What Airlines' New Spending Means for Fliers

(wager: how many posts before this thread gets hijacked by the goofy pilots like your other promising thread...)

Good article, thanks for posting.

Interesting that WN is focusing investment on two things: their website (make it easier for the customers to give you money!) and planes (get the customers where they want to go!) versus the other airlines who seem to be spending on frills and bonuses.

UA is not going to spend anything (thank you JakeBrace!) that would detract from the ultimate goal: the sale of the airline.

Hate to admit it, but I would love to read a profile of his thinking during his UA career.

Simply. Astonishing.
 
ifly:
The IPP is moving along and the first 767s will be receiving their new interiors sometime this year. Also a lot of things are being bought at WHQ/EXO, mostly computer systems to replace the legacy systems that ISD finally admitted wouldn't work. I can think of several projects that are several million each to buy software/hardware from outside vendors.

Not all Cap Ex are aircraft and IFE.
 
ifly:
The IPP is moving along and the first 767s will be receiving their new interiors sometime this year. Also a lot of things are being bought at WHQ/EXO, mostly computer systems to replace the legacy systems that ISD finally admitted wouldn't work. I can think of several projects that are several million each to buy software/hardware from outside vendors.

Not all Cap Ex are aircraft and IFE.

I PRAY that they flush all unimatic/skynet/old computer programming and get the IT infrastructure into the 21st century. Not a cheap conversion, but would pay big dividends down the road. I'm glad to hear that they're heading down that path.
 
I PRAY that they flush all unimatic/skynet/old computer programming and get the IT infrastructure into the 21st century. Not a cheap conversion, but would pay big dividends down the road. I'm glad to hear that they're heading down that path.

Yes they are. And it's a very aggressive schedule (given that it's UA and the size of these programs is HUGE).

By 2010, Unimatic and Apollo will be well on their way to being retired. If they are retained, it will be for the messaging functions, but operationally they will seldom be used.

And, the replacements are being done by outside vendors, with actual users influencing their design (!!). From what I have seen it is NOT a simple "Here it is, make it work" but a multi-year effort for the users to design EXACTLY what is needed, and then challenge the vendor to make it so.
 
The NYT article is from 1997....a little out of date. IIRC in 1997, United still did call Business Class, "Connoisseur Class."
 
The NYT article is from 1997....a little out of date. IIRC in 1997, United still did call Business Class, "Connoisseur Class."

Dang! I knew that United was upgrading interiors this year; saw the date at the top of the page ... missed the publish date. DOH! Good catch, scuba.