"...777 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure ... and also before Dulles engine failure, for reasons having nothing to do with the Dulles engine failure."
To be fair, I read all of it, and both sides of the question interest me. But the engine failure and the economics of the 777 are totally different things.
Why are they totally different? For such an old airframe, the only significant costs are fuel and maintenance.
A revamp to the maintenance schedule that requires more frequent engine overhauls absolutely makes the economics of operating 777-200s even less appealing.
I recall clickbait meaning "A way of describing what's behind a link, often inaccurately, so that you click on it". The completely non-controversial article seems to me to have a very hook-y headline which is exactly what the phrase refers to, at least to me. What does clickbait mean to you? Perhaps the meaning of the phrase has changed in different groups over time.
It’s not a buried sentence. It’s a section heading in large font saying “ The 777-200 Problem Is Not Safety. It Is Economics.”
Then there’s a whole paragraph stating “The Boeing 777-200 is not an unsafe airplane. As far as I can tell, that is not the issue even after the incident over Dulles over the weekend.”
Then just in case the reader jumped to conclusions, the first sentence of the conclusion again says it’s safe.
You are explaining exactly why the headline is clickbait: The article does not support the conclusions implied by the headline.
> just in case the reader jumped to conclusions
The author is correcting a problem of his own creation. He has already misled the reader with his headline. He means for the reader to misunderstand... and click.
Like you, I took an impression from the headline that safety was at issue — that's why I clicked on the article, only to find out that it was about economics instead. I don't know if it was deliberate clickbait, but that was the effect.
United seems to like to hang onto extremely old airplanes even as the number of these disruptions mount. We can argue how statistically they're safer etc but these events are extremely unsettling and disruptive for passengers and frankly it's lucky no one's been killed yet. One of these planes dropped a wheel on a parked car at SFO last year.
It's not hard to notice there are other major airlines that generally maintain newer widebody fleets.
All 777-200 are less than 30 years old (June 1995 first commercial deployment according to Wikipedia). Considering we are still flying older aircraft such as MD (but as a cargo plane), can United find a buyer for this fleet?
"We" are (currently) not flying the MDs you are referring to, and it's questionable if they will ever fly again. And paradoxically the worst hit are not the airlines flying the MD-11, but the cash-strapped firefighting companies who only relatively recently switched to the (now also grounded) DC-10 from much older planes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c61ALDSN-ws&t=335s).
I agree that we are not currently flying MD-11, but that's just because of the November tragedy. I don't think they are going to retire it if not because of it. That is, they retire it out of scare of more tragedy, not because of older age.
MD-11s aren't in commercial passenger service, so it's unlikely they retire it due to a poor reputation.
The huge question is what changes the FAA requires to unground it; if they decide design changes are needed to reduce the risk that an uncontained failure of engine 1 or 3 directly takes out engine 2, that could likely be economically infeasible.
There isn't a cargo conversion available for the 777-200 or 777-200ER. But at the right price they could probably find some buyers in the VIP and charter markets.
And..it is the engine, Boeing doesn't even make those, so I'm confused why this is a fuselage problem? Or is it because the older air frames might not justify engine replacements? (after RTA, it seems that is the case, and the engine it was certified to work with is old also).
First, the engine itself is certified under 14 CFR Part 33, but the engine cowling is certified under 14 CFR Part 25, which makes it an airframe part, not an engine part.
Boeing (Spirit division) does make the engine cowling for the 777-200, which is what separated from the aircraft and caused the fire on the ground. Even in the case of a catastrophic failure of the engine, the cowling and all of it's parts are required by regulation to remain attached to the aircraft.
There was a previous incident a few years ago also on a Pratt-powered 777-200 where an engine failure cascaded into a much more serious cowling failure. Here's an article on that previous incident. I'm unable to find a source on whether the design changes discussed were ever implemented.
The FAA in the past several years has had a particular focus on engine cowling components departing the aircraft and causing secondary damage, the most critical example being the 737 fan cowling that separated from the engine, impacted the fuselage, broke a window, and caused a passenger to be sucked out and killed.
Any headline which reads "X after Y" is clickbait. Such a headline is constructed to imply that Y caused or led to or is in some way related to X. But then you read the article and find no connection at all. In this case the article confesses (rather late):
> The Boeing 777-200 is not an unsafe airplane. As far as I can tell, that is not the issue even after the incident over Dulles over the weekend.
X after Y headlines are always technically correct. Sure, X is presently true. And remember scary/salacious/enraging thing Y that happened recently? So X is after Y. Click me.
I wouldn't hold my breath for it. It was suppose to be released in 2020. It's end of 2025 and current release date is 2027 (and who knows if it'll be pushed back again).
To a European like me, United was such a weird airline to fly.
There were actual commercials played before the safety video, the cabin crew warned passengers to make sure children cannot see the adult content they're watching (can you get more American than that?), and their credit card was offered multiple times during the flight. At least the WiFi was reasonably cheap.
Over here, that stuff would never fly (no pun intended), except maybe on Ryanair or other extremely low-cost carriers. On e.g. a Lufthansa longhaul flight, which are priced similarly and cover the same route I flew (fra-ord), it would be unthinkable.
