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United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

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Re: United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

#51

Post by joshyeager »

rconti wrote: post #27

I think the airlines have had a bit of a race to the bottom in a few ways: * Fees. Charge baggage fees, everyone else does the same, nobody's any better off. Boarding is slower and passengers crankier. I was HAPPY to not have to tote my bag around every single layover until they started charging for bags, now I'm another unhappy customer lugging a bag everywhere, walking up and down the aisles looking for space, havi…

I would definitely pay 50% more for an extra 3" of leg room. Maybe even just 2". Take out one row and you could add that much to 10-12 rows.

I must be missing something, because that seems like it would be an effective option. It would increase the flight cost of those seats by 8-12%, and you could charge 20-50% more for them.

Re: United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

#52

Post by ubernostrum »

martinald wrote: post #33

What I can't understand is why United (and tbh most airlines) put such ludicriously short connection times in going from international to domestic in the US. I've literally had them quote a 42 min connection at me getting from IAD international to domestic. This is literally impossible unless the flight was very significantly early/they put me on Concorde by mistake. I phoned up when I noticed and asked to change fli…

As far as I can tell, 42 minutes violates United's own minimum connection time for international to domestic at IAD.

Their general MCT for IAD is 45 minutes domestic-domestic or domestic-international, and 90 minutes international-domestic. There are a few connections which allow all the way down to 65 minutes international-domestic, but nothing allowing 42. So if something quoted such a connection at you it would have been invalid per United's published times.

Re: United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

#53

Post by ghaff »

pcurve wrote: post #42
hellofunk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is odd is that even the cheapest budget airlines of Asia, and there are many, many of them, nearly all provide not just free snacks, but free hot meals.

I've flown on couple dozen airlines. Yes, Asian carriers are almost always better in terms of food. I was actually served medium cooked steak on Asiana. But the real difference is in their cabin attendants. x10 better. But what I hate flying about isn't the food or CA service. It's flying into and out of JFK. Everyone working there is f'king miserable. They treat people like live stocks. And their customs and immigra…

>But the real difference is in their cabin attendants. x10 better.

At least some of which is for reasons that, properly, wouldn't fly in the US. They hire young, attractive, college-educated women who are enjoying flying the world for a few years before they settle down and get married. And who are not expected to stay on once they've enjoyed those few years.

Re: United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

#55

Post by [deleted] »

ubernostrum wrote: post #44
stephengoodwin wrote: post #15

About 1/2 of the flights I've taken in the past 5 years have been on United or Continental. 11 flights on United and 4 flights on Continental[1] (I keep track of my airline travel in a spreadsheet). 2 of my United flights were international. My most recent United flights was in late 2014. I can only speak for myself, but I've never had a bad experience with United or Continental. A few small delays here or there. One…

Congratulations, you're an anecdote! Statistically, United's performance has been absolutely abysmal . The crap really started hitting the fan in June of last year, when United reported departure/arrival on-time numbers of 42% and 66% (in other words, over half of flights departed late, and over one-third arrived late, meaning they didn't make up much time in the air). For another perspective: if we look at "chronica…

[deleted]

Re: United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

#56

Post by scottkduncan »

Zigurd wrote: post #34
scottkduncan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also a few great things about modern air travel. For one, it has gotten considerably cheaper (and thus more accessible to a broad spectrum of consumers) over time. It's also amazingly safe for travel in a metal tube at 550 MPH 35,000 feet above the earth. There are market-based products that would address many of your concerns if you are willing to pay. Prefer a larger seat or priority boarding? Try economy…

Making a product horrible in order to sell "less horrible" is not a great example of a market success.

It's all in how you evaluate whether it is a horrible product. I consider economy class airfare a commodity and evaluate it on getting me to my destination safely and on time. Delays are obviously still an issue, and I do believe airlines should treat passengers as well as possible (prompt re-booking, compensation, hotel rooms, etc.) when their travel plans have been disrupted due to delays.

I also don't believe there was a historical glory day of air travel. It used to be far more expensive, with far fewer routes. International travel was MUCH more expensive, again with fewer routes. Fatal crashes were more frequent. We all used to complain about how bad airline food was...then they took it away and we complained about that too.

Re: United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

#57

Post by scottkduncan »

Karunamon wrote: post #50
scottkduncan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also a few great things about modern air travel. For one, it has gotten considerably cheaper (and thus more accessible to a broad spectrum of consumers) over time. It's also amazingly safe for travel in a metal tube at 550 MPH 35,000 feet above the earth. There are market-based products that would address many of your concerns if you are willing to pay. Prefer a larger seat or priority boarding? Try economy…

The problem with those value-adds is that they're priced completely out of the range of the utility you might get out of it. Remember - little things. Yeah, having a few more inches of legroom would be nice, but $50 nice? I'm well over 6" here, and the seats are designed for the lowest common denominator. Unless I get a reclining seat in first, it's gonna suck. Priority boarding, I never understood the point of. Okay…

I'm totally with you on priority boarding - I don't get the appeal at all.

All I am saying is that the market responded to our collective preferences for airlines to compete on cost -- and we benefited from this in some ways because costs have fallen over time. It's likely that the $50 you might pay for economy plus would put you even on real terms with tickets/legroom from 10-20 years ago.

Re: United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

#58

Post by ghaff »

Karunamon wrote: post #50
scottkduncan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also a few great things about modern air travel. For one, it has gotten considerably cheaper (and thus more accessible to a broad spectrum of consumers) over time. It's also amazingly safe for travel in a metal tube at 550 MPH 35,000 feet above the earth. There are market-based products that would address many of your concerns if you are willing to pay. Prefer a larger seat or priority boarding? Try economy…

The problem with those value-adds is that they're priced completely out of the range of the utility you might get out of it. Remember - little things. Yeah, having a few more inches of legroom would be nice, but $50 nice? I'm well over 6" here, and the seats are designed for the lowest common denominator. Unless I get a reclining seat in first, it's gonna suck. Priority boarding, I never understood the point of. Okay…

There is always diminishing returns to travel upgrades. Maybe $100 (or whatever) gets you a bed but $300 get you a really comfy bed with a nice view. This also applies in all sorts of areas.

>Priority boarding, I never understood the point of.

A lot of it has to do with having overhead space. On a packed flight, you'll often have to check your carryon if you can't fit it under the seat in front of you if you're in a late boarding group.

Re: United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

#59

Post by killerdhmo »

martinald wrote: post #33

What I can't understand is why United (and tbh most airlines) put such ludicriously short connection times in going from international to domestic in the US. I've literally had them quote a 42 min connection at me getting from IAD international to domestic. This is literally impossible unless the flight was very significantly early/they put me on Concorde by mistake. I phoned up when I noticed and asked to change fli…

@martinald, this sounds frustrating and I'm sorry about that. I can't speak for the United site, but when I travel I usually choose Delta. On the Delta.com site there's an option to filter by both Min and Max connection time. So, even though United doesn't do it, there are other airlines that do.

Re: United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful

#60

Post by ghaff »

mikeash wrote: post #49
jcranmer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One major problem is that the comparison sites that people use to determine this stuff don't make it easy to figure out if you're saving $10 to get a massively more uncomfortable situation.

That's effect, not cause. The customer's relentless quest for cheaper fares at all costs was around long before everybody was booking their flights online.

See PeopleEXPRESS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_Express_Airlines_(1980s...

Which, as I recall, had SNL skits about its extreme cost-cutting at the time.

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