Time To Make Money

[Hope777]

Yes it is time to DECERTIFY the Unions. But even if we worked for Free, the knuckle heads running this company could not turn a profit.

But Mitchell said there were "grave questions" whether US Airways could successfully emerge from its second trip through Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in two years, even with the savings from labor groups.




Not a chance we survive. Bruce and Company just have no clue.

 

[balloonguy]

If we need to be like DH,WN,B6 it is time to get rid of first class. No one pays for it, so lets get rid of it. LOW FARES and cram them into 132 seats on a 319. Give the Passengers what they want, low fares and crap service.

[post="235907"][/post]​

What do you mean? You already provide "CRAP" service.

 

[PHL]

on most aircraft, we would be able to get an additional 4 rows and at 6 per row thats 12 more seats we could sell. Sorry but for U to survive, EVERYONE must give ! ! ! ! !

[post="236165"][/post]​

Who else needs to give? All employees have given. The creditors have given. The vendors have given. Surely you're not suggesting the CUSTOMERS give now? Especially after they give you Billions a year in revenue. I'm a customer. I contributed to the $6.8 Billion your airline received last year, as a matter of fact. How much more do you want us to give before WE walk?

US F is a crappy service product. That wouldn't take much to improve upon to make people walk away with a smile on their face.

 

[whlinder]

Is it a lot to ask that F class at least pay for itself? That the extra costs associated with having an F product are offset by additional revenue brought in by having an F product?

 

[PHL]

In a lot of ways, F is an intangible revenue. It's hard to determine exactly how much it earns because a lot of customers who pay $20, $30, $40, $50K per year on coach tickets do so for the perks of upgrades. If you took it away, you'd lose a good chunk of that revenue, which may be more than what the seats actually cost to break even.

 

[firstamendment]

So where's Bonehead Bronner?? All that big talk about bringing cost down and providing more cash. LIAR!!!! The silence is deafening! :angry: :angry: :down:

 

[Flying Titan]

In a lot of ways, F is an intangible revenue. It's hard to determine exactly how much it earns because a lot of customers who pay $20, $30, $40, $50K per year on coach tickets do so for the perks of upgrades. If you took it away, you'd lose a good chunk of that revenue, which may be more than what the seats actually cost to break even.

[post="236304"][/post]​

From what I understand, CCY is very aware of this issue (thanks to Piney and others). Many there want to cut F from the airline to place more seats on the aircraft, but they know that it would drive a significant number of elite FFs to other carriers. U's F service is inferior to its competitors in many ways, but it enjoys one very large advantage, it's relatively easy to upgrade for elite FFs. Take that away and DL, CO and others will eagerly welcome these new FFs. These "free" F seats probably produce more loyalty revenue than they cost. Remember, you have to consistently fill the planes before the missing seats become a real factor.

 

[mbmbbost]

If they ever offered a First class seat for something close to the premium it actually costs to provide it, they might stand a better chance of actually selling them. Even offering the bigger seat and free drinks and snacks for $150 at departure for my Florida flight last week wasn't enough to tempt anybody. Of course when many of the people are buying tickets that don't cost much more than that RT, they know they're still getting gouged at $150 for a one way upgrade. I can't imagine that $50 or $75 each way wouldn't cover the additional costs. No extra bags to handle or lose as if they'd sold extra seats. Just some beverages and snacks really..

 

[GadgetFreak]

If they ever offered a First class seat for something close to the premium it actually costs to provide it, they might stand a better chance of actually selling them. Even offering the bigger seat and free drinks and snacks for $150 at departure for my Florida flight last week wasn't enough to tempt anybody. Of course when many of the people are buying tickets that don't cost much more than that RT, they know they're still getting gouged at $150 for a one way upgrade. I can't imagine that $50 or $75 each way wouldn't cover the additional costs. No extra bags to handle or lose as if they'd sold extra seats. Just some beverages and snacks really..

[post="236324"][/post]​

Delta looks to be charging a maximum of $100 each way for first, over full fare coach.

 

[tadjr]

I ve always wanted to see a progressively more comfortable, roomy seat as you move to the front of the plane... I'd like to see five across seating..... You'd seat the highest paying pax in the 'three seat' side with no middle seat occupant, then others on the two seat side... further back in the plane you'd go to six across econ plus seating then standard six across coach seating. Free drinks would be provided to preferreds or something... complimentary buy on board meals to those that pay for it or are preferred. Otherwise the domestic service is the same.

[post="236224"][/post]​

I believe it was called Business Select, but the seats werent that comfortable. 5 across seating with "Full Business Fares" sitting there. Free drinks. Business people didnt seem to like it. They'd rather take the chance on being one of the 8/12/16 special ones with the big seats instead of having a little more room with some more amenities.

 

[whlinder]

Alaska used to have a more generous upgrade program that US. Top tier needed like 35000 miles a year (before they had transcons), and you got upgrade certs that put you in F on any fare at time of booking. You even earned F bonus miles for those. Top members earned the certs and they were transferrable to anyone.

