Shite. I was going to book a flight with them later this year.

"serge": -noun
1. a twilled worsted or woolen fabric used esp. for clothing.
2. cotton, rayon, or silk in a twill weave.

"surge": -noun
12. to rise as if by a heaving or swelling force: 'Blood surged to his face.'

I thought Ted died off years ago back when Delta's feeble attempt at the same business model "Song" died.

They should have kept it active as they could use it to conceivably sell tickets at higher prices. Let's say a TED ticket is $500 and a regular United ticket is $650. Now both tickets may have built in profits but with the TED option in place there's a stronger possibility you are only going to get more people in the air, but with only the United price point and no comparison, it comes down to an "all or nothing" decision.

I never found a reason to fly Ted, even though I fly United a lot and I see Ted planes at SFO. The lowest fares and most convenient schedules are always regular United or United Express. Ted always seemed like an executroid's idea looking for a market; and not finding one.

Ted sad. Ted cold.

I came in here to say "surge", but it looks like that's been covered.

I'll go listen to some System of a Down, now that i'm thinking about Serj.

So what was missing from "Ted" ?

U-N-I (Get it ? You and I)

I'm gonna finish drinking my Serge now.

The serge is obviously working!

Uh - they aren't cutting anything because TED was always United.

If you book Denver to Orlando or Vegas you are SELECTING Ted - you just happen to be riding on United planes with Ted's paint job.

correction on me. Yes I realize they're selling the planes -- but to say they're cutting the low budget airline TED is kind of silly - because again its just branding.

There can only be one Jet Blue people. Do you fly or do you Jet?

Anyone know if existing TED routes/tickets will be converted back to United flights? I ask, because I have a flight booked on TED for my vegas wedding this fall.

@Underpants Gnome:

I'm sure it will be switched to a UAL mainline flight. (Just call and check)

Like I mentioned this really isn't an airline folding - so people need not worry. Yet.

There was a market for Ted. Only problem, Ted sucked. People shopping for bargain flights want low prices. I never once flew Ted because it never came up in a search with a competitive price. And I fly often.

Southwest crushes all of them. Thing is with United and these other dinosaurs is that they have an antagonistic approach to labor. As such, labor won't negotiate in a manner that won't sacrifice profitability. Southwest actually treats its employees well. The result is that they perform for the airline.

I've never had a negative experience with Southwest.

Batter up! Strike Out! Next!

Goodbye Ted. I remember when you were bright-eyed and optimistic.

I hate to turn this into a political commentary but I doubt since President Herbert Hoover's failed economic policies during the Great Depression has there been such economic devastation linked to a presidency as it is now with Bush.

Everything old is definitely new again. There are many parallels to what is happening to our economy now and what happened during the Great Depression. Say hello to The Great Depression II, the Modern Years.

Ted sucked. I flew them twice. It was like flying southwest, but worse.

@Wormfather:

jetBlue's "jetting" campaign is corny...

Every single time I priced a "Ted" ticket, it was more expensive and less conveniently timed than the United flight on the same route.

Gee, I wonder why the uber-expensive "low-cost" airline failed...?

Crap, this was the flight I took 3-4 times a year from SFO to Phoenix. Now I'm going to be stuck on crappy Southwest. And at higher fares due to even less competition,

Never heard of "Ted" the airline, so the headline was more than a little macabre to me considering the health of that more famous Ted (the senator from Massachusetts)....

Ted really seemed like a ridiculous waste of resources. I recently flew a 2 leg flight, one on Ted and one on United, and I couldn't tell the difference. At least Song tried to differentiate itself from Delta with a few different services.

The "Why market 1 brand when we could spend double and market 2?" era seems to be closing for good.

The last time I flew it was through United but on a Ted plane. I thought the name was kind of creepy for some reason.

My name is Ted, and one day I will be dead. Yo. Yo.

@dragonfire81: @SuffolkHouse:

Basically, the main benefit of TED to UA was that they could eliminate First class on routes where the only people who are up there are there because of free status-based upgrades.

[img][www.airwhiners.net] [/img]

Forget TED....here's jetBlue's newest spinnoff: "LUE"

[www.airwhiners.net]

Aw, I liked TED! For a year I lived in Las Vegas and my fiancée was in Los Angeles. We'd take turns flying each weekend, and I always tried to get on TED if I could (Southwest if I couldn't).

I liked their $35 fares and the fact that I could pick a seat. I didn't like their Economy Plus plan, since it stuck me somewhere behind the first 12 (usually pretty empty) rows, but more often than not I could convince the flight crew to let me sit in the exit row.

During the course of the year, they started to get more strict about it and I was pretty happy to move back to Los Angeles and not spend so much time in airports (especially LAX).

This was, of course, a couple of years ago before flying became even more of a pain than it already was ...

That's HORRIBLE! I always flew on Ted. It was wonderful. Food was superb, flight attendants were always nice, movies were good. I have nothing but good experiences on Ted... Is normal United still good? I know the PS (Premium Service) flights that United runs are great but how about everyday United flights?

I've now had two hellacious experiences with United/TED. Their normal practice in Denver is to cancel flights, thus stranding hundreds of passengers a day. You line up for hours to get rebooked, and then they ship you off to a distant hotel for the night. At our hotel the shuttle driver said 90% of their business is United refugees. Shameful. If I knew how to set up a website I'd start a United Airlines Refugee Support Group. I shall throw a party the day UAL goes under.

Yikes. As of several days ago, UA was still selling seats on Ted flights for later this summer. I just checked our itineraries online and we seem to have been sent to the back of a couple of slightly tweaked buses, errr planes, on this short-hop part of our vacation.

I'm trying to be grateful that UA somehow saw our other longhaul itinerary and doesn't have us departing the intermediate airport for our flights home before we arrive there from the commuter airport we head out from at 0'dark:30 earlier that day.