I already offered my take on this flight, but want to lay out a few more details about what to expect onboard a United Airlines 767-300ER in business class. It also turns out my pre-flight delay was an omen of the sort of problems United is currently facing on multiple fronts.
United Airlines 767-300ER Business Class Review (LHR-ORD)
You might recall that I had a very tight connection in London Heathrow from my Turkish Airlines flight, which arrived late. While I (somewhat) miraculously made the connection to Chicago on UA959, once I settled in onboard we experienced a mechanical deal…the cargo door would not close.
We sat on the ground for an hour before United decided it would defer repairs on it…and I tend to think that would not happen any longer. In this era of heightened scrutiny over every little mechanical issue, these sorts of problems (which could, though highly unlikely, cause a diversion) are no longer left to be addressed later even if they are not critical to the safety of the flight.
This flight was part of a $749.10 one-way ticket booked two days before departure into W-class, that took me from IST-LHR-ORD-LAX. Not bad, especially considering I was able to upgrade both United segments with 40 PlusPoints. In fact, business class was less than half full on my flight…winter is a great time for transatlantic upgrades.
United Airlines 959
London (LHR) – Chicago (ORD)
Saturday, January 27
Depart: 03:10 PM
Arrive: 06:35 PM
Duration: 8hr, 25min
Distance: 3,953 miles
Aircraft: Boeing 767-300ER
Seat: 1L (“Polaris” Business Class)
You won’t find any cabin pictures in this review since I was the last passenger to board the flight.
Seat
Stepping onboard, I found my seat in 1L. I prefer bulkhead seats because the cutout for your feet is much more generous than in other rows. Even though the seat was next to both a galley and lavatory, I was not disturbed during the flight.
The first thing I noticed: dirt and grime around the seat. This United flight was hardly unique in that respect, leading me to argue that such dereliction in terms of cleaning leads to reasonable questions about safety…
> Read More: Dirty Aircraft Cabins Undermine Confidence In Airline Safety
I had been up early getting my work done and had not slept on the inbound Turkish flight, so I spent the majority of this flight sleeping. In that sense, I’d always choose United over carriers like Austrian, Brussels, Lufthansa, SWISS, and even SAS (all of which I enjoy flying, but especially SAS).
United certainly does not have the best food, as we will see below, but it does have the best bedding…a comfortable duvet, two great pillows, and even a mattress pad on request (which I forgot to request on this flight). It also has air vents. That combination always leads to excellent naps onboard and this flight was no exception, even though the Polaris seats (based on the Safran Optima platform) are only 20 inches wide on the 767-300.
The flight went like this: I ate dinner quickly, I slept, I woke up, and I had a quick meal before landing. That’s a lot of sleep for a daytime flight and while I think the new British Airways Club World Suite also is extremely comfortable for sleeping (and the bedding is excellent – here’s my review of BA business class on the same LHR-ORD route), I’d still tend to choose UA over BA because of the air vents, which make it so much easier to sleep. I simply cannot understand why airlines choose not to install air vents/gaspers on new aircraft.
Amenity Kit
United currently is offering a fanny-pack style (isn’t it amazing these things have come back into style?!) Therabody-branded amenity kit with contents including:
- skin mist
- eye serum
- lip balm
- hand cream
- dental kit
- eyeshade
- earplugs
- pen
- tissues
- socks
Slippers were also offered (placed on each seat). The slippers, by the way, are excellent and so much better than most hotel slippers. I tend to take these with me and use them on my entire trip because they are studier and softer than most disposable slippers.
Food + Drink
Menus were placed on each seat before boarding.
Dinner was served after takeoff and a snack before landing.
Service was very efficient, with dinner served within an hour of departure. First came a hot towel, followed by warm nuts and a choice of beverage.
I had pre-ordered a sirloin steak (with sweet potato mash and roasted asparagus) and it was served on a single tray along with a side salad, bread, and appetizer (considering the main course, I chose burrata over a beef appetizer).
Let’s face it, the steak looks disgusting. That gray piece of meat is not something I would ever want to eat at home. It was certainly a lot of food…two salads plus a huge hunk of beef along with the yams and asparagus. The quality of the meat was not great, but at least it was fairly lean. Amazing what I will eat on a plane, though…
The reason I continue to order beef on United on flights that do not originate in the USA is because historically it has been pretty good. Like from Sao Paulo:
Or Tokyo:
Or even from London many years ago:
But this was not a great dish. For dessert, I limited myself to an ice cream sundae, skipping the cheese course and cake.
I don’t drink much alcohol when flying United, but you can see the wine list above, including Champagne from Heidsieck Monopole Blue Top Brut, NV. I do try to stay hydrated and had a glass of water for my pre-departure beverage and also consumed a bottle of water waiting in my suite.
