United Airline From Hong Kong, joined Jan 2001, 8803 posts, RR: 17 Posted (1 year 2 weeks 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 5013 times:
OK UA has decided to keep its first class. Is this a permanent one? When they take delivery of new planes will F be installed? I mean at least on international flights. I remember UA used to offer Godiva and Don Perignon on first class. Do they still do that? Also Mcdonald's happy meal for kids?
Also which international business class will the choose? PMCO's or PMUA's? I mean when they install them on new planes. Which one has more features?
blueflyer From United States of America, joined Jan 2006, 3157 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (1 year 2 weeks 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 4890 times:
I think we way end up with more two-class aircraft than we do now for international service, but the demand is there to keep F at least to LHR, FRA and BRU in Europe, and NRT and KIX in Asia for the time being. It's quite possible there is enough demand in more Asian cities for F (HKG perhaps) but I am not as familiar with that market to judge.
You must have flown some time ago... two years ago when I was in F from NRT to LAX, when I asked about the champagne they had, I was told to ignore the little menu booklet. I'd get whatever they had on board that day and NO, it wasn't anything half as nice as Dom Perignon! First and business passengers get basically, if not the same food and beverages.But F might have a (limited) few more wine options.
blueflyer From United States of America, joined Jan 2006, 3157 posts, RR: 1 Reply 5, posted (1 year 2 weeks 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 4858 times:
No. Each division retains its (new) seating. All pmUA aircraft are being retrofitted with the new UA business class ordered before the merger, and the same goes for pmCO aircraft.
New aircraft that have yet to be delivered will receive their seating based upon which pre-merge airline placed the order. The exception is the 787 fleet that is entirely going to be equipped with the latest version of pmCO BusinessFirst.
Brands have changed. TATL/Asia business class is called BusinessFirst on pmUA as well now. UA's international first class is now GlobalFirst.
slcdeltarumd11 From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 2483 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (1 year 2 weeks 4 days 3 hours ago) and read 4729 times:
The lie flat business seat will be the first class killer for everyone but the top service airlines
Interesting list of service reductions in that thread - I had forgotten how much has changed over the years.
The Friendly Skies Meals will continue to be boarded until all of the supplies have been depleated. Therefore, some stations may have the Friendly Skies Meal, while others will have the United Kids Meal.
As far as what is being cut from flights, be very careful when reading the following, as there are VERY SPECIFIC flights which the supplies are being cut from, and the changes DO NOT effect all flights.
NORTH AMERICA MEAL SERVICE CHANGES
-McDonald's Friendly Skies Meals no longer offered. United will board the standard children's meal currently used at non-McDonald's locations. Apparently, the company is working on a special United-designed children's meal and packaging that they "hope to introduce later this year."
-Removing Mrs. Fields cookies in UF on pre-arrival service flights. This is the second service warm cookie. However, the cookies will still be boarded when it's the primary dessert on short haul flights.
-Removing grapefruit juice, olives, and lemon peels from the beverage units.
-Removing Godiva chocolates from all flights.
-Changing ratios and choices from beef to pasta on lunch and dinner flights in Economy. This reduces the amount of the beef and chicken entrées and increases pasta.
-Removing refresher towels in all cabins on North America flights LESS THAN 3.5 hours long.
-Removed United First tray table linens on flights LESS THAN 3.5 hours. Passenger meal trays will now be placed directly on seat tray tables.
INTERNATIONAL MEAL SERVICE CHANGES
-Reducing refresher towels by one in most cabins. EVERYONE will still receive a refresher towel!
-Removing Godiva and all chocolates from United First and United Business in all international markets.
-Replacing Dalwinnie/Glenmorangie with Johnnie Walker Black in United First and United Business.
-Removing the welcome page from international menus for UF and UB.
-Eliminating cheese and cracker from tray setup in Economy.
-Removing United Economy menus in all Atlantic markets.
-Removing the soup course (FC/BC) from trans-Pacific, Narita-Singapore and Narita-Bangkok flights.
-Changing Mexico City to San Jose, Costa Rica, from full lunch and dinner service to a snack.
-Removing United Economy menus in all Latin America markets.
