United Airlines’ first reconfigured narrow body jet with new cabins is entering service as of today, which is an exciting milestone for the airline.
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United is modernizing its domestic aircraft
In June 2021, United made an exciting announcement, as part of its effort to become more premium. The airline revealed that it would modernize the interiors of its narrow body jets, used primarily for domestic flights.
The project is called United NEXT, and as part of this, the airline is completely overhauling the cabins of its standard domestic aircraft. Clearly this is part of United’s effort to compete more directly with Delta, leaving American as a distant third when it comes to product (but American doesn’t seem to care, because as the company’s Chief Revenue Officer explains, American’s product is its schedule).
Among other things, all United mainline narrow body aircraft will eventually feature the following:
- Seatback entertainment at every seat — first class has 13″ monitors, while economy has 10″ monitors
- Larger overhead bins
- High speed Wi-Fi
- AC power and USB outlets at every seat
- Bluetooth audio connections for inflight entertainment
- LED lighting throughout the cabin
For the past couple of years, United has been taking delivery of Boeing 737 MAXs featuring these new cabins. You can expect to find these interiors on roughly 75 aircraft, including all 737 MAX 8s, and select 737 MAX 9s. This means that many passengers are already enjoying this experience.
First reconfigured United A319 enters service
United promised that existing aircraft would be reconfigured with these new cabins. Nearly two years after that announcement was made, the first reconfigured aircraft with new interiors has entered service. Specifically, the roughly 25-year-old Airbus A319 with the registration code N801UA is the first plane to be reconfigured with these signature interiors.
The aircraft flew to Melbourne, Florida (MLB) on January 2, 2023, where it had most of its cabin work done. Then on April 26, 2023, the plane flew to Roswell, New Mexico (ROW), presumably for a new paint job. The plane then flew to Chicago, Illinois (ORD) on May 10, 2023, and it’s expected to enter passenger service as of today.
You can track the jet’s location here. United has 81 Airbus A319s, so for the time being, your odds of randomly ending up on this plane are pretty limited.
The pictures shared of the cabin look like a huge improvement over the old product, so it’s awesome to see these changes at United, as I’m sure passengers will appreciate the effort.
The catch with any of these kinds of projects is managing customer expectations, and also getting retrofits done. United has hundreds of planes to reconfigure, and I imagine it’s going to take years before this project is complete, given that it took nearly two years for the first plane to be reconfigured.
This is always challenging in terms of managing expectations:
- Airlines often advertise new cabins, and then passengers are disappointed when they don’t get them
- A passenger might get a cabin like this once, but then be disappointed when their next flight doesn’t feature it
I commend United for this transformation… let’s just hope planes are reconfigured at a decent pace. Fortunately United also has a lot of narrow body jets on order, which will be delivered with these cabins.
Bottom line
United Airlines’ first Airbus A319 with refreshed cabins is entering service as of today. This is the first plane to be reconfigured with new cabins, and it joins all of the existing Boeing 737 MAXs that were delivered with these interiors. This is a huge step in the right direction, so well done to United.
What do you make of United’s new cabin interiors?
Great that they're updating their fleet, but as long as the staff remain miserable and rude, I'll take my business elsewhere. None of the US carriers are fabulous, but Delta staff are genuinely friendly, AA staff are rude behind your back and United staff are rude to your face.
All good and well til the next recession hits and they put it all on hold for another 5-7 years. They’ve done it before and will do it again.
They installed a new style of First class seat on these as well. Did you find any additional details / photos of the new seats? I assume the new seat isn't on the Max 8/9's with the NEXT interior as I hadn't seen indications until today but not sure.
United fan note here.
Flew one of the new MAX 8’s recently in Econ+. Did not notice any particular reduction in usual space. Gotta say, I thought it was super nice. It’s really dumb, because I usually don’t even use the IFE, but something about having it there feels like it’s a higher-end experience. (And sometimes I like an actually putting on the scenic “relax” screens.) The Bluetooth pairing to my own AirPods Pro was...
United fan note here.
Flew one of the new MAX 8’s recently in Econ+. Did not notice any particular reduction in usual space. Gotta say, I thought it was super nice. It’s really dumb, because I usually don’t even use the IFE, but something about having it there feels like it’s a higher-end experience. (And sometimes I like an actually putting on the scenic “relax” screens.) The Bluetooth pairing to my own AirPods Pro was also very welcome, as was the fast and tolerably priced Wi-Fi.
Sadly, MileagePlus miles ain’t worth what they used to be, trying to find a good deal for yourself works against acquiring Premier status (this is painful and, surprise, reducing my loyalty), and calling the Premier Desk as a non-1K is often a terrible experience with undertrained agents in a loud call center who waste your time while they message with someone who actually knows how to do what you want. (Twice I have purchased an empty middle to deal with my semi-claustrophobia, and each time it took the “Premier” agent an hour. An hour!)
But between Polaris seats up front, Premium Plus in the middle, and these new Next cabins on the single aisle planes, plus the very nice Clubs at LAX and EWR, I have no complaints about the hard product. And the route network and partner agreements are excellent, and some redemptions are still fine deals. And the website and app give a power flyer a lot more options and control than their peers. (For example, being able to see fare bucket inventory in “Advanced Mode” is great.)