What has become much more degraded in Europe than America is the domestic flights.
Try flying Lufthansa (or one of their half dozen subsidiaries created almost entirely to give worse service) anywhere inside of europe. Everything is a money grab and the service and boarding are terrible.
United maintains a relatively consistent experience between domestic and international, minus the free alcohol.
> Try flying Lufthansa (or one of their half dozen subsidiaries created almost entirely to give worse service) anywhere inside of europe. Everything is a money grab and the service and boarding are terrible.
FWIW, I just took such a flight and didn't notice anything that compares unfavorably to a domestic U.S. airline. (To be clear, it certainly wasn't better either.) Is there anything specific you can point to?
Every drink is for sale, even coffee. They aggressively use the bag sizer and try to take bags away at the gate, under the ruse that their tiny Airbus overhead bins cannot fit them (they can).
Just put it in the hold. I can’t stand waiting for the cheapskate to find somewhere to put their 45kg “rucksack” in the over head bins just to save a tenner.
Checked luggage is lost luggage, in my experience. I think I've only checked maybe two or three bags in the past 20 years (after two lost-luggage incidents prompted me to switch to a carry-on-only packing regimen), and then only because I needed to transport liquids in excess of the in-cabin allowance.
I also like to leave the airport after my plane arrives, not stand around a conveyor belt for some unguessable amount of time.
But I get your frustration; I'm the kind of person who barely breaks stride out of the aisle and into my row as I sling my bag up into the bin. It makes me want to scream when someone is standing there in the aisle for 30+ seconds, holding up the boarding process.
Then again, the airlines are to blame as well, most of them having terribly inefficient boarding processes.
The airlines deserve no money above the price of a ticket. The way i see it the hold comes free with the rest of the plane. I see no reason why i need to pay another 40 pounds to bring a case, so i will shamelessly abuse my allowance. (if it was a reasonable amount like a tenner, that would be a different story, as it stands it's a cash grab)
"Put it in the hold" is a decent argument for point-to-point flights, or when you do gate checking. Otherwise it's a crap-shoot whether your stuff makes it (which can end a two-day business trip before it begins), what shape it will be in, and how long you'll have to wait. As soon as you have a connection, all bets are off.
How long you'll have to wait is mostly a function not of the airline, but of the arrival airport and the competence of the handling company.
I had to walk away from a $600 ticket that I booked at the last minute b/c in the 30 seconds between the time I paid for the ticket and the time the booking returned, the connecting flight filled up and I had to wait a day I didn't have for the next one. Couldn't get a single consideration from anyone, they said they couldn't cancel the ticket b/c the first leg was still available. Just had to walk away from the money and find another airline.
I'm sure it happens on every airline but man I was pissed. They go to the bottom of the list until the next tomfoolery occurs.
I had paid $150 or so for a extra legroom seat (on lufthansa). They did some last minute tomfoolery and my seat changed on my phone as I boarded the plane.
I was now not even in a premium economy row, but just a normal seat. I tried telling the flight attendant, who gave no shits - she just said "the plane isn't full, sit anywhere when we are in the air."
Fine, I found a premium economy aisle (still no extra legroom exit row seat, but whatever), and then filed for a refund when I landed.
They responded to my request for a refund with a form letter apologizing, but no refund. Then ignored any follow up. I had to do a charge back (no joke).
Them:
> I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to sincerely apologize for the seating issue you experienced during your recent flight. I understand that you requested an exit row seat and were not able to be accommodated, which is understandably frustrating.
> We strive to honor all seating preferences, and I regret that we were unable to meet your expectations in this instance. Please know that your feedback is important to us, and we will review our seating allocation processes to prevent similar situations in the future.
> Thank you for your understanding and patience. If there is anything further we can assist you with or if you have any other concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
> We hope that you put your trust in Lufthansa and partners also in the future and continue to fly with us.
Me: This wasn't a seating preference, I paid $130 to reserve this seat. This is something I purchased. I'd expect you'd at least issue a refund and extend me some sort of credit to make up for this.
I love how everyone is dunking on airlines (it's easy - I do too!), yet airlines are one of the least profitable business sectors to be in.
It's like dunking on QSR, but worse. These things are practically on welfare.
Everything is fungible, high risk, extremely expensive, extremely regulated. The margins are almost nil. They all fly the same planes. You can compete on "experience", and that's basically it.
Their dingy little ads, baggage fees, and wifi upsells are the the best they can muster. That's the entire farm, and they're scraping by as best they can. This is every single airline.
What a awful, utterly unrewarding business to be in.
> United maintains a relatively consistent experience between domestic and international, minus the free alcohol.
A consistent extremely mediocre experience I guess. I've flown Lufthansa, Air France, Air Canada and United with a toddler and I'd get out of my way to avoid United in the future, never seen staff everywhere in that airline that was more unpleasant and unhelpful, especially with young children, as much as when flying United.
To give my own anecdata to counter yours: every time I've flown with children on United they've gone out of their way to make it straightforward. The only better airline I've encountered for it is Virgin Atlantic, which is, to be fair, better at everything.
