Larry Kellner has only been gone as head of Continental for a couple months and already new CEO Jeff Smisek is making plenty of changes. The most visible one to coach passengers is likely to be the elimination of free meals, something that was long the pride and joy of Continental. They’ve finally caved, and I imagine there will be mixed emotions on this one.

On the one hand, people always liked that Continental stood their ground and kept at least SOMETHING in the back of the bus that reminded people of the old days. Was the free meal anything special? No way. It was edible at best, though I did have a soft spot for that cheeseburger in a bag. (Do they still have that?) But even if you didn’t like it, it was comfort food, and that was nice. There was also something psychologically-appealing about them seeming to care enough for you to keep food around, even if it was crappy. It just seemed like the last vestige of civility. Former CEO Gordon Bethune summed it up well with his thoughts after 9/11.

Our reaction was to be ourselves more than we ever were. Didn’t take away the movies, didn’t take away the blankets and pillows, didn’t take off the magazines. We talked about this a lot, and I said, ‘Look, guys, if ever we were consistent and reliable, we have to be now. You have to be steady when the fucking sky is the shakiest. We’ve got to be clean, safe, and reliable, and let everybody know it. That’s all we got. That’s our edge in the business.’

Now Continental is chipping away at that as well.

But don’t worry, Continental is happy to spin this announcement so you think it’s some amazing revolution on their part. It wasn’t quite Cranky Jackass-worthy, but still kind of dumb. The release reads “Continental Airlines to Offer Food for Purchase on Select Flights” with a subhead of “Menu will include wide variety of high quality, healthy food choices.” So the spin is basically, yeah we might be getting rid of free food, but we’re replacing it with delicious, healthy, wholesome food that will make you think you’re at a five star restaurant . . . or something like that.

The way it works is this. You will now get a free meal only on flights over 6 hours in length. That’s an interesting cutoff. The 1p flight from Newark to LAX is blocked at 5h56m on Saturday and 6h6m the rest of the week. So will the folks on Saturday not get fed? And no eastbound flight from LA gets even close to 6 hours, so will that mean you only get fed westbound? Either way, only the longest domestic routes will get grub included in the price of the ticket.

I’m sure the food will be better, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have offered both options. That’s what Hawaiian does. They offer a basic meal for free and then you can buy some really high quality stuff if you’d like to trade up. But Continental hasn’t gone that route. I figured they’d be the last to hold out, thanks to their ownership of Chelsea Food Services, the kitchen that puts these meals together. But I guess even that couldn’t sway them to keep feeding people for free.

It’s not the elimination of free meals that really bugs me but rather that Continental is now falling into the same place as everyone else. The free meal was this signal of respect, or something like that. It showed they cared just a little bit more than the rest. Not anymore.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/projector/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Over the weekend, US Airways said it would stop charging for soda, water, coffee, and tea on March 1. You’ve probably read about this elsewhere by now, but it’s interesting to think about why they’re finally relenting on something that they held out on for months. It appears that this is a big shift in the US Airways strategy. The airline is now admitting that perception is important, and it is taking some seemingly small but actually big steps to fix their image problem.

In a world where airlines gladly charge for anything they can, US Airways surprisingly went it alone on this drink charge. No other major airline followed the lead to charge for soda and water. The airline resisted changing back despite all the criticism . . . until now. In the words of CEO Doug Parker:

We know customers don’t buy an airline ticket based on whether or not they will get a free soda onboard, but with US Airways being the only large network carrier to charge for drinks, we are at a disadvantage. More importantly, this difference in our service has become a focal point that detracts from all of the outstanding improvements in on-time performance and baggage handling that all of us have worked so hard to achieve over the past year.

This really is a big change, despite what they’re saying. It was just last September that the airline explained how happy it was with the change. President Scott Kirby went so far as to say that the flight attendants would “riot” if they went back to the old way. Talk about a change of direction, huh?

It appears that the airlines reputation and high level of consumer complaints have caused the about-face. US Airways has made excellent strides with its on-time performance lately, and overall reliability has been quite good, yet the airline still ranks toward the bottom of the list when it comes to complaints. In December, for example, US Airways had the second best on-time performance behind perennial leader Hawaiian Airlines. The airline canceled only 2.1% of flights in the very difficult month (poor weather) and reported fewer mishandled bags than the industry average. But when it comes to complaints, the airline finished next to last, just ahead of cellar-dweller United. So what’s going on?

At last year’s media day, the management claimed that they needed to focus on reliability, appearance, and convenience. Apparently, management has now realized that it’s not enough. They actually need to do more than that to keep people happy. They must have been receiving a fair number of complaints about charging for water and soda, so they relented. They’ll lose some money on this, but people will be happier. And that has now strangely become important to them. What a pleasant surprise.

They are also looking to address other sore spots. Instead of just being happy with a strong on time performance, they’ve actually decided they need to tell people about it. This is an airline that has really avoided brand advertising for years. But now they are actually finding some value in it, and they’re promoting their on time performance in several different types of media.

It’s a very interesting move for an airline that had been moving to a true a la carte model and had not put stock in brand advertising for many years. Personally, I would have thought that simply not charging for water would have been plenty. As long as people can get something to drink, they’ll be fine. But US Airways has decided to remove the charges from soda, coffee, and tea as well in order to boost the airline’s image. It will be interesting to see if the consumer complaint number starts to drop after this move.

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The rumors starting creeping out over the weekend, but the news officially broke yesterday. United has decided not to begin charging for meals in coach on transatlantic flights from Washington as previously announced. Of course, the question now is . . . why? United wants you to think it was all in the name of customer feedback, but after speaking with Lufthansa, I tend to think that it was partner pressure.

Officially, United is saying that it was in response to customer demands. An employee communication put it this way:

After hearing from many of our customers and flight attendants that our corporate and elite customers value our hot meal service in United Economy on trans-Atlantic flights, we have decided not to move forward with the test we announced last month of offering customers Buy on Board meal options for those flights.

And to its customers, United’s Graham Atkinson is sending a letter with more of the same. See Upgrade:Travel Better for the full text of that one.

But did this really all come as a result of the customer feedback received over the last couple of weeks? That would be very customer-focused and completely surprising. Did they actually see a change in booking patterns so strong that they backed away? That would surprise me as well. So what else could have happened?

I sent a note over to Martin Riecken, spokesperson for Lufthansa asking if they had any comment. Here is his response:

As you probably know, Lufthansa has a clear commitment to a high level of service in all classes. Complimentary meals and a full array of free drinks in all classes is a main pillar of our service concept. That said, of course we have remained in constant dialogue with United on important decisions like this which would also affect Lufthansa codeshare passengers.

Of course, he didn’t say they had anything to do with this reversal, but he did say that they are in constant contact about issues like these. Remember, Lufthansa and United have a revenue sharing agreement that makes them very tight partners on North Atlantic flying. Anything United does has the distinct possibility of significantly impacting Lufthansa’s revenue. Something tells me that charging for meals crossed the line here.

Is it really possible that United didn’t bother to discuss this with Lufthansa beforehand? If so, I’d think some heads might roll over this. They’re trying to spin this change in a positive light, but it really points to a management team that pulled the trigger on something major before properly vetting it. (No McCain/Palin jokes please.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’ve reversed course. I just wish they hadn’t gotten themselves into this mess in the first place.

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