United leaving JFK, moves PS service to Newark!
According to this link, United is leaving JFK in a slot-swap with Delta. While most of their operations are already at Newark, they've kept their signature Premium Service between SFO/LAX and JFK. I'm somewhat surprised because I figured they must be getting a good deal of people taking the West Coast – JFK flights solely for connecting to the huge number of international destinations available at JFK. Apparently not.
I'm not a huge fan of Newark Airport (more on why here), so this will make it even less likely that I'll fly United PS again. On the bright side, it's probably way more convenient for making domestic connections, but Virgin has SFO/LAX flights to both EWR and JFK and supposedly both routes are profitable. Hm.
Luckily JetBlue Mint, American Airlines Flagship, and DeltaBusinessElite One all still offer lie-flat service between the two coasts, and Virgin America offers a 60" recliner that puts the rest of the transcon 38" seats to shame.
UPDATE: Their official press release is here. If they really are upping the number of flights from 6 a day to 17 (their math seems off by a bit, but let's just grant them that they're drastically upping the number of available lie-flat seats on this route) this should keep the downward pressure on prices that JetBlue started when they launched Mint... though this actually is a reduction of competition at JFK. Hm. If I were them I'd also figure out some number of those seats to give away to Elites as part of their Complimentary Premier Upgrade program, but they've not been moving in the direction of being nicer to their customers as of late, so I wouldn't count on it. At the very least they could go remove the footnote that caused my husband to leave them.
I'm not a huge fan of Newark Airport (more on why here), so this will make it even less likely that I'll fly United PS again. On the bright side, it's probably way more convenient for making domestic connections, but Virgin has SFO/LAX flights to both EWR and JFK and supposedly both routes are profitable. Hm.
Luckily JetBlue Mint, American Airlines Flagship, and Delta
UPDATE: Their official press release is here. If they really are upping the number of flights from 6 a day to 17 (their math seems off by a bit, but let's just grant them that they're drastically upping the number of available lie-flat seats on this route) this should keep the downward pressure on prices that JetBlue started when they launched Mint... though this actually is a reduction of competition at JFK. Hm. If I were them I'd also figure out some number of those seats to give away to Elites as part of their Complimentary Premier Upgrade program, but they've not been moving in the direction of being nicer to their customers as of late, so I wouldn't count on it. At the very least they could go remove the footnote that caused my husband to leave them.
 |
| This trip last October was likely my last PS flight for a while… |
Comments
Post a Comment