Interesting; I just flew Virgin Atlantic for the first time a week ago (SFO->LHR) and found the experience aggressively mediocre. Reservation management and check-in experience with their app was the hottest of hot garbage, boarding was slow, in-flight meal below average, general comfort just kinda okay. No complaints about the crew, at least.
I generally fly United (while they are also aggressively mediocre, they mostly fly direct to the places I need them to, and their pricing is generally good on the routes I take), and I'd honestly rate United higher than Virgin Atlantic, which surprised me. Maybe my single experience was a fluke, but it was a really bad first impression.
And I say this as someone who absolutely adored Virgin America back when it existed. Bizarre that the two could be so different.
Europe will financialize everything just slower and with more regulation. Branded credit cards are coming. See Brussels Airlines and Mastercard
A well optimized domestic USA airline makes money from credit cards, points, trip insurance, upsells, and segments the consumer into a dozen bins based on what they’re willing to spend for a couple more inches of leg room.
Not sure about your bit of Europe but I’ve had branded credit cards from European airlines here in Europe for a long time. They’re definitely past ‘coming’.
Not as lucrative for me the holder as you’d get it the US, but I can’t really imagine being without one.
As I recall, that's because it's basically impossible to have a US rewards card in Europe. European authorities tightly cap interchange fees (the fees that come out of the merchant's end of the deal).
US issuers are much less regulated. In the US there are cheap cards that offer no perks and take a small (0.2-1%) cut from the merchant, and the perks cards that have lots of perks and take a bigger (3.5%) cut from the merchant. The CC companies, naturally, want more people to use perks cards so they get more of a cut, so to encourage consumers to use these cards they give some of it back to the users in the form of these rewards.
This model recently came under attack when a whole bunch of merchants brought an anti-trust lawsuit against Visa and MC for their requirement that if you wanted to accept the cheap cards you had to accept the expensive cards as well, merchants want to be able to accept the cheap cards and reject the higher tier cards. The negotiations about that settlement continue, so we'll have to see how it all shakes out, but it could result in a major limiting of American reward cards. Or maybe not, always in motion the future is.
The EU parliament passed a law capping interchange fees at 0.3% (for local personal cards, business has some other limit that I don't remember) so there is just no money to offer rewards to customers of European banks. Much better for merchants, lower prices overall mean probably better for poorer folks, worse deal for wealthy people with good credit who pay attention and pay their bills in full every month. Speaking as an American one of those people who benefit from rewards cards, I think that it is better for society to go with the European choices than the American.
The credit card thing doesn't surprise me. I expect United makes a ton of revenue from the card. With how credit card transaction fees are capped in Europe, I doubt it's worth it for European airlines to bother pushing their branded card much, if they even have one in the first place.
I was on a Virgin Atlantic flight last week, and while there weren't ads before the safety video, there were three ads before every movie I tried to watch... and it was the same three ads each time.
I flew Turkish in October, and was annoyed to find the movies and TV shows heavily censored, including blanking out or dubbing over minor swear words. It was also wild to see the Qur'an in the entertainment system's reading library. (No judgement there, just notable as I've never seen the Christian Bible present on other airlines.)
I think you're just falling victim to the usual thing where what you're used to feels normal, and everything else seems weird. I've definitely experienced the same as an American, when flying on European, Latin American, and Asian airlines.
Swiss air is a discount airline ever since its bankruptcy and restart right? I've only flown them once to Beijing, it was slightly better than Aeroflot.
> On e.g. a Lufthansa longhaul flight, which are priced similarly and cover the same route I flew (fra-ord), it would be unthinkable.
I fly both airlines regularly, United is _vastly_ better from a hard product perspective, a soft product perspective, and _especially_ a service recovery standpoint.
The credit card thing is easily ignored, but you used to heard it often on European flights too before branded credit cards got wiped out there. I've never heard an announcement about adult content, and have taken over 90 United flights this year.
> except maybe on Ryanair or other extremely low-cost carriers.
I fly on Lauda most often, who are operated by Ryanair. You show up, you get on, you sit down, a couple of hours you get off again. A trolley comes round with drinks and snacks, but it's a short journey even with a small child. Can't you just stick an orange and a bottle of water in your bag? It's what the Austrians do.
The first time I flew over with my small son he was three, and having been up since 5am was getting a little fractious and fidgety, so I explained he was probably a bit tired and bored and maybe he'd like to eat something and have a sleep, and I'd wake him up once we were back over land.
A bit later on someone further up the plane started remonstrating with the cabin crew that they didn't have the sandwich she wanted on the trolley, eventually shouting "IF IT'S ON THE MENU YOU GAVE ME I SHOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE THE DAMN SANDWICH!"
Well that shut everyone up.
And in the ringing silence that followed, a little voice, with the punch and clarity that only 3-year-olds have, that Brian Blessed or Meat Loaf would have given any limb you care to mention for, piped up:
"DADDY, DOES THAT LADY NEED A SNACK AND A WEE NAP TOO?"