Snacks were available mid-flight including sweet and savory packaged snacks like chips (crisps as Brits call them), cookies, nuts, whole fruit, and other nibbles.
Before landing, a choice between a beef burger with French Fries or a risotto with salad was offered. Both were served with a packaged triple chocolate cookie from MaryBake, a Belgian cookie company. Since I’ve had the burger so many times, I ordered the risotto… which was a mistake. I should have just kept sleeping. This dish looked like a grog of baby food (or maybe something even worse) and was overwhelmed by peas.
United should offer something more simple like pasta with noodles and tomato or pesto sauce and not bother with risotto, which takes a lot of time to prepare properly. Heck, though, even the Trader Joe’s microwave mushroom risotto would have been 10x better than this slop.
You won’t go hungry on United, but the catering is very hit or miss. I’ve more recently had a couple of very decent meals, but that’s the problem: you just don’t know in advance.
IFE + Wi-FI
United offers wi-fi onboard ($19.99 for a flight pass with no data caps, $5.99 for one hour, $9.99 for two hours, both options with the ability to pause) as well as a respectable library of movies, TV shows, and games.
I started watching a film called The Creator during dinner and finished it before landing:
Not bad…I enjoy dystopian sci-fi movies…
Noise-canceling headphones (poor quality, but at least they do not have to be collected before landing like on Delta or American) were offered.
Pulling out of LHR T2, we taxied past several planes, including another United 767 bound for Newark, an ANA 777 bound for Tokyo, Ethiopian A350 bound for Addis Ababa, Air Canada 777 bound for Toronto, Singapore Airlines A380 bound for Singapore, my Turkish Airlines A330 returning to Istanbul, and a Qatar Airways 777 bound for Doha parked next to an EL Al 787 bound for Tel Aviv.
We taxied past the rat-infested Concorde and took off on runway 27L and flew over a fleet of British Airways aircraft parked in T5 and then over Windsor Castle.
Lavatory
The 767-300 has two lavatories in the front (unlike the 767-400), including one just in front of my seat. I used it before landing and the trash receptacle was overflowing with paper towels. Therabody hand creme and facial mist are available in the lavatory, along with a Murchison-Hume spot-cleaning product that stained one of my shirts…stay away from it.
Service
The purser, a gregarious man who called everyone “my friend” worked my section of the cbain. I had to chuckle…such an American thing. We use the term friend so flippantly in this culture and rather than address passengers by name, this well-intentioned purser just called everyone “my friend.”
Quite honestly, I think only Americans could get away with this, yet the purser was charming in his own way and also noticed when I woke up about an hour before landing and asked if I wanted to eat anything.
CONCLUSION
So what is the verdict on the United Airlines 767-300ER in Polaris Business Class? As usual, a great seat, great bedding, and good service…with pretty forgettable food. If United could just get the food right and offer consistently excellent service, I do think it would offer a leading product that would far outpace its European peers. But until then, people will choose European carriers because they know that the food will be edible and they will still have a lie-flat seat. As for me, I’ll keep choosing United…my six hours of sleep on this flight are testimony to that.
I do think that United deferred too much maintenance which is what got them into the situation they’re in now. Likewise if passengers can actually see that their plane is dirty then it’s only natural for them to wonder about maintenance on things they can’t see.
Unless the color is off for my phone the steak is pink rather than grey. That makes it medium – still not mooing the way you prefer but hardly shoe leather. For that matter, wouldn’t you rather have a steak that’s cooked a bit more if the quality is low?
The steak is a couple shades of grey off from Michelin rubber. It looks bad.
Jan
No moisture at brown-pink. Should be some juiciness. Unless it was never a cut of beef to be cooked like a steak. You are correct.
@Matthew, “ANA 777 bound for London”
You probably meant Tokyo. 😉
It’s amazing that UA does so many things right in J – slippers, amenities, amenity kits, and lounges. If they got their act together, they actually have the potential to be excellent.
I always share the concern about maintenance, but on EVERY airline. I do think that it’s worth mentioning that the cleanliness is not always a direct correlation with aircraft maintenance. Cleaning is usually done by a third party hired through contractors at the airport and not all of them have the best help and are rushed if the aircraft is on the ground for a short time or if they have too many turn arounds at the same time.
I used to run cabin appearance for an airline. And yes the perception is that if it’s dirty it can’t be maintained well. But it’s amazing what little things can do… I thought it was a great victory that I got the aisle carpet replaced every 60 days and toilet shrouds replaced every 90. Two items everyone notices if they are dirty or clean. A brand new aisle carpet (that’s multiple shades lighter than a dirty one) can make a cabin overall look very good.
Instead of replacing the aisle carpet, why don’t Airlines deep clean it? Like, why not use an industrial carpet washing vacuum on the aircraft carpet every so often?
