United’s Race to the Bottom
August 20, 2008 – 6:05 amA couple weeks ago Time magazine named United the 9th stingiest airline. I thought it was a little harsh, but Upgrade: Travel Better has an internal United memo posted that is a bit, um, sad. The commentary over there is certainly worth a read but here are a few of the highlights.
- On 3-class domestic flights, business class will no longer receive standard meal service, but will be fed from the buy-on-board options sold to economy. (Not sure how this impacts PS service.)
- The second or “arrival” service on PS flights will be replaced by a beverage only service.
- No more free meals for economy passengers flying out of IAD to certain international location.
Sure, you have to expect things to change. The economy cuts don’t bother me too much, but racing to the bottom on premium service seems a flawed strategy for the company.
Back in June I noted a Wall Street Journal piece on that touched on United’s success with PS. The WSJ article included the below chart:
As you can see, United’s average fare on the NYC-LAX route blows everyone else out of the water. Plus, it has fairly low costs with its 757 aircraft. The United faithful have been complaining about PS cutbacks in the years since its orginal inception and now United is messing with it further. I’m not behind the scenes at United, but given the above chart, I’d pour more money into maintaining the above advantage rather than risk alienating my customers.
