Would you care for a hot towel?

In a brazen bid to attract more customers, United Continental (remember when the two airlines merged?) announced today a slew of customer upgrades ($550M worth of them to be exact), which comes as a bit of good news for the thousands of travelers who are destined to get stranded at the airline's biggest carrier, Newark Liberty Airport.

As of next month, the company, which accounts for over two-thirds of the all the flights in and out of Newark, will begin installing "flat-bed seats, on-demand video programming and iPod service on roughly two dozen planes; future upgrades include adding extra-leg room "economy plus" seating to Continental flights and more overhead luggage space on United flights. "It’s long past time U.S. airlines clean up their act and put out a better product for the passengers," said Bob Herbst, a travel analyst. "For too many years the only priority for U.S. airlines has been to make the airline travel as cheap as they could get it."

One bit of potentially troubling news: a United Continental spokesperson "declined to say" whether passengers would feel the cost of the upgrades—but airport evangelist Donald Trump will surely pitch in to help.