3 Links I Love: Another Defection From American to United, Frontier Trying to Fix Things, United’s New 777-300ER

Feb 17, 2017

More Reading on This Topic: Airports, American, Frontier, Links I Love, United

This week’s featured link:
Yet Another American Airlines Executive Leaves for United – Airways
Word starting leaking out quickly on Wednesday. Andrew Nocella, former Chief Marketing Officer at American and long-time friend and colleague of Scott Kirby, has followed his former boss over to United. Andrew’s greatest strength is in the network/schedule planning world, but at US Airways, he grew into running marketing and sales, eventually becoming Chief Marketing Officer at American after the merger. But once Scott Kirby left for United, new American President Robert Isom reduced Andrew’s role to remove marketing (that went to Kurt Stache). I don’t think a lot of people were surprised to see this move.

Meanwhile at American, there’s no plan to replace Andrew immediately, but that could change. Sales will now fall under Kurt Stache’s growing empire. The head of network and the head of alliances will now both report directly to Robert.

Two for the road:
After ‘black eye’ from December snowstorm, Frontier Airlines details changes for future bad weather events – Denver Business Journal
Frontier had a truly awful December operationally, and its ops chief is gone. Now, it’s looking back and what happened and trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This article details some of the changes and is an interesting read.

Where to sit on United’s new Polaris 777-300ER – Wandering Aramean
On Monday, United had a media flight for people to try out its new Polaris seat on the 777-300ER. I was really sad that I had a schedule conflict and couldn’t make it, but I’ve been reading all the reports from onboard. I like Seth’s post a lot, detailing where you want to sit on that airplane. General consensus is that the new seat is competitive… just don’t fly coach.

Brett

10 responses to “3 Links I Love: Another Defection From American to United, Frontier Trying to Fix Things, United’s New 777-300ER”

Jeff

Feb 17, 2017 at 5:14 am

Excellent articles today.. thanks.

The review of UA’s Polaris product is very good and has been shared with my other frequent traveler friends. It is evident that the 10 across economy product will be a tough travel experience for the long haul routes they will be assigned, however.

The Exec changes at United are consistent with Kirbys vision to build out UA’s domestic flight schedules as UA was slow to the changing global economies. Andrew Nocella will return to what he is strong at albeit replacing a strong pricing Exec (former NW/ Doug Leo ) with a strong scheduler and former NW, CO, US, AA Exec. Now, if they can make those Hub changes actually work, especially Newark !

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SirWired

Feb 17, 2017 at 6:09 am

WTF was UA thinking with that center block in coach? Only under-seat storage for 3 out of 4 pax, AND the lack of a place for the aisle passenger to put their feet? Did anybody think this through? Did the team involved actually try to spend a long-haul flight’s worth of time with four of them in one of those rows on a pretend-flight?

They seem to forget that before passengers get to ride “up front” they usually have to endure several years of riding “in the back”, and this ain’t exactly a great way to build passenger loyalty.

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Oliver

Feb 17, 2017 at 7:41 am

The UA 77W is not a plane I will book in Economy. It should be banned by the Geneva Convention.

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Jack in SFO

Feb 17, 2017 at 8:43 am

I was thinking that the 10 abreast might make me shop around for my SFO-Western Europe trips from now on, but realistically I’ll still want to be somewhere on Star Alliance or UA… I’ll just look for different metal (I loved the window seat on the 787), be more willing to make a connection, do codeshares on Lufthansa or Air Canada, etc. As much as I hate the idea of 10 abreast, they’ll still get my money. Sigh.

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1. kishoreajoshi
  
  Feb 17, 2017 at 12:35 pm
  
  Air canada went 10 abreast on 777s long before United…
  
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John Lake

Feb 17, 2017 at 11:35 am

Why are readers only now complaining about 10 across in Economy? The US Airlines were behind the curve with this. Everyone talks how wonderful Emirates and Qatar are, yet they have 777-300 with 10 across, along with AC and KLM.
I’m no fan of 10 across, but this isn’t new.

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1. Oliver
  
  Feb 17, 2017 at 11:39 am
  
  I have never flown on one of those aircraft (or for that matter any Emirates/Qatar aircraft). I am not complaining about random airlines doing stuff that doesn’t directly impact me. As a UA MM this now starts impacting me.
  
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Marissa

Feb 17, 2017 at 11:35 am

I have done several Polaris rides since its rollout and although favorable, the proof of the pudding is in the eating in regard to the hard product. I will only be riding the -300 if I book business–definitely would not go economy due to the uncertainty of any upgrade.

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bb

Feb 17, 2017 at 11:51 am

any plane looks nice when it’s empty, so the pictures of the 777-300 looks nice, clean and airy….when you add people, the plane looks cramped and uncomfortable….I’m not a big person, 5’10” and 146lbs, but the small seat at the exit looks big enough for a child, why even put a seat there, oh, more money….will they charge extra for the large amount of let room….Ive heard of American biz class seats called coffin’s because they are so small, Polaris looks about the same and why 3 different configs….oh, right, cram more seats means more money….why not do bunk beds….I love how airlines advertise how wonderful their new planes are, how spacious, the amenities….you can make anything sound good, but when you try it, whole different story….sad to see these new planes looking like sardine can’s….

with all these new planes coming on line it would be a perfect time to make a product that looks nice as well as nice to travel on…but with new planes comes slimmer seats, narrower aisles and knee’s that hold up the seat in front of you….window seat’s don’t really mean you get a window on some planes, you see panneling and some airlines charge for that so called window seat….seems to me that if you have a 777-200/300, go back to the 3x3x3 seating…..offer the service that is truely advertised, room to move aound, if your at a window in a 3 seat row, make it so the whole row doesn’t have to get up so you can use the lav….more comfort might mean more repeat business which means more money…..I would pay extra for a 3x3x3 config for long haul over a 3x4x3 config…..that’s just me and my opinion’s….other’s will think there is nothing wrong with any of the issue’s mentioned in the article…..we all have our view’s

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Georjet

Feb 20, 2017 at 4:45 pm

Eeeeech

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