char777

Good points. It seriously boggles my mind why Southwest has such a devout following.

F is always a step up from Y, but I agree that it isn't worth it anymore. DEN-LAX is $281 rt on Y, yet $2071 on F. I'm not sure who's willing to pay eight times more for slightly improved service on a two hour flight. I know I can't justify that. I just wish there was a middleground, and E+ isn't it for me.

EDIT: Oh, by the way, I checked the UAL site, and it looks like all widebodies in the fleet will go international soon. DEN-LAX and DEN-SFO are all narrowbodies this winter and next spring. Frequency is still the same, however.

mre5765

Then the airlines run a higher risk of flying with a higher percentage of empty seats. Then the airlines have to fill those seats with fares that are not marginally profitable but at least serve the purpose of reducing the loss on the flight. Other pax who paid a profit-making fare get angry, decide to stop being marks, and pay the lower fare next time. The downward spiral starts.

The only thing preventing DEN/LAX from being RJ service is that both are hubs. But don't count on that forever either. Whatever it takes to run 100% capacity. Pray that ex-plus service survives, which over all is better for elites than A320s as a higher percentage of seats are in F.

Whats galling is that the refundable fare is also $2071.

Even more galling? When you search for business fares, the 777s show up (for $2071). When you search for full fare first class the 777s don't. So even if you want to pay for the step up from the domestic F product, you cannot.

BTW, your middle ground is to buy two E+ seats.

Which means that the 2-class 777s will go TATL/TPAC without business class. Anyone who thinks UA is going to re-configure them anytime soon probably believes his seat map that says his seat in C on ORD/LHR next month will be in lie flat. Emphasis on "lie".

mre5765

The curious thing is that Apple and BMW don't just exist, but thrive in the USA market. Apple is even thriving in the corporate market, the same market that by and large forces employees to fly to cheapest possible fare, even as they are sending their expensive Apple laptop through the x-ray at the airport. Whereas every attempt at creating a similar brand for USA-based airlines has failed.

char777

Why would there be more empty seats? THis system doesn't decrease the amount of passengers, just the frequency of flights.

Meh, two E+ seats isn't quite what I'm thinking of. I fit into an econ seat just fine, but the entire cabin is still uncomfortable no matter your size. Why can't UAL improve their econ product to something like SQ? Or any other airline? I prefer Frontier when flying domestically, due to the seats and PTV. Garuda Indonesia even has a more comfortable cabin than UAL. Also, why does UAL still have that rainbow orange and pink pattern on their seats?

char777

There are some premium airlines out there, but they don't last long because apparently people are happy for paying the minimum price for a sardine cane seat.

VA1379

To be fair to the airlines, they operate in an environment that is harder to control than Apple and BMW. Both companies have exclusive retail outlets and place an emphasis on customer service (which they cover by charging higher prices and selling extra features [including extended warranties for Apple]). Every airline is forced to share airspace and airports with other airlines, and airlines cannot control bad weather, congestion for ground transportation, or poor encounters with the TSA. Air travel is more dependent on personal interactions between airline employees, customers, and security and custom personnel. The actions of other people who are ignorant or belligerent can have a bad impact on your personal travel. This possibility is not so high when you are buying a car or a computer.

Airlines also have this thing called paying for jet fuel, which has been causing agony. Demand is highly elastic for air travel, and most people are not willing to pay the amount of money needed for domestic airlines to provide first class service or even decent coach service. A $100 increase in transcontinental airfare is not enough to even cover increased jet fuel prices, let alone new planes and higher salaries. $300-400 might be more like it, but most people (including many businesses) will not (or are unable to) pay it even though it would buy a happier labor force, a less stressed out management and new aircraft.

It is easier for a company to spend an extra $500-$2500 for a Mac. Some would argue that the lower frequency of system crashes and reduced security risks would justify some of the extra cost. The higher price is a one time capital investment which will last for a few years, and it is not all thrown away because Macs hold up better than PCs in the used electronic market. This also applies to buying a car. Buying a bunch of C and/or F tickets is much more expensive (especially for international travel), and companies have nothing of residual value to recover the extra costs (unless they decide to start keeping airline miles that their employees earn and we know how popular that would be with most travelers).

Many people who used to buy domestic F and C tickets now fly on private jets. This reduces the number of customers available to make premium jet service viable on commercial air carriers.

