I don't fly TED unless I absolutely have to like going from LAS to LAX. Are there TED flights that are on the same segments as UA flights? If so, does that mean TED competes with UA?

I can sorta understand having TED flights for those short hops but I am baffled why TED is used on long flights (over three hours) when it would seem to me that the demand for F seats are higher than a 45 minute flight.

Hell, I won't even fly Ted then... I'll take US and give them my MP number :)

There are a few, but they are mostly on the weekend only, or sometimes once daily. For example, TPA-ORD is sometimes mainline once on the weekend for a few months, and IAD-PHX has a mainline flight every night. I believe the same applies to PHX and LAS to a certain extent.

If you removed two rows of coach and added one row of F, you'd likely have room for a closet and an oven up front. This would also have the added advantage of reducing total seat count to 148, meaning you could drop one FA for savings.

I do wonder why UA didn't do/hasn't done this. I guess they wanted a direct Southwest/Frontier LCC, ignoring their own considerable business/upgrade customer base.

Look at DEN. TED competes with Frontier AND Southwest, and Southwest has announced more nonstops from Denver. F9 and WN consistently price lower than TED on similar itineraries. The "Joads" are flying F9 and WN. That leaves us core UA people flying TED for the miles and for channel 9. We're the only ones willing to pay $10 or $20 more.

I keep scratching my head wondering how TED continues to exist.

As I said in my previous post (#2 in this thread), taking out 2 rows of Y for one row of F leads to an overall loss of 8 seats (-2*6Y + 4F = -8). This means that the (4 or fewer) revenue F seats would have to make up for the 8 lost Y seats... and given that Ted is on "primarily leisure" routes, it is reasonable to assume that many of those F seats would go to upgraders, not to revenue, making it even harder for the few revenue seats sold to make up for the lost 8 seats. (Yes, there are plenty of business pax who must fly Ted routes... but presumably they are a much smaller fraction of the overall pax than on non-Ted routes, and therefore a correspondingly smaller fraction of overall revenue.)

With only 148 pax, UA would be legally allowed to reduce FA staffing to 3, but realistically it wouldn't work out. Doing so would severely affect the FA-to-customer ratio and would therefore make service take quite a bit longer (since each FA has many more customers to deal with under this hypothetical situation). This would likely lead to a further erosion of customer morale and loyalty (if there is any to begin with). Moreover and perhaps more importantly, a reduction to 3 FAs would also mean that the one row of F would have to share its FA with just under a third of Y, leading to limited and/or poor F service... and people are already complaining about poor F service even with dedicated F FAs! Who would pay for an F seat when the F FA is also serving a third of Y? Therefore, UA would not realistically be able to reduce its FA load if they wanted to keep the customers, especially the ones in F, happy.

One must assume that UA took all of this into account when designing Ted, for better or for worse... a row of F might satisfy some pax who are willing to pay for it, and might satisfy some elites who want an upgrade and currently have no option... but they won't be satisfied with poor service, so the flight would still need 4 FAs, which means the only cost benefit would be the few revenue seats that this might generate (minus the one-time cost of refitting the fleet), and presumably on these leisure routes, the fraction of revenue F seats would not offset the lost Y seats.

Again, maybe UA didn't do this analysis and just jumped into Ted totally blindly... but I would think they actually did think this through, and as much as FTers might not like Ted, the market seems to be supporting it.

Does US have E+? I mean, you can't upgrade on US with UA instruments, right?

Actually, your post #2 discusses removing one row of Y for one row of F. I'm trying to make room for the oven. :D :D :D

Now, now, don't be silly. In TED they're providing half a can of soda per pax and no snacks unless the flight is 3 hours; and then it's slinging pretzels. For the remaining FAs, it might mean about 30 min. less each flight to do Sudoku.

One dedicated FA to four F pax would be likely the single thing that would provide more paying F pax - especially if no meals were provided. The other two FAs can sling mini drinks and pretzels just fine, thank you.