I see businesses are getting you to blame the law rather than their activities which the law requires them to disclose. Personally, I’d expect to be paid before acting as a lobbyist.
I remember the days when movies shown on aircraft were edited for both content and dialogue.
These days, with so much content expected to be available at your fingertips, both in your seat and people bringing iPads on board loaded with R-rated streams, it's expected to be mindful of your neighbor on such things.
How that is distinctly "American" I don't quite understand.
With the increasing frequency of civil aviation issues, one can't help but wonder what the future of air travel looks like. It may not be as business-as-usual as many today anticipate.
How the hell is this AI slop getting upvoted? The early 777s are being retired because they're old. Engine failures are a thing that happens on all planes. You aren't going to retire planes because of one unless it reveals a greater issue, which this incident did not.
Being irrationally interested in the risks air travel has been a perennial news focus for folks since long before news was written by AI. Especially if it involves Boeing planes.
On the flipside, what they are looking at replacing the fleet with is an interesting follow-up if you regularly fly United.
From ~April 2019 to this event was nearly 6 years of flawless performance from UA’s GE90 engine fleet, but the P&W ones tend to have a few problems a year.
Being this is the first time a GE90 popped on a 777-200 in a while? Eh, the future’s gonna keep flying ‘em.
What gave it away for me was the Conclusion heading. LLMs love adding those in and its just unnatural for news/blog posts. Reading back over it, everything about it just seems very machine written.
I'm very hesitant to make those sorts of accusations, but the writing has multiple hallmarks of LLMs and this is one of three articles posted today by the same author to that blog before noon their local time. I guess this is just what the internet is now, constantly wondering whether you're reading actual thoughts of another human being or whether it is just LLM output generated to stick between ads.
Engine problems are hardly the only Boeing issue in recent years. Nor am I inclined to give them a pass on those; they are most certainly heavily involved in the engine design and production process, as they are on most outsourced parts they use.
The 777-200 is a 1994 design, way before all the recent trouble started. Its three engine types have been produced thousands of times, the GE90 has an excellent in flight shutdown rate of one per million flight hours for example.
The 777 was fitted with at least three different engines, from General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, or Rolls-Royce. Customer airline normally selects which engine they prefer. Some of these same engines are used on competing aircraft from Airbus.
I agree with you, but not because of this particular incident. This was a Pratt and Whitney issue most likely, but that doesn’t mean Boeing isn’t mega fucked for other reasons.
"...777 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure ... and also before Dulles engine failure, for reasons having nothing to do with the Dulles engine failure."
To be fair, I read all of it, and both sides of the question interest me. But the engine failure and the economics of the 777 are totally different things.
Why are they totally different? For such an old airframe, the only significant costs are fuel and maintenance.
A revamp to the maintenance schedule that requires more frequent engine overhauls absolutely makes the economics of operating 777-200s even less appealing.
The article's TL;DR is that the economics of 30-year old P&W4090 engines make these airframes even less useful to United.
Clickbait.
The B777 is probably the safest, most meticulously engineered commercial wide-body aircraft ever built.
They're also getting old, and airlines retire old aircraft.
These are the exact points written in the article.
They also substantiate the idea that the United 777-200 fleet does face an uncertain future.
Sure, but the headline makes you think this incident caused the uncertain future. It’s definitely clickbait
Entirely true, and also quite underwhelming compared to an engine failure.
Personally I'd be a lot more interested in the cause(s) of the failure and how it was handled.
The article explicitly says that the aircraft is safe. I don't think this is particularly clickbait-y.
I recall clickbait meaning "A way of describing what's behind a link, often inaccurately, so that you click on it". The completely non-controversial article seems to me to have a very hook-y headline which is exactly what the phrase refers to, at least to me. What does clickbait mean to you? Perhaps the meaning of the phrase has changed in different groups over time.
One sentence buried in an article that ledes with BIG SCARY ENGINE FAILURE.
It’s not a buried sentence. It’s a section heading in large font saying “ The 777-200 Problem Is Not Safety. It Is Economics.”
Then there’s a whole paragraph stating “The Boeing 777-200 is not an unsafe airplane. As far as I can tell, that is not the issue even after the incident over Dulles over the weekend.”
Then just in case the reader jumped to conclusions, the first sentence of the conclusion again says it’s safe.
You are explaining exactly why the headline is clickbait: The article does not support the conclusions implied by the headline.
> just in case the reader jumped to conclusions
The author is correcting a problem of his own creation. He has already misled the reader with his headline. He means for the reader to misunderstand... and click.
"Future of US-China Relations in Question After Death of Hollywood Director"
A literally true sentence which falsely implies a correlation between events.
Discussion of the 777-200's economic viability has nothing to do with the Dulles incident.
Like you, I took an impression from the headline that safety was at issue — that's why I clicked on the article, only to find out that it was about economics instead. I don't know if it was deliberate clickbait, but that was the effect.
> The B777 is probably the safest, most meticulously engineered commercial wide-body aircraft ever built.
The last pure Boeing product before the merger with McDonnell Douglas…
> They're also getting old, and airlines retire old aircraft.
