United Airlines debuted its plan for a new business class suite that will fly on only a handful of planes, and for its most elevated premium experience that includes caviar and 27-inch entertainment screens. They’re offering a better business class wine program than any other U.S. airline.

Credit: United Airlines

But at the same time that they’re working to make business class better, they also love Delta’s idea to strip down the product. In response to a question from the Wall Street Journal‘s Dawn Gilbertson during United’s second quarter earnings call this week, Chief Commerical Officer Andrew Nocella said they’re going to segment premium like they’ve done coach and that this is what customers want.

Look, what I would say is over time, over the last 7 or 8 years, we’ve leaned heavily into segmentation of our revenues, which is really in our articulate way of saying, providing more and more choices to our customers so they can pick the experience they would like from premium to basic economy.

And we have learned through that time period that our customers really appreciate this. Not everybody wants the full experience. Some people want other experiences.

And so the value to United as an airline and to that of our customers has been proven by the segmentation of revenues that we’ve done. And we look forward to continuing to diversify our revenue base and segment it in the appropriate way, and I’ll leave it at that.

Last summer Delta confirmed plans to ‘unbundle’ business class and offer a ‘basic business’ product. Drawing on what other airlines around the world have done, that could mean:

• Pay to check bags
  
• Pay for seat assignments
  
• Lounge access not included
  
• No business class check-in, priority boarding, or premium security
  
• No changes or cancellations
  
• No miles or elite status credit

United Polaris Lounge, San Francisco

They re-confirmed this at their investor day in November, suggesting that in coach they have ‘basic economy, regular economy and comfort+’ and that this same ‘good, better, best’ three-choice model could extend well to business class.

And, according to United, they’ve “leaned heavily into segmentation of our revenues…providing more and more choices to our customers so they can pick the experience they would like from premium to basic economy.” And they “look forward to diversify[ing their] revenue base” and segmenting business class, too.