entropy

welcome to the new Continental, I mean United.

one of the many changes $misek thinks you'll like

mechteach

Yep, this is official policy now. Not an overnight, but I came off a SFO-PIT flight earlier this week with an aching back from the lack of pillows, too.

afrugal1

I think this is a brilliant point. Some minor connection to Stockholm Syndrome: An amenity/perk/benefit is removed, but gets returned, or, in this case, is not removed in the first place. We, the 1K captives, then become overjoyed by the turn of events. No new benefit was added, $MI/J just returned something that was previously part of the expected package.

Also brilliant is this thread's use of the terms 'gauze' and 'moist towelette'.

UAL4life

I know there is someone who can say they told us so....

CaptainBilly

Hurry, buy stock in a manufacturer of inflatable pillows.

Seriously, I really hope that this policy is a mistake that will be recognized and corrected.

CB

flyinbob

I know it is policy, but is it a stated policy? Has anyone from UA actually showed up and confirmed this, or os it somewhere on the web site? Or do they remain in hiding as on all the other "changes we are gonna like"?

I'm wondering if it is a marketing ploy too. Like New Coke, take it away and then return it because of "popular demand", so you get praise for responding to your customer without actually providing anything to the customer.

Any bets on how long before they "change their minds" (as if they have minds) ?

entropy

Of course it is "Policy", its the official policy of CONTINENTAL for a while now, now its infected UNITED.

mmack

Well, I wrote to "pre-complain" to the 1K Desk at the begining of the week, as we are flying LIH-SFO Sunday.
The customer service rep responded that they would forward my letter to the cabin provisioning management. The letter was quite well written: maybe if enough people complain they will "restore" the pillows.
On second thought: are the pillows washed and re-used/ covers changed and re-used/ tossed into the land fill after each flight?
If they are land fill then I will bring my own.

SFOSpiff

I'm starting to wonder how many of these changes are official and according to plan. When a merger occurs, there is inevitably duplication of roles, and someone is going to lose. Someone, somewhere, maybe trying to make their mark and/or keep their existing job, in a way that's not entirely within their actual authority.

It seems strange that as busy as the company is getting this merger together that they'd waste any cycles on petty changes that could easily be postponed without costing a lot of money.

channa

You clearly are not familiar with the CO way of doing business.

CO has been focused on pinching pennies for years by chopping the CASM. UA's model has been to focus efforts on catering to the higher end to increase the RASM.

Going into this merger, UA had stronger RASM than CO.

It seems the powers that be think they can cut the CASM and not impact the RASM. I believe they are mistaken.

CO has no qualms about being the worst in class in a specific area (e.g., only carrier to charge for some drinks in F, the only carrier to offer no pillows in Domestic F, etc.). It was up until the UA partnership that they were this way with the mileage program as well (e.g., only carrier to charge top tier for close-in bookings; only carrier that did not waive SDC fees for top tier; only carrier without SWUs).

But back to your question, they have to waste cycles on it because CO already had no pillows. So in order to "standardize," either CO gets pillows, or UA removes them. It's not an issue of wasting cycles, it's a decision that the "finest in the business" had to make, and clearly they decided that the "worlds leading airline" could still lead the world sans pillows.

SFOSpiff

In general I still don't agree, but if the answer is "CO is cheap and hates everything UA" then ok, yeah, I agree with that.

EnvoyBoy

Are the lack of pillows the end of the world? Hardly.
Is the new attitude at UA as manifested by the lack of pillows concerning? ABSOLUTELY.

Not looking for the cheap, cheap, cheap airline. That's exactly why I took my 140,000 annual miles from US to UA after the former was first bought out and then completely cheapened by America West. Is ripping out the entire domestic IFE and serving drinks in picnicware our future?

halls120

I'm fairly sure that SMI/J's idea of an "upgrade" is far different from what the rest of us believe it to be.

ptspellman

Actually they are for me, I need a pillow (and Ambien) to sleep. I have been taking the redeye nearly every week SFO to IAD. I try to take a single small bag so carrying a pillow totally messes me up -- as well as being utterly ridiculous -- I feel like one of the college kids.

I only am getting about 50% of the upgrades so even if they put pillows back in F, the lack of pillows in E+ mean that I need to carry a %&&!!$ pillow.

I could live if they got rid of pillows during the day but redeyes where they already cut the meal on a transcon! Seriously?

channa

Huh? There's a meal on transcon and midcon F on UA.