Apple Buys 50 Business Class Seats From San Francisco to Shanghai Every Day

[neutrino23]

I cant believe Apple who believes in best products and best customer service gives business to the crappiest airline.
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Did you forget the Ireland tax fiasco?

It’s odd, but United is my favorite airline. I guess the large airlines (United, American, Delta) rank poorly simply because of their size. They carry a huge number of occasional travelers and some have bad experiences. Boutique airlines can treat people better because they only run a few flights. Flag carriers like Singapore Air get subsidized so they can splurge.

If you are a frequent flier on a major carrier they treat you well. I’m sure the Apple employees get treated well. I’ve flown about 2,5M miles on United. For the most part the experience is good. Part of this is because I know how the system works and plan accordingly.

Apple certainly gets a discount for buying a block of seats like this so it may not be that expensive for them. They probably don’t fill all these seats everyday.

If Apple has a thousand or so engineers and managers visiting China once a month that would fill Most of those seats. Apple must have over a thousand projects ongoing to cover all the subassemblies for all the products they sell, not to mention research on future products and components.

I used to make trips like this a lot. Nothing beats face-to-face communication on an important project. You can fill in a lot things with email and such, but once a quarter or so you have to meet people. It helps immensely to see a production line to get a feel for things or to get acquainted with the people you swap emails and documents with.

 

[thasan]

Why do they fly to London so much?

The others make sense in terms of suppliers and so on but Apple doesn't build anything in the UK, their only real presence here are the stores and Beats One.

They have a small presence in Cambridge. Not sure whether they have other sites.

 

[ani4ani]

Well if the statistics are true...average ticket price $8K per seat....you could nearly get a good Mac Pro for that, if they made a good one.

 

[Bacillus]

What if I work for Apple and I *don't* want to fly United?

Company policy is that you’re free to hike - in your own time

 

[cableguy84]

Why do they fly to London so much?

The others make sense in terms of suppliers and so on but Apple doesn't build anything in the UK, their only real presence here are the stores and Beats One.

ARM is british and is located in the UK.
Apple designs chips based off ARM designs so i imagine they work together quite closely?

 

[0014]

And what creative juices are you referring to? I'm not aware of any creativity within Apple at present.

I think he means creative juices for the BS he spouts when doing a voice over for a product!

 

[paulCIA]

Isn’t customer account spend confidential?

Was.
[doublepost=1547288594][/doublepost]

Not sure how Cook responds, but Jobs would've cancelled all reservations personally and would send someone to find a new airline where such details don't get out in public.

At least Steve had some tact about it. And really stuck it to the board when they appointed a sugar-water salesman to replace him. More than Tim will ever do for the company. He might have better luck in sugar-water sales.

 

[buckyballs]

Why do they fly to London so much?

The others make sense in terms of suppliers and so on but Apple doesn't build anything in the UK, their only real presence here are the stores and Beats One.

* Apple have an engineering office in Cambridge for Siri
* Imagination (who used to make the GPUs for iPhone and iPads) are based in Hertfordshire (near London)
* The office where Apple poached all of Imaginations key staff is in Hertfordshire (near London) Source
* Most music licensing deals are dealt with in London
* ARM (who design the iPhone/iPad instruction set) are based in Cambridge

Whilst they don't have huge customer-facing presence in the UK, it shows how many people are required to build their products

 

[partsofspeech]

A shift from crativity to crime-activity
[doublepost=1547292672][/doublepost]Skype and Group Facetime is are for unwitted customers. Jet-flight-enabled meeting is for Apple managers. We need a calculator app for CO2 per flight.

 

[bobob]

or to be green... oh wait thats just one of Apple's BS talking points

Which specific aspects of Apple's environmental policies are BS talking points?

 

[AppleHaterLover]

Working for a trillion-dollar corporation and being forced to be a Premier 1K and suffer through 2-4-2 business class flights.

The horror !!!!!

 

[justperry]

United Airlines, the worst airline I flew with, once, never again.
Plenty of (much) better to chose from, Singapore Airlines-Malaysian Airlines (Yes, it's really good)- Eva Air-KLM-Lufthansa-Emirates amongst others, but I myself mostly used Asian Airlines, flew lots with Malaysian air, too bad they shot down one of their planes and within a short time they lost a plane never to be found again until now.

 

[monaarts]

No way Apple fills 50 business class seats every day. Not a chance. They may have a contract saying Apple can use up to 50 seats in an emergency but no way they have that many R&D folks going that often. I also question why Shanghai. That’s another flight away from Shenzhen where most of their products are made. SFO to Hong Kong would make more sense.

I don’t doubt the scale of Apple’s international travel, but these specifics seem off.

First, I’m guessing it’s not literally 50 a day but rather an average. Monday might be 30 but Tuesday is 60. Second, I wouldn’t be surprised if they do, that’s only 0.03% of their employees flying there every day - really not that much.

 

[maxgts]

Why are they flying so many employees back and forth every single day? Why not just have permanent staff at each location and reduce flying days to one or twice a week? I imagine Tim Cook collects all the airline miles.

 

[[AUT] Thomas]

They should link with Singapore Airlines - way better service, and ditching United for its crappy service in the USA will be a good payback!

My thoughts... Seriously... WHY? I can't imagine why one would fly United or Delta when there's a better alternative. So, basically, anything international. Frankly, whenever I book flights to the US I pay very close attention to make sure "operated by" says Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, KLM, AirFrance (...) but not an US airline.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Engineering teams have to go to China, South Korea to design the parts they want to manufacture. Enough with the bs that Samsung designs iPhone displays. They don’t. Their machines ,which make the displays are run by Apple people. Only the machines are Samsung owned.