True, but they do keep the even older 757 flying.
That's not a critical comment for the article, but a TLDR.
[flagged]
As far as I'm aware no 777-200 mounted engine has ever exploded
From the article: https://liveandletsfly.com/united-airlines-777-200-engine-fa...
You know, this is why I hate it when techies assume they know things because they read something from a blog.
The engine did not explode. It suffered an engine failure when the fan blades failed and separated but was a contained failure.
"Shortly after takeoff, as the aircraft approached 13,000 feet, the right engine suffered an explosion."
:shrug:
United seems to like to hang onto extremely old airplanes even as the number of these disruptions mount. We can argue how statistically they're safer etc but these events are extremely unsettling and disruptive for passengers and frankly it's lucky no one's been killed yet. One of these planes dropped a wheel on a parked car at SFO last year.
It's not hard to notice there are other major airlines that generally maintain newer widebody fleets.
Isn’t Delta’s whole strategy getting old airplanes for cheap and refurbishing them?
All 777-200 are less than 30 years old (June 1995 first commercial deployment according to Wikipedia). Considering we are still flying older aircraft such as MD (but as a cargo plane), can United find a buyer for this fleet?
"We" are (currently) not flying the MDs you are referring to, and it's questionable if they will ever fly again. And paradoxically the worst hit are not the airlines flying the MD-11, but the cash-strapped firefighting companies who only relatively recently switched to the (now also grounded) DC-10 from much older planes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c61ALDSN-ws&t=335s).
I agree that we are not currently flying MD-11, but that's just because of the November tragedy. I don't think they are going to retire it if not because of it. That is, they retire it out of scare of more tragedy, not because of older age.
MD-11s aren't in commercial passenger service, so it's unlikely they retire it due to a poor reputation.
The huge question is what changes the FAA requires to unground it; if they decide design changes are needed to reduce the risk that an uncontained failure of engine 1 or 3 directly takes out engine 2, that could likely be economically infeasible.
There isn't a cargo conversion available for the 777-200 or 777-200ER. But at the right price they could probably find some buyers in the VIP and charter markets.
That is such a huge plane for a charter my god. That’s gotta be Saudi level money
And..it is the engine, Boeing doesn't even make those, so I'm confused why this is a fuselage problem? Or is it because the older air frames might not justify engine replacements? (after RTA, it seems that is the case, and the engine it was certified to work with is old also).
First, the engine itself is certified under 14 CFR Part 33, but the engine cowling is certified under 14 CFR Part 25, which makes it an airframe part, not an engine part.
Boeing (Spirit division) does make the engine cowling for the 777-200, which is what separated from the aircraft and caused the fire on the ground. Even in the case of a catastrophic failure of the engine, the cowling and all of it's parts are required by regulation to remain attached to the aircraft.
There was a previous incident a few years ago also on a Pratt-powered 777-200 where an engine failure cascaded into a much more serious cowling failure. Here's an article on that previous incident. I'm unable to find a source on whether the design changes discussed were ever implemented.
https://simpleflying.com/boeing-777-engine-cover-change/
The FAA in the past several years has had a particular focus on engine cowling components departing the aircraft and causing secondary damage, the most critical example being the 737 fan cowling that separated from the engine, impacted the fuselage, broke a window, and caused a passenger to be sucked out and killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1380
https://www.regulations.gov/document/FAA-2023-2234-0001
Any headline which reads "X after Y" is clickbait. Such a headline is constructed to imply that Y caused or led to or is in some way related to X. But then you read the article and find no connection at all. In this case the article confesses (rather late):
> The Boeing 777-200 is not an unsafe airplane. As far as I can tell, that is not the issue even after the incident over Dulles over the weekend.
X after Y headlines are always technically correct. Sure, X is presently true. And remember scary/salacious/enraging thing Y that happened recently? So X is after Y. Click me.
New Boeing 777-X is coming soon. United can order them if they feel inclined to do so.
I wouldn't hold my breath for it. It was suppose to be released in 2020. It's end of 2025 and current release date is 2027 (and who knows if it'll be pushed back again).
To a European like me, United was such a weird airline to fly.
There were actual commercials played before the safety video, the cabin crew warned passengers to make sure children cannot see the adult content they're watching (can you get more American than that?), and their credit card was offered multiple times during the flight. At least the WiFi was reasonably cheap.
Over here, that stuff would never fly (no pun intended), except maybe on Ryanair or other extremely low-cost carriers. On e.g. a Lufthansa longhaul flight, which are priced similarly and cover the same route I flew (fra-ord), it would be unthinkable.
What has become much more degraded in Europe than America is the domestic flights.
Try flying Lufthansa (or one of their half dozen subsidiaries created almost entirely to give worse service) anywhere inside of europe. Everything is a money grab and the service and boarding are terrible.
United maintains a relatively consistent experience between domestic and international, minus the free alcohol.
> Try flying Lufthansa (or one of their half dozen subsidiaries created almost entirely to give worse service) anywhere inside of europe. Everything is a money grab and the service and boarding are terrible.
