noah

I'm getting really tired of the condition of United's fleet.

Last week I flew SFO-NRT-BKK in F (2J!).

From SFO-NRT, my AVOD was intermittent at best -- a few channels had no audio, but some were fine. I could handle this given that these weren't the movies I really wanted to watch.

An hour later I realized that the F cabin was still bright with the lights on while the rest of the plane was dark. When I asked an FA, she replied that the lights were broken in F and offered me a second eye mask.

Later the FA who had been working my section came by and apologized for the condition of the aircraft. "I'm sorry sir, the condition of this plane is embarrassing" , he said. "I've been working for United for 20 years, and I've never seen the situation so bad. When you get to work in the morning for a long-haul flight only to find out that half the systems on the aircraft are broken, it's truly embarrassing to me." He urged me to write a letter to United, and to take my business to an airline, "that cares about their planes and their passengers." Near the end of the flight the purser came around and offered sky kits to all the passengers in F and his own apologies for the condition of the plane.

The aircraft that operated NRT-BKK was in only slightly better shape -- but I felt sorry for the passengers in Y when the FA came on the PA and apologized that the Blades of Glory tape was broken, and they had no backup tape to show the rest of the movie.

Compared with my BKK-FRA-BOS flights on LH yesterday, *I* was embarrassed for United.

We ALL know how old, dirty and ratty the 747 fleet is and there are far too many tales of people stuck in SFO/LAX/SYD trying to cross the pacific with broken planes. Granted the new F and C seats will be welcome, but this doesn't completely solve the problem of these ancient aircraft. With no planes on order, and their current fleet falling apart, I'm really not sure why anybody pays premium dollars to fly United. Sad, sad.

AdamUK

Why do United need to order new planes when the existing ones are getting refurbs?

Have you not seen the plans for the updated premium classes?

While it doesn't excuse the state of Uniteds planes, I don't believe they could have done any improvements until they had some consistant profit under their belts after bankruptcy.

As for the FA saying "take your business elsewhere", I am sorry that is just wrong.

AndDee

I am not sure that a UA employee would encourage you to take your business to an airline that cares. If that was said that person deserves to lose their job. You don't bad mouth the company that you work for no mater what. You never know who is listening or who is going to post on Flyertalk.com and "report" you

Very true, it seems not a week goes by without a report of serious delays in SYD.

Your quote that "With no planes on order, and their current fleet falling apart, I'm really not sure why anybody pays premium dollars to fly United. Sad, sad." is exactly what I wrote a few weeks ago !!!! Funny you say the same thing!!!!

As for the refurb: 97 planes completed by late 2009, 2 years is a pretty good timefram for the refurbs, impressive actually at a rate of just over 1 per week!

However, we can assume that 2010 is when you can be guaranteed a proper First/Business class seat.

I also feel sorry for people that are travelling in Y class, United obviously has plans to keep there aircraft until 2015 at the earliest when they will start to be replaced with 787/A350 or Y3. So for the next 8 years passengers travelling in Y class on the 747 won't have any seat back TV's. Again yes aparently people dont' care about this (according to some on here) but if they didnt' care every other airline wouldn't have installed AVOD systems in all classes and also continue to spend the $ to improve the system.

Compare the lack of IFE in Y and for the next 30 months to Qantas, V Australia (2008), Air NZ, SQ, and every other airline and it is pathetic.

I just booked my Mum a trip to the USA in Paid C class. She was adament that she wanted to fly UA as that is what she used to fly every time she went to the USA up until about 5 years ago when she stopped travelling.

I told her that the planes are the same, and the interiors haven't changed and the TV in C is still the same tiny size. Even she couldn't believe that so the $10K went to Air NZ instead

I also grew up flying United and again around 8 years ago sitting in Y I thought the planes were in bad condition when compared to QF.

Yes everyone will come out and say that airlines dont' make any/much money from Y class and instead it's C/F that keep them flying which is why they are investing in those areas, but word of mouth is good/bad thing.

With all that being said, the domestic fleet is another story again, 737's 757's getting VERY old. My recent trips in the US were all in F and on PS in C. I was very impressed with the service (not alot of food) but the drinks were flowing and the seats comfortable. But agian the planes are definately showing their age, with the exception of the P.S. fleet for obvious reasons.

sonofzeus

USD?? AUD?

AndDee

AUD and it was more around $11K to be precise, my point being bad interiors has lost them one customer, and I am sure there are thousands of others that are doing the same thing.

chitownflyer

What is becoming an issue with United is a lack of maintenance that ensures the cabins are operational.

warreng24

You have never been on a US Airways 737 or 757 have you? Take a ride on one of those museum pieces and then get back to us.

roadkit

I remeber flying IAD-FRA in C on a 777 recently.

Made the huge mistake of looking in between the armrests. Beyond gross.

Hard to describe the amount of crumbs, goo, etc. I saw in there.

BenjaminNYC

The FA gave you good advice. Heed it.

gfunkdave

So by 2010 I can be assured of having a decent in flight experience on UA - or I can get a good experience TODAY by flying most other airlines.

Hmm.

UNITED959

These issues are ones that should be fixed with the refurb. From what I understand, the new interior will truly be a new interior.

A new plane doesn't necessarily mean it's more reliable than an older one. I remember when the last generation of the Mercedes S-Class came out in late 1999; they had tons of issues with the new electronics that were touted as high-tech and cutting edge. The "mishaps" caused the cars to occasionally not start, it would mess up controls of the vehicle's systems, etc. Despite this, the car still performed very well from an engineering perspective (as expected of Mercedes' heritage).

Hopefully UA doesn't "pull a Mercedes" with the refurbs, but my point is this -- a brand new airframe does not insure that your seat's AVOD will work or that your reading light will not flicker on and off during flight. To avoid those annoyances, the concern should be about the quality of the new interiors, not whether or not the airframe is 15 years old. I think Boeing has already proven they're capable of building reliable and safe aircraft, and UA is flying some of their best work.

That said, the forthcoming refurb is no excuse to slack off on maintaining the old generation F/C.

BangkokTraveler

An int'l FA lose their job for badmouthing UA? Bashing their employer is a hobby for some FAs (the BKK and SIN based FAs are the exception to this), and seems to be accepted behavior, they'll never get canned for that.

Axey

While I wouldn't want my employees doing this either, I think his point -- a very valid one -- was that until people start voting with their wallet, things don't improve. Don't think for one second that UA is improving their premium cabins so you can be more comfortable. They're doing it because very few pay for premium cabins on UA anymore.

hockeyguy

Good point. It's important to keep in mind that a lot of the problems we all encounter with UA's cabins are purely interior issues (e.g. broken footrests or seat recline) and have nothing to do with the age of the aircraft itself. Other issues such as IFE problems may have some relation to the age of the aircraft, but could almost certainly be fixed without buying a whole new plane.

New planes would probably (hopefully?) mean all new interiors, but really it's the latter that most important to most travelers. I don't think it's the age of UA's 747 fleet that's really the problem; it's the lack of reasonable upkeep of the interiors.

Roger Lococco

It would be very interesting to know, across the major airlines, the following basic metrics:

- Yield in C and F
- Percent of pax who are paying the C and F fares, as opposed to upgrading
- Trends over time

From anecdotes and arms length observations, United appears to have a business strategy that does not compete for full-fare C and F business, but rather offer a customer value proposition of ability to upgrade relatively easily.

As such, implicitly they're assuming that someone who buys a ticket for $800 and upgrades using SWUs or miles will have much lower standards than someone who pays the $10k full fare for same flight.

RL