“a packaged tripe chocolate cookie”
In a dessert, nothing beats the flavor combo of tripe and chocolate.
I’m going out on a limb here but I suspect it was triple but since tripe actually is a word it didn’t get caught as a misspell. Or maybe it’s a new flavor.
Thanks, Captain Obvious 😉
These morrons write for a living and still cant spell above a 3rd grade level!
It’s moron.
“ packaged tripe chocolate cookie”. I cringed and laughed at the same time
Quite a combo!
@Matthew: For the cargo door not closing and deferral… typically in this case it isn’t a safety matter. Probably an issue with the hydraulics to close the door. It can be manually pumped open/closed. (it’s a royal pain in the ass, I’ve done it on a 787). So the powered door closure was probably deferred and it had to get hand-pumped shut. It still seals up the same (at the end the last step of closing/first step of opening is a manual handle anyway).
Same here. And it freaking takes forever!
This. The deferral is 100% safe, but it IS a total pain in the a$$ for the ground crew that has to deal with it.
It’s like having a mini van where the automatic door quit working and you have to manually shut it yourself. It still works. It’s still safe to ride in it. But in this case the minivan door is a really heavy hydraulically actuated door that needs to be pumped closed/open manually.
I try to avoid the 767s on my runs to LHR; they suffer a lot from mechanicals.
That mystery meat looks like something we used to pull out of an MRE foil pack.
That lav trash overflow is unacceptable. And obviously, that’s not on the catering, or the ground maintenance crew.
It’s a NO from me … dirty cabins and slop that UA passes as food. I don’t care how good the bedding is, they can’t whitewash the other points away.
You have pretty much summed up every Polaris flight. I’ve taken in the past six years. The seat is great, but the meal is mediocre. I would never order the meat unless it’s designated fillet or beef short rib. United miles are still more useful than most so UA still has an edge For my business assuming the price is competitive. But of course, I can credit any *A. miles to UA
How is Chicago for global entry arrivals? That is also a factor in my decision. I avoid EWR like the plague.
ORD very easy for Global Entry which is a huge contrast versus the regular line, which can see waits exceeding three hours.
It has never been more than 1-2 minutes for me.
I flew to and from London a couple weeks ago on the same crappy old 767. My experience was very similar. We had a very lovely London based flight crew on the way over and a pretty good crew on the way back. However, the plane was literally filthy. The space between the fuselage and my seat was full of food crumbs, cookies, and wrappers. It was absolutely disgusting as was the food. I needed the points to get to 1K and it’s the only flight that fit our travel policy so United it was.
Crews have been really good lately, which surprised me considering how the contract negotiations are dragging on.
Agree. The flight attendants and pursers seem to have noticeably improved their service over the last 6 months.
You are spot on with the air vents. Being able to adjust temperature means a great deal for decent sleep. I am very disappointed when I fly newer (non United) planes without those!
In the early to mid 90’s I flew UAL once a week to LHR and recall the food was amazing. How sad the state of UAL is today- and yet I’m sure they were making more money back then and the ticket prices were virtually the same.
We just flew this exact flight 2 months after you did. The crew was nice and took really good care of our daughter and us. Booked with Lifemiles for 3 people.
Food looks disgusting and those planes are really old.
Why do you post twice on the same flight? A lot of what’s said is repetitive.
I post a teaser for people with short attention spans who just want a summary and then I post a longer review later on. I’ve done it for years and as I metnioed early in this review, not trying to hide it..
You can always expect matt’s reviews to have a stench of a wanker and entitled to it and this one didn’t disappoint!
Speaking of wankers…
Ugliest airline duvet in the world: horrible blue/purple/green colors and outdated geometric patterns from the 80’s. Awful!!!
That’s not the duvet, that’s the “day blanket” with a pattern created by fashion designer Claude Kameni.
Just flew DEN to LHR on a 6 y.o. UA 787. The menu was broadly similar but I chose the burrata and then the fish (blackened cod) and it was really quite good. And the aircraft was clean. No real complaints at all.
I know better than to order steak on an airplane. Enough said.
Last time I flew Lufthansa transatlantic (Sept 2023) the food was absolutely horrid sauce-less pasta with no options for anything else and the breakfast was a “sandwich” with one slice of grilled zucchini in it. I remember thinking how I would have actually preferred an American carrier’s food over this.
European airlines tend to be overrated in my experience, at least in steerage.
I agree with your comments. Sadly though the 767-300 are dilapidated and need to be retired asap. There are constant technical issues.
United uses the 767-300 on the EWR-ZRH route. Just a few days ago the flight from Newark to Zurich was delayed several hours because they needed to switch planes because of technical issues. Today the flight from Zurich to Newark was cancelled because the plane needed to be taken out of service.