FWIW, I just took such a flight and didn't notice anything that compares unfavorably to a domestic U.S. airline. (To be clear, it certainly wasn't better either.) Is there anything specific you can point to?
Every drink is for sale, even coffee. They aggressively use the bag sizer and try to take bags away at the gate, under the ruse that their tiny Airbus overhead bins cannot fit them (they can).
Just put it in the hold. I can’t stand waiting for the cheapskate to find somewhere to put their 45kg “rucksack” in the over head bins just to save a tenner.
Checked luggage is lost luggage, in my experience. I think I've only checked maybe two or three bags in the past 20 years (after two lost-luggage incidents prompted me to switch to a carry-on-only packing regimen), and then only because I needed to transport liquids in excess of the in-cabin allowance.
I also like to leave the airport after my plane arrives, not stand around a conveyor belt for some unguessable amount of time.
But I get your frustration; I'm the kind of person who barely breaks stride out of the aisle and into my row as I sling my bag up into the bin. It makes me want to scream when someone is standing there in the aisle for 30+ seconds, holding up the boarding process.
Then again, the airlines are to blame as well, most of them having terribly inefficient boarding processes.
It’s nice that $10 is trivial to you but it isn’t to everyone. Being cheap and being poor are different.
Don't they charge you even more to check a bag?
The airlines deserve no money above the price of a ticket. The way i see it the hold comes free with the rest of the plane. I see no reason why i need to pay another 40 pounds to bring a case, so i will shamelessly abuse my allowance. (if it was a reasonable amount like a tenner, that would be a different story, as it stands it's a cash grab)
"Put it in the hold" is a decent argument for point-to-point flights, or when you do gate checking. Otherwise it's a crap-shoot whether your stuff makes it (which can end a two-day business trip before it begins), what shape it will be in, and how long you'll have to wait. As soon as you have a connection, all bets are off.
How long you'll have to wait is mostly a function not of the airline, but of the arrival airport and the competence of the handling company.
Huh. None of that happened on either of my Lufthansa flights between Frankfurt and Berlin last week. YMMV, I guess.
I saw the baggage dance bit before a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt (from Seattle) in October, and before the connecting flight to Sarajevo.
> Lufthansa
I had to walk away from a $600 ticket that I booked at the last minute b/c in the 30 seconds between the time I paid for the ticket and the time the booking returned, the connecting flight filled up and I had to wait a day I didn't have for the next one. Couldn't get a single consideration from anyone, they said they couldn't cancel the ticket b/c the first leg was still available. Just had to walk away from the money and find another airline.
I'm sure it happens on every airline but man I was pissed. They go to the bottom of the list until the next tomfoolery occurs.
Where do you live? In the US and EU at least (and presumably other places), you can cancel within 24 hours, no questions asked, for a full refund.
I was in Dusseldorf headed to Budapest and I spent two hours with ticket agents, call center folks and Amex travel and couldn’t get any motion.
They said the complicating factor was that the flight out of DUS was still available. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I had paid $150 or so for a extra legroom seat (on lufthansa). They did some last minute tomfoolery and my seat changed on my phone as I boarded the plane.
I was now not even in a premium economy row, but just a normal seat. I tried telling the flight attendant, who gave no shits - she just said "the plane isn't full, sit anywhere when we are in the air."
Fine, I found a premium economy aisle (still no extra legroom exit row seat, but whatever), and then filed for a refund when I landed.
They responded to my request for a refund with a form letter apologizing, but no refund. Then ignored any follow up. I had to do a charge back (no joke).
Them:
> I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to sincerely apologize for the seating issue you experienced during your recent flight. I understand that you requested an exit row seat and were not able to be accommodated, which is understandably frustrating.
> We strive to honor all seating preferences, and I regret that we were unable to meet your expectations in this instance. Please know that your feedback is important to us, and we will review our seating allocation processes to prevent similar situations in the future.
> Thank you for your understanding and patience. If there is anything further we can assist you with or if you have any other concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
> We hope that you put your trust in Lufthansa and partners also in the future and continue to fly with us.
Me: This wasn't a seating preference, I paid $130 to reserve this seat. This is something I purchased. I'd expect you'd at least issue a refund and extend me some sort of credit to make up for this.
Them: crickets
Flying everywhere is degraded experience - no need to argue if Europe or US is worse.
Most of flights today are glorified busses, with less room, that just happen to have wings attached and staff trying to sell you things.
I’m a frequent flyer with Lufthansa(literally have the card) and I think it’s a pretty decent airline.
I’ve flown more than 50 flights this year with them.
I love how everyone is dunking on airlines (it's easy - I do too!), yet airlines are one of the least profitable business sectors to be in.
It's like dunking on QSR, but worse. These things are practically on welfare.
Everything is fungible, high risk, extremely expensive, extremely regulated. The margins are almost nil. They all fly the same planes. You can compete on "experience", and that's basically it.
Their dingy little ads, baggage fees, and wifi upsells are the the best they can muster. That's the entire farm, and they're scraping by as best they can. This is every single airline.
What a awful, utterly unrewarding business to be in.
