Can't understand all the hassle re the UA fares pricing. Max return on direct flights is £994 in July & go down to £716 for later August departures. Obviously if your flight involves one of two week days that UA doesn't fly direct then you pay a lot more.
As I noted in an earlier post then deals offered in June were much more competitive with rock bottom prices.
What most seem to miss is that when discussing options AF/KL/BA then in reality the majority of these "state side" bound pax end destination is not actually NYC but any of 20 plus other major US cities.
Take this into account and then NCL-NYC direct is actually no big deal and thus more journey's than not involve a second flight, so what actually IS the attraction of NYC to the majority of Pax.?
Personally I do an average of 2 US round trips a year and use predominantly AF with occasional BA. What's the difference ? well quite a bit , fundamentally there is more choice. A limited non daily offering over a short (5 month) time frame, is not good. I already belong to 2 FF programs & there is a premium seating option so always have the option of avoiding 3-3 seating.
As to marketing, then I personally don't believe that a lot of UA's target market take the service seriously & don't actually see it as anything other than another summer IT destination.
Finally perhaps the main reason for the "observed" low load factors is actually that it actually takes more than 6 months lead time to to attract bookings & that by the time many were aware of the availabilty of the service, then they were otherwise committed.