Update: United has delayed this new service by several weeks, and you can find all the new details here.
Continue reading: Official: United Airlines Launching Flights From JFK To LAX & SFO
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
That's not the way corporate contracts work. Corporate contracts in general are for an entire book of business, not just for one or two markets. It would be exceedingly unlikely for a customer such as a JPMorgan or a PWC or Accenture or etc etc to entirely drop United because they pulled out of JFK a few years ago. Most likely, United and the companies that really relied on JFK-California renegotiated their contract terms so as not penalize heavy users of JFK-California, and United probably gave them incentives/discounts to switch some of their business to Newark. But losing a whole corporate contract? Not likely.
This is great. Corporate contracts??? Literally soo soo few people are traveling from Nyc for business.
If any area is conservative in regards to travel it’s Nyc.
Don’t forget JetBlue. Arguably the best product on a transcon if you get a suite seat. Although no lounge. United has a lot of rebuilding to do to compete with all the players in JFK.
Right now American's advantage is that they are serving hot meals in J class. As far as I know none of the other carriers are doing this. United would need to bring this back in order to be competitive
@Andrew Y: United is also serving hot meals in J on premium transcontinental flights:
https://liveandletsfly.com/united-premium-transcontinental-pandemic/
Good to see UA putting a real effort by putting 767 on the route will definitely be welcome by those looking to rest
Bring back hot meals and real service and I'll book a flight on this route using Lifemiles in a heartbeat. Until then, no dice.
Alaska and United already have an agreement for Alaska Lounge members to use United lounges at some airports (ex: DCA, PHX, PHL, MSP) so it wouldn't surprise me at all to see United use Alaska's lounge in Terminal 7.
How will upgrades to Premium Economy work? Will elites be able to book them on economy tickets like E+?
@Andrew - Flew SFO-EWR J red-eye last week. Two hot food options (buffalo mac and cheese and some ravioli). On other non-premium flights, United is also offering hot food (sandwich) or a snack box.
Agree that the pricing of Premium Econ seems a bit out of whack, although at EWR, there is more price discrepancy for closer-in bookings and as lower priced business inventory sells out.
Perhaps as more and more flights offer PE, UA will work to optimize PE revenues on the transcons. It's a nice product, currently offering the same meal as business (which, although hot, is not that great for the most part).
Just checked LifeMiles site, starting in February JFK to SFO/LAX and back are available for booking. JFK to HNL can happen in United all business for 40k LifeMiles each way with one stop in west coast, with less than $50 in taxes and fees!
I know we can find out how much $$ they poured in to EWR, but would love to know how much they spent on EWR marketing over the years.
T7 is getting knocked down in like a year and a half as part of JFK’s renovation. BA are moving into T8 with AA. Kind of an interesting choice in that regard; probably the cheapest space available to relaunch their transcon operation on a budget. Modulo whatever agreement UA may have with AS, I wouldn’t expect them to invest anything into lounges and such when the current accommodation is so temporary. (I mean, I wouldn’t.)
I agree that they dont know what theyre doing with premium economy.
I flew it once last December because it was one of those weird cases where it was CHEAPER than economy using miles. I thought it was nice... but like $50 premium over E+ nice, not $50 below business nice.
@Ah - SFO/LAX-EWR require points, so likely the same here. With that said, upgrades are nearly guaranteed if you do have the points these days.
"I’ll be curious to see what kind of lounge access United is able to offer customers, given that I could see neither of those airlines being particularly cooperate with United (Alaska competes with United in the market, and British Airways has a joint venture with American)."
Umm...Alaska and United have lounge agreements already in several airports (for AS flyers)
@Alex - no different than the EWR-LAX/SFO routes - 20 points to both PE and J
Should be a muchmuchmuch easier UG though out of JFK
LOL @ "Bring back hot meals and real service and I’ll book a flight on this route using Lifemiles in a heartbeat. Until then, no dice."
I'm sure that's what United had in mind.
In other news, I don't think UA has to work too much to "win back" business. They've still been serving NYC, albeit from another, more inconvenient airport.
I would imagine their larger customer bases in LA and SF are the ones who are truly looking forward to these routes. And over time, by osmosis, the UA flyers in NYC who use LGA and EWR will catch on that there is a JFK option for the west coast.
Terminal 1 would have made more sense to offer connections to LH and Austrian. Plus solves the lounge issue. With those times, should have been easy to get a gate at T1 since off-peak for transatlantic flights.
ANA uses the BA lounge at T7 so that would make more sense. Anything for extra revenue... hope they bring back one of the Tokyo flights to JFK once they return to 2 flights. It is a long haul fro CT to NJ!
The departure times are really bad. I own a business in SF and frequently (not lately ofc) fly to NYC to meet clients. I usually take the Monday/Tuesday midnight B6 flight, land around 730am, and go to meetings all day, get a hotel for one night, meetings the next day and then red eye back home. This way I only need 1 night of hotel and I'm only away from my family for 2 nights. A 1pm departure gets me to NYC at 10, which just requires an extra night in a hotel room for no good reason and doesn't allow me to get home after my meetings.
b6 and AA are still crushing them here. I wish Delta would come to SFO.
@ Sammy -- The issue is that Alaska has five transcon flights scheduled out of JFK before 10AM. The lounge can seat at most 100 people. United's planes have 46 business class seats each, so we're talking about 92 United passengers in the morning, not including United Club members.
I'm not sure the lounge could handle that number of passengers, not even accounting for needing to reduce capacity due to coronavirus.
@ ChrisC -- That hasn't been decided yet. There's going to be a lot of consolidating if/when those terminal changes happen.
Eek the LA to NY times are horrible. 7:30am is way too early and the other flight getting in at 10:50pm is too late. I could see myself taking the 9am from JFK back but the other one gets in LA late as well.
You're right about the weird pricing of PE deserving a whole post of its own. With just $50 difference between lowest fare PE and lowest fare J class, it's a crazy, crazy proposition.
Don't understand the complaints about times - they are pretty much perfect (at least ex-JFK). Either 1) leave crack of dawn and arrive west coast in time for afternoon meetings/fun or 2) have a full day work in NYC then fly out.
Eastbound departures in the middle of the afternoon are a waste of time. Why not a redeye? Of course, no arrival lounge in JFK would be a bit of a problem.
I personally disagree on the times, but may be my personal circumstances. I'm over doing red-eyes eastbound -- just not productive the next day. So prefer the afternoon flight that gets me into NYC close to midnight. Lets me work an east coast hours day in LA/SF, not miss many meetings or calls while I fly, and arrive in time to sleep 6 hours overnight. Then for the first full day in NYC, I'm fully productive. But thats just me as someone who works east coast hours regardless.
It's only the eastbound morning departure that doesn't make sense to me because they waste the whole day. Maybe there are others that the times work for, like those in the entertainment business. The other times I could see working for me nicely.