On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, Matthew Montano wrote:
> United-Lite was (I'm guessing here) simply sold as a "cheaper" United.
> Expectations for hub-n-spoke, re-routing, luggage connections, meals
> etc, were never tempered. Customer satisfaction is in the pits and it
> goes down hill from there.
I never really figured out why UA pulled the plug on U2. I flew it
often between SEA and SFO. On that particular route they competed
directly with Alaska and Shuttle By United indirectly competed with
Southwest and Alaska between Seattle and other Bay Area airports.
In spite of all that competition, the loads on the Shuttle were
annoyingly (from a passenger's view) high.
They did some innovative stuff (for a non-Southwest major):
* Zoned "WILMA" boarding
* Using the aft door to board and deplane passengers
* Loading galleys so they didn't need to be stocked after each leg
* Putting trash compactors in galleys to save space
The Shuttle service seemed to augment the hubs in LAX, SFO, and
ultimately DEN.
>From my perspective, there was no customer backlash of people
avoiding the Shuttle. The only thing I can figure is that the
overhead of maintaining an "airline within an airline" exceeded
whatever operational savings they could wring out of the Shuttle.
Anyway, can anyone illuminate exactly why UA decided the Shuttle
wasn't in the plan?
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Jon Wright jwright@halcyon.com voice 425-635-0338
fax 425-844-1403
You've got a hard lip, Herbert. http://www.spudboy.com/~jwright