paid snacks > 500 miles. The comp snacks come with drink service and this is indeed > 300 miles ... so SFO-ONT should have had drink service

I don’t buy that excuse. But I admit I haven’t heard that “reason” for not providing a drink before. FA’s are pretty good at leaving sleeping pax alone even as they provide a beverage to other pax in that row.

"For flights under 800 miles long, we won’t have complimentary snacks available"

That's a flimsy argument at best. It's the longer flights where there's a chance to get some rest where there could be disruptions. Nobody's going to get any substantial rest, let alone sleep, on a puddle jump like this.

I wasn't making an argument. I acknowledge that some people will think it's more important to have some free pretzels on a short late night flight.

So with that argument they shouldn't serve snacks and drinks on short flights prior to 7am.

Again, I wasn't making an argument. I'd think we could all be respectful and level-headed enough to recognize that some people might value quiet on a short flight more than a can of ginger ale. And some people think it's more important to get those free six pretzels.

I suspect that some of the people who complain about a lack of service don't even want the cup of sprite, just want the opportunity to rant about lazy Flight Attendants.

We all have choices as to what to get upset about, and what leads us to make wild accusations of other people being lazy.

I had a great one on what ended up being a 6 hour delayed IAD-CLT UA Express flight.... the last hour of it (after midnight) was because the 2nd batch of replacement flight attendants refused to go without getting catering, namely a liquor kit. Then they threatened multiple times that if people didn't sit down fast enough or stop asking questions then they would time out. Finally got catering, liquor, etc. Then they didn't even do a beverage offer in First during the flight, landed in CLT, and they timed out on the poor few souls left waiting for the return flight. But it was so important we had catering topped off for that flight...

So it sounds like there's no time cutoff but the mileage of the flight does place it into a no free snack zone. Also because it's over 300 miles, beverages should have been served, and I have the right to request one, even. I did request pretzels (in the back, out of earshot from anyone who'd chime in to say they wanted some too) and was denied.

Fascinating! (...And not quite competitive with WN on these routes, sadly.)

UA's intrastate routes are not designed to be competitive with WN, but rather serve to connect it's transpacific SFO hub. United can get you to Osaka from Ontario in one stop. (And many other destinations that Southwest cannot). For many customers, that is more important than the bag of pretzels on a short flight

Southwest adjusted up its beverage flight length a little bit and folks I know who work there are telling me another change may be coming soon to better manage passenger expectations. Just because they say they offer a beverage doesn't mean they'll serve one, or have time to serve everyone. Southwest recently had some FAA "attention" and clarifications that taking beverage orders, pre-filling cups with ice, etc., is not safety-related and therefore cannot be done while the aircraft is taxiing. So if they've got to start out in the air with taking orders... I've been on a few WN flights of around one hour recently where they had to apologize and "we will get you next time" halfway through serving.

I've found that even on some really short UA Express flights that the crew lately has at least come through with cups and the liter bottle of water.

FA crews seem to make their own rules. Morning SFO-LAS flight (little under 2hrs).

Water and coffee service only. No turbulence and seat-belt lights off for entire flight except takeoff and landing.

Requested for a beverage with two FAs and both requests were ignored. This was a SFO-based crew starting a trip.

write it in - only way these issues get addressed. Becoming a real problem on UA - never any issues on DL or AA.

I mean the customary service in F from G7 (GoJet) on UAX-marketed RIC-IAD and VV (at any time of day) which is typically about 25 minutes in the air and around an hour gate-to-gate is beverage to order, "artisanal" cheese assortment plus at least one (sometimes but rarely two) passes with the other snack basket (chips, fruit, etc.). While YX, YV, and mainline UA frequently struggle to deliver even a beverage much less the generic snack basket in F on stage lengths with double or more the air time and not that many more pax in F

If considered asking UA why G7 can do it but no one else can buy I'm afraid that would force service even closer to the lowest common denominator and I don't want to lose another nice thing.

if it was a choice of two, surprised it wasn’t water/OJ.

I was on a SAN-SFO a couple of months ago - was an early afternoon flight and they did a water/OJ service. Woman a couple of rows ahead of me asked if she could have a coke and the FA…well… could have, no, should have, said no in a much nicer way if that was the answer. Wasn’t going to bother trying to see if I could purchase a cold brew at that point. I can’t remember if it was that flight, or the outbound, where they didn’t bother offering the free snack either.

this has been ongoing for a looong time. I’ve definitely seen short flights with turbulence the whole time and it is justified that they announce they can’t do a service. However, seen other flights where it’s just lazy. Been on many ORD-CVG on 50 seaters, particularly the last of the night, where they go to the ‘due to the short duration of the flight’ bit and they won’t serve anything (even if half the pax are sleeping), meanwhile, others on the same route on a 737 or 320 where they do the full service.

G7 is generally great about this kind of stuff - always chose them when I was based in OH if I needed to fly UAX. We don’t have them out on the west coast though🙁.