United Airlines' Quest to Be Less Awful
I think the airlines have had a bit of a race to the bottom in a few ways:<p>* Fees. Charge baggage fees, everyone else does the same, nobody&#x27;s any better off. Boarding is slower and passengers crankier. I was HAPPY to not have to tote my bag around every single layover until they started charging for bags, now I&#x27;m another unhappy customer lugging a bag everywhere, walking up and down the aisles looking for space, having my bag gate-checked (and inevitably lost -- gate checking is the least reliable way of actually getting your bag to its destination, it seems).<p>* Chasing &quot;frequent flier&quot; business travelers. I don&#x27;t have the numbers to back this up, but most of them already seem loyal to their chosen airline to funnel their corporate dollars to, because they&#x27;ve got so many damn miles accrued. But airlines trip all over themselves to throw free shit at the 1% of frequent fliers that they piss off the 99% of occasional travelers. Yes, the frequent flier dollars are very important, but now we have a (very) long tail of less-frequent travelers who can be <i>guaranteed</i> that they will never, ever, ever be offered a free upgrade. You won&#x27;t even get an emergency exit row (see: fees). I hate to sound entitled, but on my honeymoon, I was hoping that, for once, I might get a courtesy upgrade. Nope. I&#x27;d wager that if every airline set aside 2 slightly-better seats for a <i>random</i> upgrade, they&#x27;d get a lot of good word-of-mouth from the average joe like myself. But instead they waste every single bit of effort on the jaded business traveler whose opinion won&#x27;t be swayed that much by small favors, because all of the airlines are throwing free stuff at them all the time anyway.<p>* Space, obviously. I continue to insist there&#x27;s a market to pay 50% more for just a LITTLE bit more space. I don&#x27;t mean economy plus; I&#x27;m not tall, I&#x27;m just an average-sized male. I just want my own goddamned armrest. I don&#x27;t know why the airlines can&#x27;t get this right. Business class 2x2 seating on a narrowbody would &#x27;only&#x27; cost them 33% of seat capacity. 2x3 would even be acceptable, with an offset aisle. On a widebody, even just taking out ONE coach seat would make enough space to give passengers a meaningful upgrade. add a couple more inches of legroom to make it easier to get in and out, and bam, you have my loyalty for life. I&#x27;m happy to pay for a little comfort. I just won&#x27;t pay 5x as much for business class. It&#x27;s simply not in a normal human being&#x27;s price bracket. I don&#x27;t have to pay $100k to get a car that&#x27;s a bit nicer than a Corolla. (see: frequent fliers spending business dollars).