United Airlines will take delivery of its first “premium heavy” 767-300ER later this month, featuring a dramatic increase in business class seats.
Last year I wrote a piece entitled Will United Remove Seats From Business Class? after United’s Executive Vice President Andrew Nocella said:
We continue to look at the number of premium class seats we have onboard all our aircraft given where our hubs are located. And I think, we actually will have more to say on this in the future as we make sure that we have the right number onboard every single aircraft we have.
And with AA reducing its 787-8 business class cabin from 28 to 20 seats, I surmised that United might be planning a similar reduction. Delta is also in the process of removing business class seats from its 777s.
Thanks goodness I was way off in my hypothesis. Quite the contrary, Nocella was only referring to enlargement of business class coming to select 767-300 aircraft. Per Flight Global, retrofits are underway in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company.
The new aircraft, dubbed the 76L, will feature:
- 46 United Polaris (Business Class) seats
- 22 United Premium Plus (Premium Economy) seats
- 99 United Economy Seats
That’s up from the current configuration of 30 Polaris business class seats and 184 in United economy class (split between 46 in EconomyPlus and 138 in standard economic class).
United had provided virtually no insight on how many aircraft are being reconfigured, when these aircraft will enter service, and on what routes. EconomyPlus will remain, but only in the sections of two (seating is 2-3-2 in economy class).
United CEO Oscar Munoz did tell Skift’s Brian Sumers that London was under consideration and that “business-to-business markets are going to be the ones that we are going to fly those airplanes to.”
CONCLUSION
Going from 30 seats to 48 seats in Polaris Business Class is a dramatic premium cabin increase. It’s nice to see United leading instead of following Delta. United currently operates 35 Boeing 767-300s. Time will tell how many are retrofitted, but this cabin refresh marks an upgrade for premium cabin travelers. But what about economy class? I think many will appreciate the more intimate cabin.
> Read More: United Airlines 767-300 Polaris Business Class Amsterdam To Newark Review
I think this is especially interesting in view of what’s happening at American. According to Gary Leff (as I suspect you know) American has been putting their newly configured 787’s on unusual routes like Cancun and Anchorage because they no longer have enough premium seats for some of the markets they once served. That they cannot find a better use for these aircraft serves as a clear indicator that the demand for premium cabin seats on long haul flights (like those the 787 was designed to operate) isn’t shrinking. I very much wonder how American is going to deal with its 787-8 fleet if they strip out so many premium seats that the best use of the aircraft becomes flying it to Cancun.
United’s move strikes me as being brilliant. The 767 fleet is paid for and operated on “shorter” long haul flights (like East Coast US to Europe) the efficiency gains of newer aircraft mean less. Going premium heavy potentially allows them to reallocate larger aircraft to routes where they are better utilized while at the same time adding seats and frequency in business to business markets. Like you I’m also especially glad to see United not just continuing to blindly follow Delta and American.
Now if only they would approach Mileage Plus like an opportunity to really drive marginal spend away from their competitors and offer something different and more compelling.
American’s choice makes absolutely zero sense. United’s does. The reason is simple. Transatlantic Economy yields are so low, outside of 6 weeks in the summer to even bother having the seats on the plane. Far more sensible to sell premium seats that you have a chance of earning a decent yield on.
While I won’t defend AA management removing those business class seats, the reason they’re sending them to Cancun this winter, as they privately stated to employees (but was circulated by the bloggers recently as well) is because they held them off of their usual routes on the hope that the QF JV would be approved by now and they could deploy them to the south Pacific.
United has the ‘pack em in’ 777, the ‘utility 787’ but the 767 fleet can make for a solid long haul premium plane. I think of Houston-Santiago or San Francisco-Shanghai where you get just a daily cycle but lots of premium seats. Smart.
Economy Plus will be the 2 seats together on either side of the plane. Basic economy will be the 3 seats together in the middle between the aisles. 17 planes in this configuration.
Do you have a source for that? Interesting info.
The LOPA was posted on FlyerTalk, way back in April 2018. John H’s explanation below is spot on.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/29638158-post375.html
Thanks.
Matthew – this has been revealed quite a while ago. Economy plus will remain, although will be in a different configuration than the existing 767. Except for the last few rows of the aircraft, the aisle/window seats on either side of the aircraft will be E+ and each set of 3 seats in the middle will be regular E.
13 aircraft have been converted to the 76A config (low J) from the 76N (3 class IPTE) and the last 76N is HKG for mod and will bring the total 76A fleet to 14 aircraft.
14 76C (2 class diamond config) will be converted the 76L (high J) and the three frames from Hawaiian will also be converted to this config. The first one is in mod right now. This will bring the total fleet to 17 aircraft
7 76C will be leaving the fleet soon, however the 9 789 on order will pick up the capacity.
EWR-LHR, EWR-GVA, IAD-GVA, ORD-LHR should be expected for the 76L swell as a few more business routes. EWR-MUC?
This is interesting. So the rows in economy become staggered I presume given the difference in pitch between E and E+?
For many of us whose businesses only pay for economy flights (and rely on elite status to try to get upgrades) this is both positive and negative. The biggest negative is reduction of premium economy and airlines tightening rules around upgrading to those seats
The good news is that there is no reduction in premium economy, nor Economy Plus. The seating of the High J, in comparison to the 763’s already retrofitted with Polaris is –
46 Polaris/business (up 16)
22 Premium Plus/premium economy (up 22/new)
47 Economy Plus/E+ (up 1)
52 Regular Y/E- (down 86)
American has A321t that offers the same service united is trying offer. It has first class and business class.
This won’t be a primarily transcon airplane, and AA doesn’t take their 32T over the pond…
Are there any routes from Ord with the new Polaris seat?
All ORD to LHR flights are on 767s with Polaris seats. I flew one on Jan 15. Very comfortable.
Thanks Tom I didn’t know that!
Not yet they’re not. I just did a couple of random dummy bookings, andI’m seeing only the 2-class diamond seatmap. ORD-LHR is getting some Polaris swap ins, but there’s no route or service dedicated to Polaris yet.
I should have added that the retrofits of the pmUA 772’ s are progressing very nicely (15 done, 3 in mod, 15 to go) that fleet should be done by the summer. And that bodes well for full time Polaris service ex-ORD, with one or more of PVG, PEK, HKG and NRT.
And the High J discussed here is being earmarked for ORD-LHR.