mroban

Huh, well I reckon I fly ps flights as much or more than anyone (I fly them as much as 2x a week between LAX and JFK). Since I am not one of those "ah I remember when we drank champagne and ate caviar in business class and ate off real china" types all I can do is compare UA ps to the service offered by other airlines. For me, I fly during business hours so I need wifi service. The C class is better than anything the competitors offer and if I feel like upgrading using miles there is almost always a seat available. I have yet to be denied an upgrade.

As for the product itself - I have only once not had working seat power - and was compensated 9000 miles as a result. I dont fly on airlines in order to find great food and as a result I dont quibble too much. The food in C is just fine. I neither look forward to it nor dread it (although the scones for breakfast are pretty darn good).

Generally the FAs are very good. When in Y, i can usually count on the ones that know me from my frequent trips to bring me free wine from F or C. The snackboxes are fine - when I fly Y it is usually a mid afternoon flight and I usually eat before I get on the plane. And the chocolate pretzel in the lite box is really good!

Quite frankly I really dont understand what all the criticism is about. If you want to you can complain about anything. I recently flew JFK-LAX in C and had a GS seatmate who told me that UA is far superior to any other domestic airline on that route. He said AA isnt even close. That was his opinion but coming from a GS (who also flies UA internationally) I felt that was a very strong endorsement and validation of my thoughts.

Things I love about ps - great FA's (for the most part), wifi (which almost alway works fine despite what some snarky posters make you think), huge C cabin, seat power, very comfy C seats, E+ in Y (even if its a little less than other E+). Things I dont like - no UDU. Thats it. I really like the flight and dont even mind flying in Y.

If UA decided to do away with ps but kept the wifi and the seat power, converted the plane to a 2 class plane (still with 26 C seats, but no F) and converted Y to the usual E+ split I wouldnt complain that much. I really fly it because its the route I need to fly, offers great value (the ticket prices are pretty good, I average about $350 for each RT), and it has wifi and seat power.

I give ps a ^ though and hope it stays.

sbm12

Did you not see my post above where I noted that this is quite likely to happen in the near future??
My understanding is that it will remain a sub-fleet as it will have more C seats - back to the wing exits, not just between the forward doors.

cerealmarketer

Yes, heard that as well. The mix is unknown but SAG dropping first class requirement impacts math on 3 cabin.

Hope they keep a subfleet or utilize 762s but DL has done very well per internal sources there with their 16 seat premium service on 757s.

Expanding it to EWR raises an interesting capacity scenario as well.

thetallone

Yes! And you can't see them either so you don't know which was its facing. You also have to be an amazing tactile puzzle solver. Well, after an hours of poking around down there with my plug, I finally ripped the seat off while the person in the middle was gone and noticed that the plug orientation is upside down. So the grounding pin is on top, and the two flat slots are below it.

I accept your idea that it simply isn't a good business model for UA to gut these cabins and update them. I concede that there just isn't much to do about it. But do you think its fair that they call it 'premium' and that UDUs are not eligible?

All I can say is "bummer". I'd expect that with UDUs but when I offered 30,000 miles I'd assume she could just hop onto my elite bandwagon. Guess not

AndrewT84

Yes. As much as I would love to see UDUs on p.s. since I take this trip 1-3x a month, I think making it non-UDU eligible does indeed instill a sense of "exclusivity" and "premium" to the product. Otherwise, there's no real distinguishing it from the non "premium" p.s. flights.

WineCountryUA

How often do you see an empty waitlist for PS flights, that itself is an answer to your question.

PTahCha

Interesting. The whole reason why they converted the 757's to the p.s. configuration was to keep the same number of premium (F and C) seats while retiring the 767-200's, with reduced Y capacity as a side benefit. It would really suck if they reduce the number of premium seats from F12/C26 to just 16 total in F.

entropy

I don't have a problem with the current PS seats, though i think they should replace the PS F with the current BF seats so they can fit 4 more seats in there...

HOWEVER, IMHO the seat itself is certainly comfortable enough (both C and F)... the biggest issue I have with PS right now is that they have drastically cut back on the soft product over the years. Originally, PS was substantially better than domestic catering, it was truly a cut above, now its pretty much the same (and now below the new redeye standard). This is one spot where CO's influence will be good, they need to bring back the better appetizers, salad, printed menus and better wine.

Also, I can't see any instance where UA will use 762s on domestic. Remember, this is management that felt that the 752 was being mis-utilized by running it on domestic trips.

The 762 is being looked at for retirement because it uses too much gas/seat-mile, the only way they feel they can get their money's worth is on long-thin routes that they get lots of premium $$$ traffic (EWR-ZRH for instance). The 752 and 762 aren't substantially different in floor space, but in terms of structural and fuel efficiency, the 757 is vastly better.

BillyIdol

I would love to have p.s. Flights available out of IAD, those planes offer a much better experience than the run of the mill 757s and 320s that UA uses for domestic flights out of IAD.

I've only flown ps once and I enjoyed it.

If it wasn't because of the horrible delays at JFK I would consider going through there to get ps on the coast to coast flights even if it added an extra connection.

zoegksf

Actually, FT was not originally set up to be a "blog about flying", but a go to site for getting the maximum bang for your FF miles/points. But I wouldn't expect you to know that being here for all of 5 months. Sadly it has becoming a b*#ching ground for all types.

PS- I spend alot of time on ps too. I find the product just fine for a 5+ hour domestic flight. I've flown DL, VX, CO and AA all up front and in the back and still like my Row 9 best. I fear $mi$ek is going to do away with it and we'll all be stuck with CO domestic F seating, albeit better food.

JFKSFOLAX_friend

Who are your "sources"?

As you note below, this is the "INTERWEBS". That's how it works.





Wait, so you are only interested in hearing from people that respond "warmly and kindly"? Boy, are you on the wrong website. And, generally speaking, that is not how the INTERWEBS works.

True.

More awesome than you will ever know.

This will not happen.

When you say: "so many... interesting...individuals to come out of the woodwork to comment on P.S.", do you mean other customers that also fly P.S. and have their own opinion? Imagine that...you are not the only person that flies P.S. that has an opinion.



(This thread is priceless.)

sknyski

I love this thread too. Classic "glass half empty" vs. "glass half full" discussion.

bt

cerealmarketer

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I wouldnt worry about 16 F seats...just noted it to illustrate you can get away with a relatively small cabin and premium seating to make a very profitable route.

UA had enough legacy contracts and customers on that route (without connections in NY!) to support a cabin larger than that but it's likely to have fewer premium seats, possibly at the expense of First class and some business.

I'll bet Asia connections in SF/LA are a big part of why the math worked for UA but not for CO. In the past CO standalone claimed they couldn't figure our how it could be profitable.

But I need to stop Friday night flights...

FlyerChrisK

I used to do my JFK-LAX trips on AA. I came over to the current state of p.s. rather recently and am sold on it. If we want to talk about the interiors being "from the 70's," AA's 767's on that route feel like they have the same interiors as when they rolled off the Boeing assembly line in the early 80's.

UA-NYC

4 rows of BF seats replacing the 3 row F cabin? Not sure how that would work...