What is it is like to fly United Airlines Polaris Business Class To Brazil? This review highlights my journey from Chicago to São Paulo on a 787-9 then from São Paulo to Houston on a 777-200.
My flight from Chicago to São Paulo was operated by a Boeing 787-9 that had not yet been retrofitted. With only a dozen passengers seated in business class, my friend and I had the entire rear business class cabin to ourselves and our own flight attendant, the lovely and amazing Karen Braum. I “name drop” her because she was simply the best–so attentive, so friendly, and such a joy to be around.
United 845
Chicago (ORD) – Sao Paulo (GRU)
Wednesday, June 16
Depart: 9:20am
Arrive: 9:30am
Duration: 10 hours, 10 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 787-9
Seat: 6K (Business Class)
Reports of bad service in the air always leave me curious (not so much in the lounge) as I routinely experience flight attendants who love their job and take great pride in showing excellent customer service. I saw it on the way to Chicago with the pair of flight attendants who helped a disabled old man into the lavatory and I saw such a joy in Karen, a contagious joy that could not help but to make me smile.
United used to offer wine flights in Polaris Business class. Using beautiful glasses and a special three-glass holder, passengers could sample the different wines on the menu in order to choose a glass that best suited them.
It was a popular part of the Polaris soft product, but was cut in 2018 after United said it encouraged people to drink too much alcohol (not because people got drunk and misbehaved, but because the wine budget was not just broken, but exponentially broken).
Well, when I asked Karen which white wine would pare best with my fish, she brought out all three bottles, three plastic cups (oh, United…), and created a wine flight for me.
The clear winner was Weingut Bründlmayer from Austria. Not only was the wine tasty, but it was so much more enjoyable after having tasted the other choices.
(And so much better in my own glass, which I brought from home)
If you’re a regular reader, you know I often try to squeeze a second meal out of an airline. I don’t consider myself a glutton (my 30 inch waistline attests to that, though perhaps I should refrain from such introspection), but I do have a very healthy appetite and when I have fish, I like to have pasta with it.
Since the cabin was only booked 12/48, I figured there would be plenty of meals leftover and requested one. There wasn’t! Twice in a row that has happened from Chicago! While I am happy that the O’Hare flight kitchen is not catering for full cabins on mostly-empty flights, I would have enjoyed some ravioli with my fish.
Not to despair, Karen found me a spinach pasta dish from economy class, which actually hit the spot quite nicely.
The fish featured beurre blanc sauce and served with risotto, green beans, and peppers, plus a tasty salad of mango, cabbage, onions, and cilantro.
Vanilla ice cream for dessert (thankfully United finally seems to have run out of its supply of mango sorbet…). The bread was warmed.
And then I slept for eight glorious, uninterrupted hours.
Ah yes, the seat. I suppose I should mention it. While the 2-2-2 B/E Diamond seating is past its prime, if you choose a bulkhead seat you’ll have plenty of room for your feet, which makes sleeping much easier. United is currently about halfway done with its 787-9 retrofit program.
Curled up in my warm blanket from Saks Fifth Avenue, and a pillow case stuffed with blankets, I slept well.
Wait, what?
Brazil, due to coronavirus concerns, prohibits pillows on airplanes. Because pillows are not allowed, United creates a faux-pillow by putting the daytime throw blanket into a pillow case. While my friend cannot stand it and brings his own pillow onboard (he frequently travels to Brazil), I didn’t really notice the difference.
I appreciated the slippers, which were proactively offered.
I woke up, looked at the screen, and saw landing was in 34 minutues.
Great, I slept through breakfast…
Oh no, not on Karen’s watch.
She magically appeared moments after I stirred, wished me a good morning, a cup of coffee, then offered breakfast.
Standard protocol calls for breakfast service beginning 90 minutes prior to arrival. But in an empty cabin, there is no need to start that early. While 34 minutes is pushing it, Karen brought out my breakfast tray and presented it to me with a smile.
Breakfast this morning was a croissant (warmed), a bowl of fruit, yogurt, and egg whites with potatoes, chicken sausage, and a finely red sauce with a great kick to it.
As I finished breakfast, we were already beginning final descent into Brazil.
Bottom Line: Amazing Flight, Despite Old Seat
This flight was truly a treat. Karen is a treasure United should hold onto I slept for over eight hours. What more could I ask for?
BONUS – The Trip Back On A 777-200
I don’t have nearly as much to say about the trip home, so I thought I’d include it here.