We in tech are unbelievably privileged.
So what. We don't force anyone to start an airline.
As Branson used to say, the best way to become a millionaire is to be a billionaire and start an airline.
> United maintains a relatively consistent experience between domestic and international, minus the free alcohol.
A consistent extremely mediocre experience I guess. I've flown Lufthansa, Air France, Air Canada and United with a toddler and I'd get out of my way to avoid United in the future, never seen staff everywhere in that airline that was more unpleasant and unhelpful, especially with young children, as much as when flying United.
To give my own anecdata to counter yours: every time I've flown with children on United they've gone out of their way to make it straightforward. The only better airline I've encountered for it is Virgin Atlantic, which is, to be fair, better at everything.
Interesting; I just flew Virgin Atlantic for the first time a week ago (SFO->LHR) and found the experience aggressively mediocre. Reservation management and check-in experience with their app was the hottest of hot garbage, boarding was slow, in-flight meal below average, general comfort just kinda okay. No complaints about the crew, at least.
I generally fly United (while they are also aggressively mediocre, they mostly fly direct to the places I need them to, and their pricing is generally good on the routes I take), and I'd honestly rate United higher than Virgin Atlantic, which surprised me. Maybe my single experience was a fluke, but it was a really bad first impression.
And I say this as someone who absolutely adored Virgin America back when it existed. Bizarre that the two could be so different.
> and their credit card was offered multiple times during the flight
The largest of the airlines in America make more profit from this than the airline aspect itself.
There is far more that could be said on this but, ironically, I am on a flight and about to land.
Europe will financialize everything just slower and with more regulation. Branded credit cards are coming. See Brussels Airlines and Mastercard
A well optimized domestic USA airline makes money from credit cards, points, trip insurance, upsells, and segments the consumer into a dozen bins based on what they’re willing to spend for a couple more inches of leg room.
Not sure about your bit of Europe but I’ve had branded credit cards from European airlines here in Europe for a long time. They’re definitely past ‘coming’.
Not as lucrative for me the holder as you’d get it the US, but I can’t really imagine being without one.
As I recall, that's because it's basically impossible to have a US rewards card in Europe. European authorities tightly cap interchange fees (the fees that come out of the merchant's end of the deal).
US issuers are much less regulated. In the US there are cheap cards that offer no perks and take a small (0.2-1%) cut from the merchant, and the perks cards that have lots of perks and take a bigger (3.5%) cut from the merchant. The CC companies, naturally, want more people to use perks cards so they get more of a cut, so to encourage consumers to use these cards they give some of it back to the users in the form of these rewards.
This model recently came under attack when a whole bunch of merchants brought an anti-trust lawsuit against Visa and MC for their requirement that if you wanted to accept the cheap cards you had to accept the expensive cards as well, merchants want to be able to accept the cheap cards and reject the higher tier cards. The negotiations about that settlement continue, so we'll have to see how it all shakes out, but it could result in a major limiting of American reward cards. Or maybe not, always in motion the future is.
The EU parliament passed a law capping interchange fees at 0.3% (for local personal cards, business has some other limit that I don't remember) so there is just no money to offer rewards to customers of European banks. Much better for merchants, lower prices overall mean probably better for poorer folks, worse deal for wealthy people with good credit who pay attention and pay their bills in full every month. Speaking as an American one of those people who benefit from rewards cards, I think that it is better for society to go with the European choices than the American.
> Branded credit cards are coming. See Brussels Airlines and Mastercard
As well as ITA and American Express, at least everywhere in Milan airport.
Branded credit cards are already there in Europe but I never once have been advertised on the flight.
The credit card thing doesn't surprise me. I expect United makes a ton of revenue from the card. With how credit card transaction fees are capped in Europe, I doubt it's worth it for European airlines to bother pushing their branded card much, if they even have one in the first place.
I was on a Virgin Atlantic flight last week, and while there weren't ads before the safety video, there were three ads before every movie I tried to watch... and it was the same three ads each time.
I flew Turkish in October, and was annoyed to find the movies and TV shows heavily censored, including blanking out or dubbing over minor swear words. It was also wild to see the Qur'an in the entertainment system's reading library. (No judgement there, just notable as I've never seen the Christian Bible present on other airlines.)
I think you're just falling victim to the usual thing where what you're used to feels normal, and everything else seems weird. I've definitely experienced the same as an American, when flying on European, Latin American, and Asian airlines.
Isn't swiss air playing commercials for some watch brand constantly?
Swissair used to let you gamble, until the system started a fire, which caused a crash that killed everyone onboard.
https://www.theautopian.com/swissair-used-to-let-you-gamble-...
Swiss air is a discount airline ever since its bankruptcy and restart right? I've only flown them once to Beijing, it was slightly better than Aeroflot.
And Icelandair advertises things to do in Iceland
> On e.g. a Lufthansa longhaul flight, which are priced similarly and cover the same route I flew (fra-ord), it would be unthinkable.
I fly both airlines regularly, United is _vastly_ better from a hard product perspective, a soft product perspective, and _especially_ a service recovery standpoint.