VIDEO CHANGES
-Boarding videos will no longer be provisioned and United will be returning to standard boarding music. FYI...boarding videos are the videos that have pictures of fish, etc. playing...
-United will go back to twice a month short subject programming for North America flights. Still better than most airlines.
-The second movie will be eliminated on westbound Transcon flights.
PROVISIONING
-The children's wings, playing cards, coat tags, portfolio paper and children's activity kits will be eliminated. Intra-Asia amenity kits will be eliminated
F L Y 7 7 7 U A L
Mark
All my life, I've been kissing, your top lip 'cause your bottom one's missing
United Airline From Hong Kong, joined Jan 2001, 8803 posts, RR: 17 Reply 8, posted (1 year 2 weeks 4 days 1 hour ago) and read 4564 times:
Quoting blueflyer (Reply 2): It's quite possible there is enough demand in more Asian cities for F (HKG perhaps) but I am not as familiar with that market to judge.
HKG, SYD have super high F class demand of course
Quoting trent1000 (Reply 4): You must have flown some time ago... two years ago when I was in F from NRT to LAX, when I asked about the champagne they had, I was told to ignore the little menu booklet. I'd get whatever they had on board that day and NO, it wasn't anything half as nice as Dom Perignon! First and business passengers get basically, if not the same food and beverages.But F might have a (limited) few more wine options.
I fly a lot but I didn't order champagne when I flew UA first last time.
United Airline From Hong Kong, joined Jan 2001, 8803 posts, RR: 17 Reply 9, posted (1 year 2 weeks 4 days 1 hour ago) and read 4555 times:
If UA orders a new long haul aircraft in the future, let's say the B 777-300ER, A350-1000, A380 or the B747-8 or whatsoever etc, what business class will they get? Also will they install first class?
ual777uk From United Kingdom, joined Nov 2005, 3355 posts, RR: 1 Reply 10, posted (1 year 2 weeks 4 days ago) and read 4493 times:
F on UA to certain markets as stated above IMHO will stay for some considerable time. UA have reduced the capacity of F on the longhaul fleet with the IPTE product and right sized it for those markets.
STT757 From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 16316 posts, RR: 52 Reply 12, posted (1 year 2 weeks 3 days 20 hours ago) and read 4220 times:
I think instead of maintaining the current three class set up UA should look to upgrade Economy plus into a premium economy product, more than just extra legroom, on their Trans-Atlantic routes.
Businessfirst/ Premium economy/ economy.
For a handful of their most lucrative routes they can look at keeping, or incorporating, First class. On those routes they could offer:
Well to put it bluntly: United isn't exactly being an innovator these days. One airline would have to spend the money to try it out and if it's successful, others will follow.
"Folks that's the news and I'm outta here!" -- Dennis Miller
STT757 From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 16316 posts, RR: 52 Reply 16, posted (1 year 2 weeks 3 days 19 hours ago) and read 4040 times:
Quoting tommy767 (Reply 15): Well to put it bluntly: United isn't exactly being an innovator these days. One airline would have to spend the money to try it out and if it's successful, others will follow.
UA started E+ in 1999-2000 back when they were a innovator. DL and AA followed because they had no choice, only to compete with United in it's present state.
If any airline will try this first, my money is on DL. They seem to be setting the trend these days and taking more risks than United.
"Folks that's the news and I'm outta here!" -- Dennis Miller
Tdan From United States of America, joined Nov 2011, 309 posts, RR: 3 Reply 18, posted (1 year 2 weeks 3 days 18 hours ago) and read 3961 times:
Short answer is no, they will not. UA just modified it's planes with IPTE and it would have been very expensive to rip all of the first class seats out and modify the seat order for planes not yet reconfigured. First will go away during the next round of seat modifications. Additionally, AA will be doing the same thing in time...maintaining F on the 77Ws is curious, particularly when it is being removed on the 772s. All I can think of for justification is that the 77Ws will frequent routes that both AA and BA operate in order to standardize the product.
We will ride this thunderbird, silver shadows on the earth, a thousand leagues away our land of birth... -Captain Bruce
Again, why would they have no intention of keeping F if UA is still doing the mods on the PMUA IPTE 777s in a 3 cabin setup? To remove these seats would be backwards and costly.
