United 777-200 fleet faces an uncertain future after Dulles engine failure

They also substantiate the idea that the United 777-200 fleet does face an uncertain future.

The last pure Boeing product before the merger with McDonnell Douglas…

True, but they do keep the even older 757 flying.

It's not hard to notice there are other major airlines that generally maintain newer widebody fleets.

A revamp to the maintenance schedule that requires more frequent engine overhauls absolutely makes the economics of operating 777-200s even less appealing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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?"

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.

On the flipside, what they are looking at replacing the fleet with is an interesting follow-up if you regularly fly United.