One of the big questions of the United-Continental merger is whether the domestic premium cabin will be sold as first class, as is currently the case with United, or business class, which is what Continental does. For customers’ sake, that cabin should be sold as business class.
This is not just about a name — it affects booking classes and flight inventory, and the present discrepancies between domestic and international flights can be very confusing for passengers, and sometimes even for agents.
The domestic first-class designation is a tradition started decades ago, when all commercial planes had two cabins of service. But then along came business class, and the major network carriers ended up with three cabins on international flights. Currently, only United and American Airlines offer three-cabin service.
However, even carriers with two-cabin international flights call the premium cabin business class, while continuing to label the same cabin as first class on domestic flights. That’s the case with Delta Airlines and US Airways. Continental’s policy is confusing in a different way — it calls the front cabin first class, but if you look at its inventory, you’ll see that it uses business-class booking codes for it.
On United’s two-cabin narrow-body aircraft, the same cabin that is sold as first class on domestic flights is sold as business class on flights to Central America. For example, here is the inventory for Flight 209 from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles on Sept. 3, operated on a two-cabin Airbus 319 (the bolding of the premium codes is mine):
F2 A1 Y9 B9 M9 E9 U9 H9 Q9 V9 W9 S6 T6 L5 K5 G1
As many of you know, the letters F and A signify first class. Compare that to Flight 823 from Washington Dulles to Mexico City on the same day, also operated on a two-cabin Airbus 319. The letters J, C, D and Z signify business class:
J4 C4 D4 Z0 Y9 B9 M9 E9 U9 H9 Q9 V9 W9 S9 T9 L9 K9 G0
Now let’s look at an intercontinental flight, United 916, from Washington to Frankfurt, again on Sept. 3. We see both first and business-class inventory, as the flight is operated on a three-cabin Boeing 777:
F4 A4 J9 C9 D9 Z9 Y9 B9 M9 E0 U0 H9 Q6 V3 W0 S0 T0 K0 L0 G0
Things are about to get much more confusing. As I’ve written before, United is one of the biggest champions of what I call fake “direct” flights. Those are two separate flights that have nothing in common but a number. In this case, United sells its morning flight from Seattle to Washington with the same number 916. Why? Because that allows it to market it as a “direct” Seattle-Frankfurt flight, deliberately misleading customers, most of whom make no differentiation between a direct and nonstop flight.
Seattle-Washington is operated on a two-cabin Boeing 757 — yet, if you look at the inventory, you’ll see that United is selling it as a three-cabin flight, because in theory it’s the domestic connection to the truly three-cabin Washington-Frankfurt flight:
F7 A7 J7 C7 D7 Z7 Y9 B9 M9 E9 U9 H0 Q0 V0 W0 S0 T0 K0 L0 G0
So what happens if you want to upgrade on this flight? Do you upgrade to business or first class? The rule is that you can upgrade to the next higher class of service — according to the inventory, that’s business, but according to the aircraft, it’s first. What if upgrade space is not available in business, but is open in first? Are you allowed to jump over business into first and, in effect, get a double upgrade? Well, it’s not really a double upgrade because there is just one premium cabin.
United’s inventory management tries to align the seat availability in business and first class on those fake three-cabin flights, but sometimes they fail to do so. Perhaps they are confused, too. I’ve had occasions when I was waitlisted for an upgrade on one of those flights, and there was an upgrade seat available in the business-class inventory (the code United uses for that is NC), but not in first (code NF).
Once, I was on a two-cabin flight from Portland, Ore., to Chicago, which had the same number as a flight from Chicago to London. There was NC space, but not NF. My upgrade wasn’t clearing, so I called United and asked for a supervisor. She explained that, because this was a domestic flight, I needed NF space to get the upgrade — but it would have cleared had that been an international flight. I was furious, of course — it’s the same freaking cabin; why are we arguing about NC and NF codes? The upgrade did clear the next day.
More recently, I was on a two-cabin Washington-San Francisco flight that was sold as a three-cabin, because United markets it as the “continuation” of its Dubai-Washington flight. Guess where my upgrade was booked? That’s right, NC. So was that supervisor earlier wrong? Who knows…
Wouldn’t it be much easier for everyone if the domestic premium cabin was called business class? The only argument I’ve heard in favor of keeping the status quo is that passengers are used to domestic first class. I wouldn’t worry about that — they weren’t used to paying baggage fees, either.