TechBoy

The answer to this question is painfully clear. It does cost significantly more to operate widebodies than narrowbodies (comparing planes of similar age). It is much cheaper to fly 2 A320s than 1 777 on a short domestic route. The disparity gets even worse if you outfit the 777 cabin with greater pitch and wider seats as you advocate. UA is losing money as is. Your suggestion would insure liquidation.

The fact of the matter is that only a small fraction of customers (and businesses) are willing to spend that 50-100% more for tickets that your vision would require. And the willingness to spend is directly proportionate to the length of the flight. I would guess that for a 900 miles flight from DEN to LAX that there is very little willingness.

cstead

Only somewhat relevant to the discussion at hand, but I don't think anyone's mentioned that part of the reason routes like LAX-DEN and DEN-ORD see 3-class widebodies is because of maintenance and utilization issues. It's not like UA is going, "wow, look at all of the people flying LAX-DEN at 6am that are paying $2k+" and throwing a 777 frame on the route. Because there aren't a whole of people doing that

horseguy

I personally would not call it an "omnipotent conclusion" as God himself didn't give us the news. However, every airline has done price experiments. If I recall correctly, AA has said that if they raise their fares as much as $1 dollar over competitors fares, there is a _huge_ fall off in business as everyone purchasing through the on-line comparison web sites will select the cheaper fares.

Any plan to save the airlines would do well to take this extraordinary consumer price sensitivity into account.

UnitedConnection

That narrowbodies cost less (im assuming you mean per passenger) to operate than widebodies is just plain wrong. Wide bodies have larger, higher-bypass engines and are accordingly more fuel efficient (per seat). Also the savings garnered from the sole fact that you are making one flight instead of two (flight crew, ground crews, airport gate usage, takeoff/landing fees, etc) play into the difference. Not to mention that cargo(=revenue) is carried on widebodies that cannot be carried on narrowbodies.

Think about it, there would be no market for widebody planes if narrowbodies had necessarily less overhead. Airlines would simply fly two narrowbodies, one after the other, on high-capacity routes instead of a single widebody. If your theory were correct, why would airbus even bother drawing up a design for the a380 to begin with? (Don't say range- there are several much smaller planes with equal or greater range...) The answer of course is that when you can fill it up with people, the a380 costs less to operate per pax than the capacity equivalent in smaller planes any day.

The demand for lower-capacity more frequent flights is what necessitates narrow bodied aircraft.

mre5765

Demand is variable. On some days a plane is fully sold, or oversold. An empty widebody loses more money than an empty A320. If an airline flies lots of narrow bodies per day on a route, then if the 4th and 5th flights of the day are empty, it can cancel the 4th, and roll the pax into the 5th. Much less flexibility to do that with widebodies. So they fly empty or full with pax paying money losing fares.

And if all airlines don't comply with your system, the airlines that fly more times per day on a route with smaller planes take business from the airlines that fly fewer times per day on a route with bigger planes, because the former airline has more convenient times than the latter. Empty wide bodies: It's what Southwest has been doing to United for the past 8 years.

Take a look at:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/737...c_newyork.html

The future of TATL is 737s and it will be lead by the LCCs.

mre5765

This isn't about Y vs. C vs F. More like E- versus E+. More like no fee to check a bag versus $15.

Why is it easier for a company to spend an extra $2500 on a Mac, versus spending an extra $40 or so to let employee sit in E+? Why is it easier for a company to go with the cheapest fare all the time, even just a $1 cheaper, checked bags, and often, free F or C?

The Mac doesn't produce wealth by itself. An employee with a healthy back (because he checked his 30 pound bag), and no DVT is more productive than the one stuck in 28 inch pitch.

char777

But do airlines have a choice today? I think airlines are going to need to cut down on frequency, and if passenger demand stays the same, then wouldn't rolling them into a widebody that is more fuel efficient per seat be more profitable?

Oh, and why aren't there any narrowbodies on SIN-KUL on any airline, for example?

char777

Perhaps businesses are inclined to pony up for a better seat for their employees, but the leisure travellers are looking for the cheapest seat they can find without caring about comfort.

char777

'Inevitable' is probably a better word. From my perspective, airlines are happy to sell the Orbitz shopper the most uncomfortable seat at a cheap price because they can. Southwest has been very successful at that.