"Folks that's the news and I'm outta here!" -- Dennis Miller
jfk777 From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 7409 posts, RR: 7 Reply 20, posted (1 year 2 weeks 3 days 16 hours ago) and read 3805 times:
IF United has smaller long haul planes like 787's and 772ER then First will probably be history. IF an A380, a 777-300ER or the A350-1000 come then a small First Class could be on those planes.
Roseflyer From United States of America, joined Feb 2004, 8785 posts, RR: 52 Reply 21, posted (1 year 2 weeks 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 3712 times:
There are some markets that do dictate first class. NRT, HKG, and SYD are there where first class goes out full and often leaves upgrades behind. Other cities in Asia have less F demand such as ICN and KIX, but it is still there.
LHR, FRA, GVA, ZRH, and BRU all warrant first class.
There are other airports such as AMS, CDG, and FCO that do not warrant first class. Fortunately UA has been transitioning some PMCO airplanes to these routes.
I think a limited first class will stay for now. When the next generation of airplanes comes, we'll see. Since AA is dropping F on even more routes, I would see UA possibly following.
Quoting blueflyer (Reply 5): No. Each division retains its (new) seating. All pmUA aircraft are being retrofitted with the new UA business class ordered before the merger, and the same goes for pmCO aircraft.
That's not what I've heard. The 2-class PMUA 767-300s which had been mainly operated to Hawaii will be getting the PMCO BusinessFirst seat.
If you have never designed an airplane part before, let the real designers do the work!
That's what I get for trying to type quickly and not reading over my response! What I should have said is that it seems more than likely that UA will be discontinuing F in the next round of modifications. As to why they didn't just start reconfiguring the old 777s to two-classes, the seats had likely already been manufactured even though they had yet to be installed and by canceling/modifying the order, UA would have incurred a significant and unneccessary expense. This is typically how aircraft reconfigurations are handled from and airline and vendor perspective. This doesn't even take into account the costs that would have occurred if UA ripped out F from the 744s and 763s that had already been reconfigured. The most telling sign that F's days are limited at UA is that the 787s will not have F. It doesn't make sense to only have F on a particular longhaul fleet, especially when the aircraft are interchangeable. The only scenario where this makes some sense is the AA/BA scenario that I described above.
Again, it's not a foregone conclusion, but all signs point towards the end of international F at UA
We will ride this thunderbird, silver shadows on the earth, a thousand leagues away our land of birth... -Captain Bruce
SonomaFlyer From United States of America, joined Apr 2010, 1178 posts, RR: 0 Reply 24, posted (1 year 2 weeks 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 3650 times:
To be clear, UA has two different 763 sub fleets. One has three class service (21 planes) and one two class (14 planes). The two class birds get sCO's BizFirst product with matching changes as stated by gigneil.
The 3 class birds already received their upgrades and the two class birds will start receiving the upgrades shortly if they are not already underway.
There is a demand for F products and UA won't cede that market. They will however, "right size" their fleet to fit the demand for PAID first class. The city pairs mention above seem to correspond with where UA's first class demand is centered. Expect the 359's to have F. Expect the existing birds with F to retain them but when those are retired, the number of a/c with first class will decrease along with the number of seats.
If the world economy goes on a tear for a few years, UA could and likely would alter their plans to take advantage of folks willing to spend $$$ on first class. Don't expect them to keep F just to accommodate frequent flyers and impulse upgrades.
25 tommy767: There is ZERO proof that F will be removed. Show me a news article, publication or any reliable source that they will start removing F cabin in favor
26 trent1000: When did this happen? What does the brand new F suite look like? "Streamlining" does not necessarily translate to "better". But you are actually stat
27 flyingclrs727: What a waste. At 8,000 feet pressurization and 0% humidity, you're not going to be able to get the full flavor of expensive wines.
28 VC10er: In 10 years United's very good F hard product will be dated. I expect the reverse..10+ years from now "under the headline of keeping up with the Jone'
30 Schweigend: I agree. Smaller, and filled by a greater percentage of revenue pax. Not going away. OMG, the Tulip Lounge would rock! Has KLM done it yet?
31 United Airline: UA used to be in the same par as SQ, CX etc especially in the 90s. I suppose these airlines were not so big at that time especially CX. Wonder if all
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