One is not required to assume that UA took any of this into account. And I believe one must assume that the wider seat and enhanced legroom of a 4-seat F cabin would appeal to formerly TED-locked elite pax who otherwise would buy and/or upgrade. Even if they also got half a can of soda.

The market seems to be supporting all airlines these days. When load factors are 85% plus throughout the industry, a lot of errors can be hidden.

No, it doesn't. And, no, you can't.

Ted already has F.

It's called row 11, Ed :)

Seriously, I'm on Ted twice a week (usually ORD-PHX and back). Not all that bad. I prefer it to US, but that's not a stretch given US' descent to the bottom of the service barrel. E+ and decent snack boxes help. Don't get the "no can" thing (even US is giving the whole can these days), but can live with it.

Isn't no-F the -definition- of TED? ????

No, actually it talks about one extra row of Y, i.e. two rows... but I can see how that wasn't clear in the way I worded it. Sorry.

Of the two of us, I don't think I'm the one being silly... :p I think I'm being realistic. Yes, the service on Ted is minimal, but I don't think 2 FAs for 144 Y pax is realistic even considering the minimal service. It actually takes more time to provide that half a can than it does to provide the full can, plus longer Ted flights have more than one drink service. Even without snacks, there's still BoB to handle, as well. Serving 144 pax is not a quick job for only 2 FAs, who also can't handle any other duties or passenger requests while performing that service.

One is never required to assume anything. But I think it's reasonable to assume that UA did take all of this into account. As much as you and others may think that their business practices are haphazard and ill-planned, none of us (except maybe iluv2fly :)) really know what is happening behind the scenes and it's both naïve and silly to think that a business like UA, beholden to its shareholders, would really put an unplanned Ted out there for poops and giggles rather than actually assessing the situation and deciding which layout and what staffing levels would be most revenue-positive. Some, including you, might disagree with their decision to do so, but none of us have the inside information needed to make that assessment.

Of course the wider seat and enhanced legroom would appeal to elite pax. That is a given and it's also irrelevant. What is relevant is whether the additional business from said pax would drive revenues higher, and that math is much more complicated. Revenue F would provide solid, provable revenue, but in order to be profitable, the revenue seats need to bring in more cash than the 8 lost Y seats would have. But some of the revenue seats would be lost to upgraders, who bring in zero additional revenue - the only benefit they would provide is using upgrade instruments (miles or certificates) whose paper liability is then taken off the books. So that makes fewer revenue F seats and even less F revenue to offset the 8 lost Y seats. In order to do a true calculation, we'd need to know the historical loads of revenue F pre-Ted, since without those numbers none of us can predict how many pax would be willing to pay for F and how many F seats would be "lost" to upgraders (by "lost" I mean being not profitable since upgrading does not provide a revenue stream).

One can of course make the argument that having F, either for revenue or upgrade, would increase flyer loyalty since those desiring F now have that option, but without knowing the historical loads on these routes pre-Ted, none of us can say how many revenue F pax there actually were and how the loyalty of revenue and upgrade pax might be affected by the loss of F.

It's really easy to make these glib arguments that a row of F must be profitable and must increase flyer loyalty... but none of us have the inside numbers needed to make that determination, so that's really just unfounded conjecture. Ted is a few years old now, and if UA were losing significant loyalty and revenue because of it, I'm sure they would have noticed. Remember, most FFs are not FTers - just because Ted may be affecting your loyalty does not mean it affects FF loyalty in general. Perhaps it does, but nobody's shown any numbers to that effect, anyway.

you're forgeting tedviasion, ted list (RIP), half-cans, and pee-water lemonaide.

Then what's the point of flying US? I mean, even given the limitations of TED.

As others have posted, no E+ and you can't upgrade using UA instruments. So what's the point of flying US? Am I missing something?

If they did, the First Class passenger might think they were on US. :p


LAS was about 3% paid F and you have to think that was likely to be one of the highest stations compared to PHX and others.

When UA launched Shuttle, demand for the eight F seats was so low they upgraded 1Ks for free day of flight, and that was without Economy Plus to fall back on.