It wasn't that long ago when full-fare airlines like United, Delta, and American treated passengers relatively well. There was no such thing as a "basic economy" ticket that barely allowed you a seat on the plane, let alone any perks.
Yes, there were classes. First-class and business-class passengers got bigger seats, champagne as they boarded, better food, and some minor amenities.
Related: Southwest, United, Alaska, and American Airlines face strikes
Coach passengers, however, were treated with more dignity than they are now. It wasn't big things, but there were meals served on many more domestic flights, and magazines, newspapers, blankets, and pillows were available by request.
Over the years, however, the airlines have chipped away at what coach passengers got offered. Seats got smaller, meals became the right to pay for a snack, and pillows and blankets disappeared.
It wasn't a uniform decision or something that happened all at once. Perks just slowly went away and when one airline got away with making a change, the others were able to follow.
United Airlines (UAL) -), however, continued to offer blankets to all passengers on redeye flights. That included coach passengers, which made sense on those flights that leave at night and fly through to the morning.
In late September, the airline followed Delta Air Lines (DAL) -) and American Airlines in making an unpopular move. The airline followed its rivals in getting rid of blankets on domestic flights.
That's something Delta and American did during the pandemic (for obvious reasons) but they never brought them back.
The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Image source: Robert Alexander/Getty Images
United Airlines quickly admits its mistake
United Airlines passengers were not happy with blankets being taken away. A red-eye flight is already an unpleasant experience in most cases, so losing that small bit of comfort seemed like the airline was pinching pennies and rubbing salt in its customers' wounds.
The airline quickly saw the error of its ways and reversed its decision, Live and Let's Fly reported:
Fueled by customer and employee feedback, we are expediting the return to standard provisioning of our on-seat bedding and amenities.
On November 1 (earlier, depending on the provisioning location), the blanket tote on domestic flights and all blankets on red-eye flights will return to our previous provisioning numbers. Red-eye flights will have on-seat blankets provisioned on all seats, and the supplemental blanket totes will return to their previous standards.
It's rare that an airline, or really any business, reverses a decision that will cost the company money. In this case, United realized that the passenger pushback was not worth the relatively small saving that dropping blankets brought.
United Airlines is flying high
While United has faced problems at its Newark hub and has dealt with the same pilot shortages as its rivals, the airline has worked through its problems. That has led to some stellar numbers, according to CEO Scott Kirby's comments during the airline's second-quarter earnings call.
"This was an all-time record quarter for pretax earnings and EPS on an adjusted basis. This performance reflects our success in building a strategy to, one, aggressively hire pilots; two, grow our mid-con hubs; three, upgauge our domestic fleet; and four, expand our wide-body fleet and international exposure in response to the trends that we identified at the beginning of Covid," he said.
READY TO GO AWAY? Let our expert travel team help you get the best deal possible.
Kirby's comments showed off a very lofty goal for his company.
"We are well on our way to being the best airline in the history of aviation," he said.
United -- and all airlines -- faces a big challenge, which investors get: fuel costs. UAL shares fell 2.78% to $38.72 on Friday as oil prices jumped in responses to the violence in Israel and Gaza Strip. The shares fell 7.4% on the week and are down 8.5% for October. However, they are up 2.7% year to date.
The NYSE ARCA Airline Index ^XAL , which tracks airline stocks, fell 1.7% on Friday. It's down 6.8% in October and 4.1% for the year to date.