I also have no complaints about the crew, contrary to what I constantly hear. Not surprisingly, when you’re nice to them, and say a friendly and polite hello when you board, and express your gratitude for their helping you get where you’re going, and generally treat them with respect, they’re nice to you back. Sometimes they even kick you a free drink just because they’re happy that someone treated them like a human being.
Also, protip: if you like the United app versus the website, and want to use it on a computer, you can actually run it on an Apple silicon (M1/M2) Mac — just go to the Mac App Store and click the “iPhone and iPad Apps” tab. I’m not convinced there’s really a good reason to do this, unless you are craving Sudoku, but I still think it’s neat, and I wish more developers wouldn’t disable their option to have their mobile apps run on the desktop OS.
Any cabin with those particular slimline seats is a downgrade. Even the first class seats are uncomfortable.
How can yoy be sure of that? Those are the exact seats AA used before Oasis, both First Class and Econ
I can’t fathom why UA installed these inferior “push-up” overheads that don’t actually fit most bags upright, when Airbus offers the airspace bins that DO fit most bags upright.
Airlines so often “half-a**” these retrofits. AA didn’t install mood lighting on the Airbus CEO fleet, nor did they update the galleys to be common with the NEO fleet. UA installs the inferior bins but touts that they are superior. Why bother spending millions ripping...
I can’t fathom why UA installed these inferior “push-up” overheads that don’t actually fit most bags upright, when Airbus offers the airspace bins that DO fit most bags upright.
Airlines so often “half-a**” these retrofits. AA didn’t install mood lighting on the Airbus CEO fleet, nor did they update the galleys to be common with the NEO fleet. UA installs the inferior bins but touts that they are superior. Why bother spending millions ripping apart your cabin interiors if you aren’t going to do the job right?
What are the odds but I was on this plane today May 14 DSM-ORD.
Just flew on a 29 year old A320. Twenty-nine years old. Insanity. Old and dated, THAT is what comes to mind with United. Frontier and Spirt, brand new aircraft.
So what? They are just catching up with the others and many do not have the individual entertainment anymore too.
Ben, who is the manufacturer for the seats? Just curious - my daughter is an engineer for Adient but can't discuss clients very much.
Hope they are keeping the econ plus spacing. The new Max’s seem econ minus. Did not bring a tape measure but several seat mates commented that it seemed tighter.
Have spent a lot of time in them. 1.7 mill miler.
Any changes to the seating mix F/E+/E? with the update. I am flying the 737 MAX 8 next month and nice to see a bigger % of E+
Would love to see them update domestic 777s!
@weekendsurfer
Beat it kook ! :)))
We can only dream about revamped triple 7's. The absolute worst thing they ever did was 10 across seating in E. True sardine can back there and avoid the 777 like the plague unless I'm flying PP or Polaris...
When mentioned AA’s product is its “schedule”, I just could not stop laughing, about last year, I just make a complaint to AA that their schedule s**ks that I cannot connect to anywhere with them. Up until now, I can still not fly them just because their schedule s**ks.
@Henry
Yes United and American are 2 different airline cultures. I tried United when I moved to Houston but after being with American my entire life it’s just what I’m used to. I don’t get PHX, CLT, and PHL ex us airways they are over congested and miserable places to connect thru.
Perhaps there's a similar challenge of managing expectations regarding both lounge and in-flight food.
I think it's commendable that United is reconfiguring 25-year old aircraft at all. I get that modernizing old planes is something Delta has been doing successfully for a long time but how much service life does a plane that old realistically have left?
United's older Airbus CEO fleet is type common with their NEOs coming on board. Just like their massive 737NG fleet, their A32SCEO fleet will be around for quite some time. Indeed, United actually has bought a ton of pre owned Airbus aircraft in recent years to bolster their domestic fleet.
Much of this fleet is fully owned and fully depreciated, so the only cost is ongoing operational cost. Pretty cheap proposition.
Wow, that looks great!
Not only is the addition of IFE screens welcome, the mood lighting looks nice, the pivot bins are a lot better-looking than the standard A320 bins (UA joins the short list of airlines to install this kind of overhead bins on the A32X), and the seats are the same model as American's nearly-extinct LAA interior, which are a lot more comfortable than the thin Recaro seats formerly installed on this bird.
Worth a note that it’s actually 75 narrowbodies in service with the new interior… all MAX8, about half of the MAX9s, and the single 319 N801UA. With the pace of new MAX deliveries and accelerating retrofits now that the mod is certified on the 319s, United should hit the century mark of in service NEXT aircraft some time this summer. Slower pace than originally anticipated, but 100 frames in the domestic network is material.
Ben, ROW is the location UA send a lot of jets for paint. Just an fyi. The first 738 is in work right now.
@ Mike -- Good point, thanks! Updated post to reflect that this is probably why the plane went to Roswell.
What they'll do with the 738 will be very interesting. That particular 738 is an older plane that did not have e sky interior. I suppose that the A319 retrofit can preview what the A320 retrofits and likewise, the 738 retrofit can preview what UA will do with the 739s and 73Gs that don't have Boeing Sky Interior.