall much in the way of FA pitches. I still see the post-safety video crud on the Direct TV-equipped flights and pre-program stuff on in-flight and PDE entertainment, but nothing "live".

DELee

I suspect that the bounty is still there - would need to ask any of the active FAs probably.

Based on this thread, and I recall it as well, there was active in-air sales/hawking back in August 2019: Relentless In-Flight Credit Card Pumping

During my 1MM flight in September 2019, while I was congratulated for the achievement, the Purser used it as an opportunity to push the card(s)...

David

Chris2013

Do you think there is a premium leisure market en masse though or sporadically located in very specific routes? I agree that certain routes would like benefit from having a premium product domestically however as a whole, I don't think there is much demand for one overall. My home airport in Omaha, NE and I'd say there is a decent demand for a premium product during the winter months to Florida and Arizona due to the number of wealthy Midwesterners going to snowbird. However the rest of the year is probably very low.

If you had the ability to narrowly tailor the routes that would probably benefit the most, it could be a plus for travelers as well as the airlines however I don't think there is probably ENOUGH of those wealthier leisure travelers to make it be a profitable endeavor for most routes. I'd say probably 5% of domestic routes would probably fall into this type of category while the other 95% just wouldn't be financially beneficial enough.

garykung

You quote that yourself - promotional. Promotional does not mean it is a regular thing.

AFAIK - FAs are not paid in extra to sell credit cards.

entropy

There are the PS transcons that, it seems have a lot of traction for lie flats. At least the competitive nature of the market seems to drive some, and there's a lot of one-upmanship there. They are definitely nice, but aside from redeyes, I'd rather have the old 752PS seats on westbound flights, which had plenty of space and were quite comfortable when sitting/working.

AC is running their Jetz (the sports charter 319 fleet all barcalounger type J) to sun destinations this year. I wonder how its doing....

UA said (pre pandemic) that they were putting more F in, and I think that's a function of the differential fare F, where plenty of people would pay a bit extra for F. Back in the day, F was 10X discount Y, now its a bit more, but nothing like what it used to be. I can't see them building a fleet of all F, but they've done high J 763 for London, and they could realistically load up some of the max9/10's with a lot of F for heavy routes with a lot of premium demand,

Now, if UA sold a package at hubs that was "private flight treatment", a la LH F, separate terminal with a high end lounge, tarmac transfer to/from flights, etc. That would be pretty interesting. i could see a few airports (EWR, ORD, SFO, IAH) where it could work well (LAX already has the private terminal thing), where they could sell it as an add-on to a premium class flight and offer some chits for plus points, GS, and corporate. A lot of the unpleasantness is in the terminal experience, with the TSA, etc. Sidestepping all that would be great.

Chris2013

I'm glad that you brought up the private suite at LAX because I'm genuinely curious...what type of people are utilizing this? I mean I truly do not understand their target demographic. Is there a large subset of affluent travelers who are not quite wealthy enough to utilize a service such at Netjets but still have the disposable income to pay $3000 each time they want to use a private terminal? I can understand being wealthy and wanting privacy but don't most of those type of people have a Netjets-style membership or charter a private plane?

Just curious.

WineCountryUA

There is a discussion that might provide some insight for your curiosity, Private Suite @ LAX for UA