United is reportedly considering the Airbus A321LR to replace its Boeing 757-200s currently operating a handful of transatlantic routes.
Last week I asked if United will remove seats from business class. Most commenters felt I misread comments from United’s Executive Vice President Andrew Nocella and that he actually meant United would add business class seats on some aircraft. United already offers a better premium cabin ratio to American and Delta.
And that may well be for the 767 retrofits. But if Paul Lyons is to believed, if United does pursue an A321 program it will feature a layout of:
- 16 Polaris Business Class
- 72 Economy Plus
- 90 United Economy
Currently, United’s transatlantic 757s feature:
- 16 Polaris Business Class (older B/E Diamond seat)
- 45 Economy Plus
- 108 United Economy
What stands out to me is such a huge Economy Plus cabin while business class remains at 16 seats. There is no mention of Premium Plus, United’s new premium economy cabin. This seems to buck all recent trends from United.
Who exactly is Paul Lyons? He is Head of Advisory at IBA Group, a UK-based aviation technical consulting firm. While his firm mostly advises budget carriers, I take his statement seriously because he is well-connected to Airbus and willing to go on the record. Per AIN Online:
Lyons also noted that the A321LR’s cruise speed of Mach 0.78 is “relatively low … compared to some of its competitors” such as the Mach 0.85-cruising Boeing 787, possibly producing a negative “knock-on effect for utilization on some of the shorter-length but still long-haul sectors” operated by the A321LR.
CONCLUSION
I’m fairly agnostic about whether a 757-200 or A321LR offers a better experience, especially if the seats are identical. It is hardly surprising that United is looking ahead to replace its aging 757-200 fleet. It is a bit surprising, though, that it would consider a configuration with so many Economy Plus seats unless it will concentrate these aircraft in more leisure markets. Thus, I’m skeptical about this report.
image: Clemens Vasters / Wikimedia Commons
This seems unlikely on many counts:
– UA will almost certainly want PE on its TATL product
-UA has been consistently reducing the ratio of E+ in the past few years, not increasing it to these levels.
-UA, since the merger with CO, has always invited bids from Airbus but simply as a means of keeping Boeing honest – it always buys from Boeing (except in the secondhand market).
-The utilization issue is not important for short TATL sectors where they realistically cannot do more than an out and back in the same 24 hour period. The only exception is if they want to blend the fleet with their Premium Transcon service – but that would require far more airframes.
-Finally, UA appears to be moving towards a High-J, Low-J approach as used by BA. This proposal would be counter to that.
I’m just putting it out there. I’ve asked UA for comment, but have yet to receive any.
I’d be surprised to see PE on any a321LR aircraft, just as there isn’t any on DL/AA – it just doesn’t make sense.
PE would require a 3-2 configuration to be sensible, as a 2-2 config would:
1) Be slightly wider than the business class cabin as the BE Diamond seats set at a slight horizontal angle need to be a little narrower, causing potential cannibalization of the J cabin, especially on daytime flights
2) Not draw enough of a yield premium vs J to justify taking up ~60% of the space of a J seat (38″ vs 63″ for the Diamond in the same 2-2 seats per row). As a comparison, the 777 config has Prem Plus taking up 8 seats per row at 38″ and a BE Diamond seat at 6 per row and 63″ pitch, so Prem Plus takes up ~44% of the space.
3-2 likely isn’t happening as they probably can’t get enough of a yield premium to justify that over economy plus, especially as these planes won’t be flying the long-haul routes that the planes with Prem Plus will be flying.
To clarify, I mean “just as there isn’t any on DL/AA *narrowbody aircraft*”
For that matter, the only airline I can think of who had Premium Economy and lie flat business together on a narrowbody aircraft is Openskies, which no longer exists.
United will probably just put a different color seat cover on the first 6 rows of E+, give you a free drink and call is Premium Economy like Delta doe and see how many suckers pay up for it.
UA (and pmCO) increases utilization of their ETOPS 752s by sending them from EWR to Florida (MCO, PBI) in-between TATL legs.
I sure hope they buy American.
They may order A321LR as part of the deal of cancelling their 45 A350-900…
Good point.
@Moyang has a point, but this is also at least in part a stalking horse intended to put pressure on Boeing around the configuration/pricing of a 797.