United introduced Polaris on December 1, 2016, which is the name for their new first & business class experience. This includes new airport lounges, improved food & beverages, better bedding, and also new seats. The catch is that United’s new business class seat is so far only available on 777-300ER aircraft (though they've started reconfiguring…
Continue reading: United’s 777-300ERs Will Soon Fly To Auckland, New Zealand
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Didn't Emirates upgraded their non stop flight to Auckland to the A380 rather quickly due to strong premium demands?
Maybe the premium market is quite good in Auckland. 😉
U left out a major piece of the puzzle ...
Original plan was 10x weekly 787-9
New plan is 7x weekly 77W
so when you do all the math, the total seat count is roughly flat. Maybe they needed that 787-9 to handle other yield-depressed Chinese markets.
Ord Polaris lounge looked like Filenes basement during wedding dress sale.
Not a seat to be found.
Doesn't United do any marketing studies before rolling something out?
Done with that.
Australia NZ flights have big premium demand due to the length of the flights. And AKL is a great transit hub to fly into the rest of Australia as Sydney is the only city with direct service to sfo from Australia.
My wife and I have been discussing a trip to Perth, so a stopover in NZ would be a fun start to the trip. Would it be difficult to construct this with out half million United miles: SFO -> AKL -> PER -> SFO, all in business?
Flew out of AKL on Emirates a380 last week. 10 pax in business. Had the whole back cabin to myself. 2 other EK 380's on ground. Gate areas empty before departure, and this after dropping one route.
@Robert F. Unfortunately you won't get to PER w/United points. Air New Zealand never releases space to PER, but to SYD is doable. The 2 carriers in Australia are Qantas (points with AA BA AS) and Vigin Australia (points with DL, EY, SQ). Saver awards are always available to Perth and it's a fantastic city.
Any idea when IAD will get the new birds? Lots of UA long haul and a lot on the dreaded 2-4-2 772's.
Flew on one of the first ones in Polaris from Newark to Chicago while they were just testing on domestic routes. Awesome experience.
Makes no sense. The market for SFO-AKL is not that strong to warrant a 77W. They should've stuck with 789.
Yeah, although these new planes are definitely nice, this totally upset my travel plans. I was going to fly from AKL to SFO on January 1 at 5:40 on a UA 787, and then they cancelled that flight (one of the three weekly flights that they have reduced) so now there are only three business class seats left on the new flight (as opposed to 18 or so on the old 787). New Polaris seats don't matter if you're not the one in them. Not to mention, I have to totally rearrange my schedule in new zealand to accommodate the departure from Auckland over two hours earlier. At first I was excited to be on the new equipment, now I am staring at a 12 hour trip in economy and the need to rebook a new ferry back to Auckland. Thanks United.
@Jake - 18 is correct. 4 more were ordered at the Paris air show this year for delivery in Q4 2018. All 14 of original order have been delivered.
Then you need to change your handle @Not Lucky because you were! Congrats. I've never seen it but good for you. I also flew NZ's 787 business class last week. The new Polaris seats on UA are like first class compared to the coffins NZ has stuffed in their beautiful 787's. Of course the food is pretty good on NZ and their lounges are great. Have a good trip, beautiful country.
Lucky, you're pretty quick to make generalisations about the NZ aviation market and premium yields. You did the same thing on the SQ SIN-CBR-WLG service. This switch has a lot to do with pressure from Air NZ to have a stronger premium product out of SFO on the NZ/UA code shares with UA metal. To Aman's point; premium cabin yields to NA are surprisingly strong (check out Air NZ's latest results, and reconfiguring of their 787) due to flight length. It makes a lot of sense.
Those 787 'coffins' will be the herringbone layout Air NZ licensed from Virgin for its 777-219s, marketed it as BusinessPremier and has since updated. 1-1-1 layout on the 787-9s and there are two versions; 6 or 9 BusPrem rows - good seatmaps are on Air NZ's NZ website. https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/seat-map-boeing-787-9-2
They are also reconfiguring their 777-300s so there are now two versions of those. The nine rows of unusual 2-2-2 unusual Premium Economy Spaceseat herringbone/reverse herringbone layout is being replaced by 8 rows of a more conventional 2-4-2 layout to meet demand as PremEcon has been so successful as per MediaKiwi's comments. https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/seat-map-boeing-777-300
Initially there was an extra Spaceseat row but legroom was too tight and it was removed.
I'm booked on SFO-AKL flights in November, when there will be only 6x flights per week. Any word on what days they won't be running 777-300s? And will they be flying them on the return as well?
Since the inception of the SFO/AKL route by United the premium cabins have seen an increased population by cruise line passengers either originating/terminating in AKL (AKL c;uise traffic has grown exponentially) and enjoying a 'package' price including RT airfare in their cruise purchase. As such it is not generally the business market that is growing as fast as the seasonal cruise market for premium cabin seats.
Booked on SFO-AKL in December in Polaris. Got an email that flight time and aircraft changed. AKL-SFO is now two hours earlier. So excited to fly on new aircraft and have the Polaris hard product.
Hi
I would like to knoe how is the internet connection on this flight ?
Please let me know
Thank you
Mike