The United-Continental merger, which received a green light from the Department of Justice last week, is a good opportunity to do something that should have been done years ago, when the rest of the world changed with the times.
Of course, it would be even better if United got rid of those fake “direct” flights — a practice Continental doesn’t use as widely as United — but more about that next week.
Related stories:
United, Continental execs at odds over loyalty program
Airlines abuse ‘direct’ flights
Flying new United route — rare occurrence
United’s ‘award’ blocking an issue in Continental merger
United executive breaks old barriers
Customers gain sway over airlines
Continental shows new transparency
Continue reading about Why new United should have domestic business — not first — class
Doing something no one has ever done before is both exciting and scary at the same time. In other words, I can use all the help I can get to spread the word.
The “On the Fly” Seminars I mentioned in my column last week are now officially open for registration. The first classes will take place on June 25 and 26 in Washington. If you come, you will learn now to travel cheaply but luxuriously.
For a long time, one of my missions has been to encourage more people to travel — both domestically and internationally. I realize travel has become difficult in recent years, and most of the pleasure that used to come with it has been sucked out by the airline industry’s desperate attempts to lower costs.
There was a time — more than a decade ago — when sitting in the coach cabin didn’t bother me too much. Planes and air travel always excited me, and the promise of what awaited at the other end of my journey left me little time for self-pity. Plus, I’d take only a couple of trips a year.
But then I began traveling around the world for work, as the Washington Times’ diplomatic correspondent, and flying between three continents in a week in coach and enduring today’s airport routine started to seem really ugly. So I decided to look for ways to travel in business class — paying for it wasn’t an option, given my budget limitations, and the only alternative was to achieve the highest elite status by flying 100,000 miles a year.
At the beginning, that wasn’t too easy — it required me to fly on the same airline or its alliance partners. The global alliances — Star, Oneworld and SkyTeam — were not as big as they are today, and none of their member-carriers served some of the countries I went to. Even when they did, that option might not have been the cheapest.
With some creativity and strategic planning, however, I managed pretty well — and the benefits of top elite status changed my life. At the airport, priority lines, business lounges and red-carpet boarding have made the experience much less of a hassle. On board, I’ve enjoyed flat beds, great meals and on-demand entertainment, thanks to complimentary upgrades I’ve been able to confirm long before a flight.
The real challenge was how to maintain that combination of paying low fares and flying in luxury year after year. Since knowledge means power, I decided to take the power in my own hands and stop relying on travel agents or online booking engines to find me the best deals — by learning all I could about airfares and airline inventory, and by accessing raw, real-time airline data right from the source where it’s published.
Now I’ve decided to share my knowledge and experience with others. Come see for yourself.
Have you been surprised to discover that your flight itinerary has little to do with your originally booked routing or departure and arrival times? Did you accept the changes, even though you didn’t like them? Next time, you could probably do better.
Schedule changes — those made by airline planning departments in advance, not those resulting from irregular operations — have always existed in the industry, but they used to be relatively rare and caused few major disruptions.
In recent years, however, they have become so common that I’m actually surprised when a week passes without changes in any of my future trips — I usually have about a half-dozen booked at a time…
Continue reading about Flight schedule changes overwhelm agents, travelers
Are you planning to postpone a trip you’ve booked to Mexico because of the swine flu? By now, you’ve probably heard about airlines waiving fees to change your flight. But do you know how to rebook a flight to make sure you avoid any extra costs?
The waivers issued last week, as the State Department advised Americans to delay travel to Mexico if possible, are not much different from waivers related to bad weather and published regularly throughout the year.
They usually allow passengers who have already begun their journey to reschedule their return — and fly back home later, until a storm passes, or earlier, if you happen to be in Mexico right now — without having to pay the normal reissue fee, which is $150 for domestic itineraries and up to several hundred dollars for international flights…
Who says that cheap plane tickets are a thing of the past? How would you like to go skiing in Utah this winter for less than $150 round trip from the East coast, including all taxes? Rather visit a warmer place? How about a ticket to Hawaii for less than $300?
Yes, these are real prices, but you might need to do some homework to get them. Airlines now publish low fares less frequently and often pull them off the market within hours.
We’ve all heard travel experts warning that air fares have nowhere else to go but up, mainly because of record-high jet-fuel prices, as well as predictions that the era of affordable air travel is over. That may well be what the future holds. The present, however, begs to differ…