AS did away with the certs and replaced it with automatic upgrade into upgrade inventory at time of booking. The website would show you which flights had seats to upgrade into. So Golds (top tier) could go to the website, pick a flight, see if it was upgradable, and basically buy F for whatever cheapest coach fare was available.

AS continued to feel revenue pressure to ditch the F cabin, but of course the Golds got all mad. So they changed the program again: upgrade at time of booking if available on certain fares- middle of the road fares for Golds and only Y/B for their 2nd level (MVP). They also really tightened the screws on upgrade inventory. Time of booking upgrade was still available if you wanted to use miles on it. They also changed the fare structure, making F $50-100 more than Y. Unsold F upgraded at departure to those on lower fares, so an MVP at a low fare still had a chance if F had seats. Result? Lots more F sold, and high-fare elites still got upgrades. Interestingly, Alaska is leading the industry in unit revenue growth this year. Coincidence?

And I should add that AS F is not the nicest F in the world, certainly not nicer than UA's.

The lesson that US should learn, IMHO, is that:
People buying F fares are good.
People will pay more for F if it is not too much more than coach, especially for longer flights.
Elites that spend a lot are good and should be upgraded when they are on expensive fares.
Elites that fly everywhere on junk fares can be replaced and are worse than regular leisure travellers because they take up space in F.

US should (IMHO):
Shrink the F cabin on every plane except perhaps to keep a small subfleet with the current F layout for transcons/midcons, which have the best chance of paid F.
Upgrade elites based on fare paid.
Improve the experience in transcon F.
Improve the economy product for elites.

Sadly, those things take money and people at CCY to research and make smart decisions. US doesn't have either of those things.

 

[JS]

This makes no sense. Reducing the number of F seats and expanding legroom in part of the economy cabin -- isn't that just undoing one thing with another?

One idea worth pursuing is eliminating F on all domestic flights and expand legroom throughout all of coach -- make the legroom the same as UA's E+ (better than AA's MRTC which is going away). The number of seats would be slightly less but you would attract a lot more customers, thus allowing you to reduce the number of low-fare seats in inventory, and that leads to increased yields.

US simply does not have enough long domestic flights to make domestic F worthwhile. With so few flights going west of the Mississippi and mainline aircraft on the Shuttle and short routes like PHL-ALB/BDL and CLT-GSO/RDU, the average stage length of a First Class seat must be terribly low. Besides, anyone who is a US Airways frequent flyer must be very familiar with RJ's by now. 🙄

 

[whlinder]

This makes no sense. Reducing the number of F seats and expanding legroom in part of the economy cabin -- isn't that just undoing one thing with another?

[post="236429"][/post]​

I don't know all the technical specs but I made that thought under the assumption that if you remove a row of F you can't replace it with anything more than 1 row of Y. But you've got some extra inches of legroom left, so spread it over a couple of rows of Y. End result is 2 more seats on the plane to sell, and hopefully the F passengers left are high-revenue who cover the cost of having F.

But like you said, most of US' system does not have long enough flights to make domestic F very worthwhile. The problems I could see with eliminating F would be upsetting the frequent flyers who actually pay decent $$$ for their tickets and not having a premium cabin for passengers who buy premium international tickets. I sure don't know what the answer is without seeing US' passenger data.

 

[JS]

True, but then UA has no plans to shelve TED, and while I don't have exact figures handy, the number of available seat miles on TED might be comparable to the number of available seat miles on US Airways mainline aircraft.

I don't know how useful this comparison is, but LanChile domestic flights have no First Class. If you buy a First Class ticket from LAX to PUQ, you fly in F to SCL and then coach to PUQ.

It's not a big deal because (besides standard legroom), coach on LanChile is superb. Pre-departure breath mints, complimentary newspaper, free alcoholic drinks, and a hot meal on longer flights (over an hour or so).

The U.S. based legacy carriers, including US, have dumbed down both coach and F so much that they have to do something to differentiate themselves between the LCC. While there will always be a contingent of FF that demand a First Class upgrade no matter how crummy the service, I suspect (or should I say, hope) that most people would appreciate good service in a clean coach seat over an oversized, dirty seat with no meals and wine in a plastic cup.

 

[LGA777]

I am surprised no one has mentioned this, U until about a year ago had an all coach with extra legroom product, it was call the "USAirways Shuttle" The 319's were at 124 all coach seats (compared to 120 two class, 132 at F9, DH, etc) Going back a few years the Shuttle 320's where 150 all coach (B6 was 162, now 156, Ted is 156 even with economy plus). I don't remember the pitch, but it was I believe 2 inches more than the two class airbus. I flew on these aircraft often and you could really notice the differance in the leg room. This was a great and very popular product, but like so many other things at US that "aren't broken " it was fixed so as to have a consistant two class product. A few months later the one class E-170's and CRJ-700's came on line on mainline routes (they where both changed from two class to all coach right before delivery), so where is that consistant product ? Ironically I believe the 170 seat pitch is the same or very similar to the all coach airbus product changed ($$$$) a few months earlier !

Regards, LGA777