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United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

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Re: United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

#71

Post by jen20 »

thedrbrian wrote: post #61
rottencupcakes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every drink is for sale, even coffee. They aggressively use the bag sizer and try to take bags away at the gate, under the ruse that their tiny Airbus overhead bins cannot fit them (they can).

Just put it in the hold. I can’t stand waiting for the cheapskate to find somewhere to put their 45kg “rucksack” in the over head bins just to save a tenner.

"Put it in the hold" is a decent argument for point-to-point flights, or when you do gate checking. Otherwise it's a crap-shoot whether your stuff makes it (which can end a two-day business trip before it begins), what shape it will be in, and how long you'll have to wait. As soon as you have a connection, all bets are off.

How long you'll have to wait is mostly a function not of the airline, but of the arrival airport and the competence of the handling company.

Re: United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

#72

Post by Gud »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #22
miki123211 wrote: post #14

To a European like me, United was such a weird airline to fly. There were actual commercials played before the safety video, the cabin crew warned passengers to make sure children cannot see the adult content they're watching (can you get more American than that?), and their credit card was offered multiple times during the flight. At least the WiFi was reasonably cheap. Over here, that stuff would never fly (no pun…

What has become much more degraded in Europe than America is the domestic flights. Try flying Lufthansa (or one of their half dozen subsidiaries created almost entirely to give worse service) anywhere inside of europe. Everything is a money grab and the service and boarding are terrible. United maintains a relatively consistent experience between domestic and international, minus the free alcohol.

I’m a frequent flyer with Lufthansa(literally have the card) and I think it’s a pretty decent airline.

I’ve flown more than 50 flights this year with them.

Re: United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

#73

Post by seizethecheese »

_verandaguy wrote: post #10
schmuckonwheels wrote: post #3

Clickbait. The B777 is probably the safest, most meticulously engineered commercial wide-body aircraft ever built. They're also getting old, and airlines retire old aircraft.

These are the exact points written in the article. They also substantiate the idea that the United 777-200 fleet does face an uncertain future.

Sure, but the headline makes you think this incident caused the uncertain future. It’s definitely clickbait

Re: United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

#74

Post by arjie »

carbocation wrote: post #4
schmuckonwheels wrote: post #3

Clickbait. The B777 is probably the safest, most meticulously engineered commercial wide-body aircraft ever built. They're also getting old, and airlines retire old aircraft.

The article explicitly says that the aircraft is safe. I don't think this is particularly clickbait-y.

I recall clickbait meaning "A way of describing what's behind a link, often inaccurately, so that you click on it". The completely non-controversial article seems to me to have a very hook-y headline which is exactly what the phrase refers to, at least to me. What does clickbait mean to you? Perhaps the meaning of the phrase has changed in different groups over time.

Re: United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

#75

Post by jen20 »

echelon wrote: post #37
rottencupcakes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has become much more degraded in Europe than America is the domestic flights. Try flying Lufthansa (or one of their half dozen subsidiaries created almost entirely to give worse service) anywhere inside of europe. Everything is a money grab and the service and boarding are terrible. United maintains a relatively consistent experience between domestic and international, minus the free alcohol.

I love how everyone is dunking on airlines (it's easy - I do too!), yet airlines are one of the least profitable business sectors to be in. It's like dunking on QSR, but worse. These things are practically on welfare. Everything is fungible, high risk, extremely expensive, extremely regulated. The margins are almost nil. They all fly the same planes. You can compete on "experience", and that's basically it. Their din…

As Branson used to say, the best way to become a millionaire is to be a billionaire and start an airline.

Re: United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

#76

Post by coredog64 »

Digory wrote: post #27

"...777 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure ... and also before Dulles engine failure, for reasons having nothing to do with the Dulles engine failure." To be fair, I read all of it, and both sides of the question interest me. But the engine failure and the economics of the 777 are totally different things.

The article's TL;DR is that the economics of 30-year old P&W4090 engines make these airframes even less useful to United.

Re: United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

#77

Post by jen20 »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #33
rottencupcakes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has become much more degraded in Europe than America is the domestic flights. Try flying Lufthansa (or one of their half dozen subsidiaries created almost entirely to give worse service) anywhere inside of europe. Everything is a money grab and the service and boarding are terrible. United maintains a relatively consistent experience between domestic and international, minus the free alcohol.

> United maintains a relatively consistent experience between domestic and international, minus the free alcohol. A consistent extremely mediocre experience I guess. I've flown Lufthansa, Air France, Air Canada and United with a toddler and I'd get out of my way to avoid United in the future, never seen staff everywhere in that airline that was more unpleasant and unhelpful, especially with young children, as much as…

To give my own anecdata to counter yours: every time I've flown with children on United they've gone out of their way to make it straightforward. The only better airline I've encountered for it is Virgin Atlantic, which is, to be fair, better at everything.

Re: United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

#78

Post by unethical_ban »

carbocation wrote: post #4
schmuckonwheels wrote: post #3

Clickbait. The B777 is probably the safest, most meticulously engineered commercial wide-body aircraft ever built. They're also getting old, and airlines retire old aircraft.

The article explicitly says that the aircraft is safe. I don't think this is particularly clickbait-y.

"Future of US-China Relations in Question After Death of Hollywood Director"

A literally true sentence which falsely implies a correlation between events.

Discussion of the 777-200's economic viability has nothing to do with the Dulles incident.

Re: United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

#79

Post by yread »

schmuckonwheels wrote: post #3

Clickbait. The B777 is probably the safest, most meticulously engineered commercial wide-body aircraft ever built. They're also getting old, and airlines retire old aircraft.

> They're also getting old, and airlines retire old aircraft.

True, but they do keep the even older 757 flying.

Re: United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

#80

Post by justapassenger »

d_silin wrote: post #13

New Boeing 777-X is coming soon. United can order them if they feel inclined to do so.

I wouldn't hold my breath for it. It was suppose to be released in 2020. It's end of 2025 and current release date is 2027 (and who knows if it'll be pushed back again).
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