It wasn’t that long ago when full-fare airlines like United, Delta and American treated passengers relatively well. There was no “basic economy” ticket that barely allowed a seat on the plane, much less benefits.
Yes, there were classes. First and business class passengers got larger seats, champagne upon boarding, better food, and some minor amenities.
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However, coach passengers were treated with more dignity than now. They weren’t big things, but meals were served on many more domestic flights and magazines, newspapers, blankets and pillows were available upon request.
However, over the years, airlines have been reducing what was offered to economy class passengers. The seats became smaller, meals became the right to pay for snacks, and pillows and blankets disappeared.
It wasn’t a uniform decision or something that happened suddenly. Profits slowly disappeared and when one airline managed to make a change, the others were able to follow.
united airlines (UAL) – Get a free reportHowever, it continued to offer blankets to all passengers on night flights. That included economy class passengers, which made sense on those flights that depart at night and fly in the morning.
In late September, the airline followed Delta Air Lines. (give it) – Get a free report and American Airlines for taking an unpopular action. The airline followed its rivals by ditching the blankets on domestic flights.
That’s something Delta and American did during the pandemic (for obvious reasons) but never got them back.
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United Airlines quickly admits its mistake
United Airlines passengers were not happy about having their blankets taken away. A red-eye flight is already an unpleasant experience in most cases, so losing that bit of comfort felt like the airline was pinching pennies and rubbing salt in its customers’ wounds.
The airline quickly realized the mistake it had made and reversed its decision. Live and Volemos reported:
Driven by customer and employee feedback, we are accelerating the return to standard supply of our bedding and seating amenities.
On November 1 (earlier, depending on the provisioning location), the blanket bag on domestic flights and all blankets on night flights will return to our previous provisioning numbers. Night flights will have blankets on all seats and supplemental blanket bags will return to their previous standards.
It is rare for an airline, or really any company, to reverse a decision that will cost the company money. In this case, United realized that passenger pushback wasn’t worth the relatively small savings of dropping the blankets.
United Airlines flies high
While United has faced problems at its Newark hub and faced the same pilot shortage as its rivals, the airline has fixed its problems. That has led to some stellar numbers, according to CEO Scott Kirby’s comments during the airline’s conference call. second quarter results call.
“This was an all-time record quarter for pre-tax earnings and EPS on an adjusted basis. This performance reflects our success in building a strategy to, one, aggressively hire pilots; two, grow our mid-con; three, improve our domestic fleet; and four, expand our widebody fleet and international exposure in response to the trends we identified at the beginning of covid,” he said.
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Kirby’s comments showed a very lofty goal for his company.
“We are on our way to becoming the best airline in the history of aviation,” he said.
