Apple in Talks With United Airlines Over Terminal Upgrades at San Francisco International Airport

[gnasher729]

SFO needs a redesign. Always thought it a bit boring.

For airports, boring is good. I dont want excitement on an airport.
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Just think of what Jony Ive could do (or would have done rather) with an airport terminal...

Make it less high?
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I'd argue that United likely gives Apple kickbacks for choosing them as their default airline.

Company A doesn't give kickbacks to company B. They negotiate a price (and the price may be lower due to lots of seats booked every day), but that is the price, not a kickback.

A kickback would be United giving the person at Apple responsible for booking the flights a million dollar to choose them over a competitor. Which would be criminal and end someone in jail.

 

[Mikey7c8]

I'm surprised no-one as suggested this yet, but my bet would be most of these are employees that are working from Shanghai but didn't want to relocate there.

 

[MacCurry]

UA operates two direct flights daily from SFO-PVG using the B777 aircraft. Each has 48 business class Polaris seats and roundtrip airfare is about $8K-$10K depending on the day and morning or evening flight.

Out of 96 Polaris seats available, AAPL is filling up over half each day.

If AAPL is buying 50 round-trip tickets everyday or 18,250 round-trips every year, which contributes $150 million revenue annually to UA, then AAPL is paying about $8220 per ticket.

 

[e-coli]

United actually treats their elite flyers really well. You can bet most of the Apple folks who are flying to China regularly are on the high end of the Gold - Global Services spectrum.

I’ve flown first and business class on every US airline. United is the worst of the bunch by a wide margin. Would have expected Apple to go with Delta, which is definitely the best US airline for business travelers (especially international). Delta One is exquisite. But as someone pointed out, SFO is a United hub.

 

[LizKat]

Just think of what Jony Ive could do (or would have done rather) with an airport terminal...

Not even Jony could get my baggage flatter than the last time I showed up at the carousel looking for something I had once thought of as so bullky.

 

[sakurarain]

Apple will reinvent the airline and airport terminal........ we call them Airline & Airport

 

[Supermacguy]

Don't let Jony Ive near the redesign. Hard aluminum seats for everyone, no soft seats, no trash cans, no charging ports/outlets on walls, departure/arrival screens that only turn on when you look directly at them. haha