What non-sense; firstly no-one has ever said Samsung designs iPhone displays. They manufacture them to Apple's specifications on their machines, run by their people in their factories.

Or do you really believe Apple owns manufacturing factories, staffed by Apple employees renting machines from Samsung to produce iPhone screens?

I can't tell if you're just troilling.....

 

[lah]

No doubt they are getting a deep discount from UA from their fares thats pre-negotiated.

That is correct. With that kind of revenue, they are definitely getting a substantial discount on the business class fare. They probably have some type of agreement where they pay to block off seats on flights daily - so that if an employee needs to travel last minute, it will not be a problem.

 

[nebo1ss]

Why do they fly to London so much?

The others make sense in terms of suppliers and so on but Apple doesn't build anything in the UK, their only real presence here are the stores and Beats One.

Probably transit London to get to Ireland.

 

[jp1261987]

First, I’m guessing it’s not literally 50 a day but rather an average. Monday might be 30 but Tuesday is 60. Second, I wouldn’t be surprised if they do, that’s only 0.03% of their employees flying there every day - really not that much.

Also it’s equivalent of someone making $100k a year spending $57 on gas.

This is a trivial number for them. Also based on the numbers they provide which I assume is bi-directional seats (25 each way) and averaged over the course of the year. They are paying $2k per seat per way. Which is actually a really good deal. As someone who flies ewr-hkg all the time it’s hard to find fares under $8k round trip.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Damn - luxury!

They should link with Singapore Airlines - way better service, and ditching United for its crappy service in the USA will be a good payback!

Oh - it's Apple; these days they don't care.

"Oh, it's Apple"? You are aware that you're on an Apple focused forum, right?
[doublepost=1547297850][/doublepost]

No way Apple fills 50 business class seats every day. Not a chance. They may have a contract saying Apple can use up to 50 seats in an emergency but no way they have that many R&D folks going that often. I also question why Shanghai. That’s another flight away from Shenzhen where most of their products are made. SFO to Hong Kong would make more sense.

I don’t doubt the scale of Apple’s international travel, but these specifics seem off.

Right, it's probably 50 a week.
[doublepost=1547298061][/doublepost]

It sounds like you know more about this than me, but can't design be done on computers anywhere? Just seems like a lot of travel and CO2 emissions.

These aren't private planes, they're on a schedule and going to fly with or without Apple employees on board. It's like complaining that taking the bus is worse than taking a car.
[doublepost=1547298118][/doublepost]

Try flying cattle class sometime. I am one of those people who supposedly do not exist according airlines: I got a blood clot in my leg on a flight in economy class, then it traveled to my lung and nearly killed me...

One of my co-workers died that way on a flight to Australia for work.
[doublepost=1547298196][/doublepost]

true, it could also have to do with planning Apple in the UK post Brexit, but both of those explanations are less funny then a way of explaining Jony Ive's relative disappearance/downplaying as a public face at the company.

Do you know of any companies going out of their way to plan in the UK post Brexit by travelling to the UK?
[doublepost=1547298362][/doublepost]

that’s like saying Al gore and leonardo cares about environment coz they make speech about it. they help build greener houses yet they themselves contributors so much to wasted energy.

What you really mean is: you HEAR they are wasting so much energy by right wing media looking to scandalize these two.
[doublepost=1547298453][/doublepost]

I cant believe Apple who believes in best products and best customer service gives business to the crappiest airline.

I absolutely hate United but they aren't the actual crappiest airline
[doublepost=1547298555][/doublepost]

Thank you anonymous internet poster. For a minute I almost believe the article supported with photos of United's marketing materials. Close call.

Right, United marketing materials are evidence of truth?
[doublepost=1547298612][/doublepost]

Oh that’s where my hard earned money go, the comfort of Apple doosh bags lol

If your money is actually hard earned, you might want to buy cheaper products. These aren't taxes, you choose what to buy.

 

[Rojaaemon]

No way Apple fills 50 business class seats every day. Not a chance. They may have a contract saying Apple can use up to 50 seats in an emergency but no way they have that many R&D folks going that often. I also question why Shanghai. That’s another flight away from Shenzhen where most of their products are made. SFO to Hong Kong would make more sense.

I don’t doubt the scale of Apple’s international travel, but these specifics seem off.

Something is going on. I suspect they're rewarding employees by sending their families to Shanghai Disney Resort.

 

[sipodjr]

just buy the entire airline

or just buy your own plane and full time pilot.

 

[ender78]

My thoughts... Seriously... WHY? I can't imagine why one would fly United or Delta when there's a better alternative. So, basically, anything international. Frankly, whenever I book flights to the US I pay very close attention to make sure "operated by" says Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, KLM, AirFrance (...) but not an US airline.

Spending a few minutes on Expedia, only three airlines fly direct from SFO to PVG (China East Airlines, Delta and United).

 

[AppleHaterLover]

Why are they flying so many employees back and forth every single day? Why not just have permanent staff at each location and reduce flying days to one or twice a week? I imagine Tim Cook collects all the airline miles.

If I were making mid six-figures and working for Apple I wouldn't want to live in Shanghai.

 

[jshapnyc]

The “Apple should own a fleet” people are hilarious. “Buy some Gulfstreams.” Lol. Do you people have any idea what the range is of a typical business Jet? You can’t get a third of the way to Asia from SFO.