A small reprieve for premium cabin flyers on domestic United flights: United is rescinding its recent meal service cutbacks.
I was alerted to this via an e-mail received from a Global Services passenger who had complained about the recent cutbacks. The customer service response shared that United had “reversed course” on its recent slashing of premium cabin dining:
You wanted to enjoy your dining experience and I can certainly understand your disappointment. As a result of the feedback received, we are reinstating the meal services that recently changed on May 1, 2018. United reversed their decision and are putting the full meal service back in the Premium cabins.
We’re listening to our passengers more than ever and working hard to be your airline of choice. On behalf of United, we look forward to welcoming you aboard your next flight.
I checked this with United and a spokesperson sent me the following confirmation:
We want our customers to know that we value and appreciate them and that we’re listening. Our customers told us that they were not happy about the menu modifications so we made the decision to reverse the changes and return our meal service to our previous offerings.
United.com still has not been updated. Even so, my flight this morning from Ft. Lauderdale to Newark had reverted back to the old meal policy. Instead of the fruit and breakfast bread, as promised on united.com, we had a choice of an egg white sandwich with fruit and yogurt or Cheerios with fruit and yogurt.
A Brilliant Tactical Move?
Some have speculated that this latest rollback is a tactical move from United. United reduced meal service in February and reduced it further this month. The rollback is to February levels, which still represent a cutback from the last couple years.
Could this have been the plan all along? Make customers happy by making cutbacks on a deliberately temporary basis in order to make prior “trial” cutbacks permanent?
Doing the last round of cutbacks, a United spokesperson told me:
Also wanted to make you aware that this is a test only right now – the modifications of the menu. It hasn’t been something that is formally rolled out formally.
Yet this “test “was never rolled back and became worse earlier this month. At least the May cutbacks have been rolled back.
CONCLUSION
I’m not sure trying to figure out the psychology of United’s latest decision is practical. But I’m happy to see meal service restored on some routes where it was cut. Let’s hope United finally has learned that it can never cut its way to growth.
top image: United
I will never fly United while Scott Kirby is there. He has destroyed an already terrible airline.
He didn’t destroy it, he got lucky with have hubs in severe hub captive markets. Having him at UAL is beyond disgusting considering the luck they’ve had since the merger in hyper competitive markets.
Love to know the story of the Parker / Kirby fallout. I read something that it was at a neighborhood bar in Dallas or Phoenix. The two used to get wasted with each other
After a disastrous rollout and then rollback of “new Coke” years ago, Coca-Cola was accused of doing it all as a tactical move to get supermarket space for two products. It responded that they were neither as dumb on designing New Coke nor as smart on a planning brilliant tactical move. I tend to think that is the case with United Airlines on this development today, also.
May want to correct the typo fairly far down your blog entry. It is United Airlines, not “Untied.” 🙂
The fact they even tried says a lot. I’ve had my fair share of weak meals in Delta One or on Domestic but it’s rare and the service was always good. I can excuse a bad meal for good service, but I can’t image UAL going the extra mile.
For that matter I got an extra Tito’s for free on an AA Phoenix to LAX flight recently and they thanked me by my last name and I have zero status. That even goes a long way.
Knowing airline I doubt that this was a pre planned move. I suspect that they hoped they could get away with it but they were nervous about blowback hence the “trial” nature of the changes.
That being said how often do we see an airline reverse course on a cutback that in the end is unlikely to boost their bottom line? Almost never of course. So credit where credit is due to United for listening and more importantly acting on customer feedback.
While I love a good conspiracy theory as much as anybody, I think the answer is simpler. One of Scott Kirby’s bean counters thought they could get away with it, but Kirby being tone-deaf as he is, didn’t anticipate the blowback. Pretty much the same thing you saw when AA gutted meal service to US levels, though the reversal was faster this time.
P.S. You really need to hire me as your airline fortune teller. I seem to be clairvoyant about these sorts of things… 🙂
To me this all these cuts and reversals seems like a publicity move. It’s United saying that they are “listening” to customers when in fact United it just playing them. Like to me there is no way they would not have known that customers would have revolted against the first class meal cuts , especially when Delta is on the move to improve pretty much everything service oriented on their flights. A lot of the opinions could have been known to management with the implementation of a focus group… (and the same goes for the bonus lottery scandal)
At what point does Munoz get fired for all of these PR nightmares? Its stubbed toe after stubbed toe for United, or bloody lips for Dr Dao. Damn shame
Scott Kirby is the problem, not Oscar Munoz. Kirby fits the Can’tinental mindset so accurately – another Smisek in the making (or already made). United !! – stop cheapening and dumbing it down until you can go no further and then have to keep retracting and apologizing for every move. Long gone are the days of actual airline executives. Now we have lawyers and others totally out of their element running airlines.
They will never learn. I’ve given up hope that they will. Penny pinching will not ever wind the day, big, bold, ideas that make you a must have, will.
I think what we are seeing with airlines (and United in this case) is a trend in all large U.S. corporations: if I can save $x per passenger, then when you multiply $x by y passengers for a year, the product (and resulting savings) is a big number. See Bob Crandall’s decision in the 1980’s to serve only one olive in salads instead of two which purportedly saved $40,000. (In fairness, FA’s observed that most passengers did not eat the olives.) The problem is synergy and, unlike AA’s olives, isolating an individual cost can be illusory or specious (remember the famous Dilbert cartoon in which the manager theorizes that is is possible to fire all the employees and still make a profit?). In an era with an emphasis on cost savings across all industries, it is just too tempting for employees/managers to not explore different cuts (and be rewarded by their company) and think that the end user customer will not notice. IMHO, if an airline wants to offer a premium product, then it should do so and concentrate on the customer experience, rather than try to see how close to the line they can get on minimal offerings. This article from the Economist is informative (subscription may be required): https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/12/17/how-airlines-cut-costs