The credit card thing is easily ignored, but you used to heard it often on European flights too before branded credit cards got wiped out there. I've never heard an announcement about adult content, and have taken over 90 United flights this year.
> and their credit card was offered multiple times during the flight
American airlines actually lose money on passenger flights - the cash cows are loyalty programs and freight transport [1].
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/the-four-biggest-us-airlines-al...
> except maybe on Ryanair or other extremely low-cost carriers.
I fly on Lauda most often, who are operated by Ryanair. You show up, you get on, you sit down, a couple of hours you get off again. A trolley comes round with drinks and snacks, but it's a short journey even with a small child. Can't you just stick an orange and a bottle of water in your bag? It's what the Austrians do.
The first time I flew over with my small son he was three, and having been up since 5am was getting a little fractious and fidgety, so I explained he was probably a bit tired and bored and maybe he'd like to eat something and have a sleep, and I'd wake him up once we were back over land.
A bit later on someone further up the plane started remonstrating with the cabin crew that they didn't have the sandwich she wanted on the trolley, eventually shouting "IF IT'S ON THE MENU YOU GAVE ME I SHOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE THE DAMN SANDWICH!"
Well that shut everyone up.
And in the ringing silence that followed, a little voice, with the punch and clarity that only 3-year-olds have, that Brian Blessed or Meat Loaf would have given any limb you care to mention for, piped up:
"DADDY, DOES THAT LADY NEED A SNACK AND A WEE NAP TOO?"
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Instead of complaining about legislators protecting your rights. Why don't you pressure sites to stop harvesting so much of your data?
How edgy. Spoiler: we’re not too interested in appealing to America any more over here.
I see businesses are getting you to blame the law rather than their activities which the law requires them to disclose. Personally, I’d expect to be paid before acting as a lobbyist.
>the cabin crew warned passengers to make sure children cannot see the adult content they're watching (can you get more American than that?)
Is it considered normal in Europe to watch pornography on public transit in public so children can see it?
>Lufthansa longhaul flight
My experience is different. Old planes, and Lufthansa cabin crew are cold and service was poor and inattentive.
How is that your interpretation of OP's statement?
Its normal in Europe to not watch any kind of pornography in public. Idk why you would do that.
I remember the days when movies shown on aircraft were edited for both content and dialogue.
These days, with so much content expected to be available at your fingertips, both in your seat and people bringing iPads on board loaded with R-rated streams, it's expected to be mindful of your neighbor on such things.
How that is distinctly "American" I don't quite understand.
Adult content does not necessarily mean pornography. It can include nudity, which Europeans are more comfortable with than Americans.
I am aware, the person I replied to just went straight into pornography, as to why I replied like that.
With the increasing frequency of civil aviation issues, one can't help but wonder what the future of air travel looks like. It may not be as business-as-usual as many today anticipate.
How the hell is this AI slop getting upvoted? The early 777s are being retired because they're old. Engine failures are a thing that happens on all planes. You aren't going to retire planes because of one unless it reveals a greater issue, which this incident did not.
Being irrationally interested in the risks air travel has been a perennial news focus for folks since long before news was written by AI. Especially if it involves Boeing planes.
On the flipside, what they are looking at replacing the fleet with is an interesting follow-up if you regularly fly United.
From ~April 2019 to this event was nearly 6 years of flawless performance from UA’s GE90 engine fleet, but the P&W ones tend to have a few problems a year.
Being this is the first time a GE90 popped on a 777-200 in a while? Eh, the future’s gonna keep flying ‘em.
wow the blogosphere really is just ai slop now
What gave it away for me was the Conclusion heading. LLMs love adding those in and its just unnatural for news/blog posts. Reading back over it, everything about it just seems very machine written.
Aviation blogs have commonly been putting a conclusion section with header just like this since well before LLMs existed
Weird, I don't think I've ever seen that.
I'm very hesitant to make those sorts of accusations, but the writing has multiple hallmarks of LLMs and this is one of three articles posted today by the same author to that blog before noon their local time. I guess this is just what the internet is now, constantly wondering whether you're reading actual thoughts of another human being or whether it is just LLM output generated to stick between ads.
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Remind me what company is responsible for making the 777-200 engines (hint: it’s not Boeing)
Engine problems are hardly the only Boeing issue in recent years. Nor am I inclined to give them a pass on those; they are most certainly heavily involved in the engine design and production process, as they are on most outsourced parts they use.
The 777-200 is a 1994 design, way before all the recent trouble started. Its three engine types have been produced thousands of times, the GE90 has an excellent in flight shutdown rate of one per million flight hours for example.
The 777 was fitted with at least three different engines, from General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, or Rolls-Royce. Customer airline normally selects which engine they prefer. Some of these same engines are used on competing aircraft from Airbus.
How does Boeing being involved in engine design involve an aging airframe on a major Carrier?
"The federal government should take this company into receivership" is clearly speaking to more than one single incident.
I agree with you, but not because of this particular incident. This was a Pratt and Whitney issue most likely, but that doesn’t mean Boeing isn’t mega fucked for other reasons.
Clearly you didn't read the article.