Details Of United Airlines’ Big International Expansion

@Dov Thank you!! Will check it out =) -Jordan

@Jordan: It isn't “official” (i.e., this isn't published by United), but the best and almost daily updated source of Polaris update information (by type and individual aircraft number) is available at https://sites.google.com/site/unitedfleetsite/polaris-update. The rest of that website also has some very interesting information vis-à-vis status of every plane in the fleet. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @All: With regards to how long and the priorities of retrofitting United's wide body fleet to the “Polaris” configurations, I am not a United Fan Boy, but given the size of the fleet and the varying ages and conditions of the previous business class seating, I do think that United has done a reasonable job of prioritizing and getting the job done, albeit slower than most of us would like. (1) The Polaris conversions are not a matter of simply unscrewing the old seats and putting new ones in. This is a very intensive cabin remodeling that requires extensive rewiring, replacement of the overhead panels with lights, air vents, oxygen masks, etc. that can take multiple weeks to complete. It is usually done in conjunction with a particular aircraft's heavy maintenance cycle. And everything has to be tested out intensively before putting the renovated aircraft back into service. (2) There is a limit to how many of the widebody aircraft can be taken out of service simultaneously without causing impacting operations and schedules. Currently 2 767-300, 1 pmUA 777-200ER, and 2 pmCO 777-200ER aircraft are simultaneously being updated for Polaris. (3) FWIW, only 5 of the pmUA 777-200ER and 7 of the pmUA 767-300ER aircraft have yet to enter the shop for Polaris. (4) The order in which the aircraft are being fitted with Polaris does in fact make quite a bit of sense. Once the Polaris program was started, all newly ordered aircraft came with that seating installed at the factory. That included the entire 777-300ER and 787-10 fleets. (The 787-8 and 787-9 fleets were already delivered or in process; the next batch of 787-9 aircraft will come with Polaris already installed!) The first aircraft to be actually retrofitted were the pmUA 777-200ER aircraft that had the oldest, narrowest, uncomfortable, and increasingly decrepit business class seats. That was followed by the pmUA 767-300ER aircraft. The last of the aircraft to get the new seats are the pmCO 777-200ER and the pmCO 767-400ER as well as the 787-8 and 787-9 aircraft, all of which had the Continental Business First seats which were multiple levels of quality and comfort beyond those old pmUA seats. Quite frankly, the 787-8 and 787-9 business class seats, although not nearly as new and spiffy as the Polaris seats, are quite comfortable (I've flown on them for some very long flights). (5) It should also be remembered that when United started rolling out Polaris, they were having some severe “supplier problems” and that quite frankly, United was lucky that they didn't need to switch vendors and designs shortly into the initial phase of implementation. Bottom line is that upgrading the business class seating of over 200 widebody aircraft in a multitude of different aircraft types and models is no easy task. You cannot simply throw out some money, click your heels, and expect the retrofit to be done overnight.

@Charlie. I could not agree more on the direct flights to BCN and MAD from IAD. I have taken that route multiple times when it was available and have a hard time believing they will not be able to get enough traffic with, let's say, a 757. Overall I think United is unclear on what they want to do about IAD. Their terminal is just the worse and to bring it up to the level of the other terminals they would have to make a significant investment and we are very close to EWR... On Iberia, don't get me started. I am from Barcelona: they gave up on us a long time ago. They use low cost carriers from there: Vueling domestically and Level internationally. As much as I love Iberia Plus arbitrage opportunities using Avios, I loathe Iberia as an airline.

Are there any flights to Hyderabad!

"Overall, I am a bit disappointed that there are no new flights to Asia or Australia with this announcement like many of us had predicted. My guess (hope) is that in a couple of months they will have another announcement where they will announce service to new cities (or just increase service to airports already flown to) in Asia, such as Bangkok or Manila." Bangkok and Manila are low yield VFR (Visiting Family Relatives) with relatively very little business demand to make a ULR flight viable. If there was an aircraft that can support a Y heavy LCC configuration to support the low yield/tourist nature of BKK/Thailand and MNL/Philippines, UA would've been on the route by now through a Low Cost Carrier subsidiary. In addition, Manila's limited base high yield travellers have mostly been absorbed by PR, and wouldn't be able to support 2 Full Service Carriers on the route.