United 063
Friday, June 18
Sao Paulo (GRU) – Houston (IAH)
Depart: 11:30pm
Arrive: 9:30am
Time: 10 hours, 10 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200
Seat: 8A (Business Class)
United’s Sao Paulo – Houston flight departs at 10:10pm and includes dinner service after takeoff and breakfast before landing.
I was pleased to see my flight featured the new Polars business class product, which is much nicer when you are traveling alone.
The purser was quite pleasant and went around the cabin introducing himself and welcoming each passenger onboard. He also took meal orders and dinner showed up very shortly after takeoff.
Steak on a plane is a risky bet, but I decided to chance it since we were departing from Brazil after all. Not only was I not disappointed, I enjoyed a wonderful steak dinner cooked medium rare with a lovely chimichuri sauce, roasted potatoes, and cooked zucchini and carrots.
On the side was a green lead salad with cabbage, olives, tomatoes, and fennel.
No dessert was served.
But the “supper was perfect” and I fell right asleep afterwards, awakening about an hour before landing.
Breakfast included a plain omelet topped in parsley with mushrooms, onions, sausage, potatoes, and cooked tomatoes. On the side, a hot croissant, strawberry yogurt, and sliced fruit.
Two good meals out of Brazil, plenty of sleep…and that was the flight.
CONLUSION
I quite enjoyed my trip to Brazil on United and look forward to returning to Sao Paulo again and visiting Rio (for the first time) later this year. United’s product is quite predictable, but when you have a flight attendant like Karen, your flight goes from satisfactory to amazing.
Very nice to read you’re traveling again. A salute to Karen Baum.
“unteinreupted hours” – is this the German 😉
And “coronaovisu”.
If we’re playing that game, Polars business class sounds chilly!
“United is currently about halfway done with its 787-9 retrofit program” – Are you sure about that?
Their tracker says much differently, 3 out of 27 completed.
https://view.ceros.com/united/polaris-tracker-desktop-4/p/3
I’ll double check, but I believe I am correct and the website is just a bit out of date.
Not to say that is correct, but the tracker is wildly out of date. Still says copyright 2019 at the bottom, and speaks to the retrofit continuing through 2020. I think they stopped updating it when they paused the retrofits due to COVID and haven’t updated it since resuming.
United stopped updating their Polaris site some time ago. This site is more accurate and shows them 42% complete with 789 conversions.
https://sites.google.com/site/unitedfleetsite/polaris-mod-schedule
Please stop normalizing these sub standard meals for international premium cabin.
They are a dramatic and unacceptable step down from prior levels, and considering what Lufthansa group provides, an unacceptable standard for the alliance.
It’s on bloggers like you to advocate for a higher standard for travelers.
I haven’t flown LX or OS business class recently, but that spinach pasta from Y looks so much better than the parsimonious cold cutx LH itself serves in C within Europe (even the longer flights taking 3-4 hours).
However, I would heartily agree with your assessment of UA catering if TK were to be used as the alliance benchmark (and, come to think of it, I have also had a few phenomenal meals on Aegean this year).
Is it really fair to compare a long haul meal, even in economy, to a short inter-European meal, even in business class?
I think it is- the intra-Europe meals that A3 and TK serve in business class are in a different league to UA long haul Y, and obviously put LH to shame.
Again, you are comparing inter-European meals to long haul. If you’re going to compare United’s catering to Lufthansa’s, it makes more sense to compare both of their long haul meals. Or at least compare Lufthansa and United’s short haul catering.
What I am saying is very simple: the snacks that LH serve in European flights are completely unacceptable for all but their shortest flights. If they are unable/unwilling to match the top-notch business class meals offered by other Star carriers in Europe, they should at least serve a basic, filling hot meal such as a pasta dish.
Agreed. The fact that this is considered premium food and beverage service is pathetic. Fly any other non-us based airline and it’s a clear difference. Better food, better wine, better service. United’s Polaris seat is nice, but severely diminished by its sub par food and beverage program ( although slightly better since they changed their catering company)
Pre-COVID, I thought the food on UA business class was sometimes okay, sometimes not good at all, but the PDB, the wine flights (while they lasted) and the sundae cart made it seem a better experience than it would otherwise be. Now that they have cut it back, I will really try to avoid them once my international travel starts back again (whenever that will be, maybe early next year). A pre-flight Polaris Lounge experience might change my mind, but I won’t count on that coming back until I see it. On the hard product, Polaris is fine, but I never found it that much different than other lie flat seats of the major carriers. And I’ve never had bad service on UA, just sometimes inattentive.
No pillows? Who comes up with this garbage?
So sorry that the FA has to live with a tainted name, Karen.
So happy that a review was written. In these pandemic days, I feel it’s only responsible to travel for very important reasons but Matthew is providing a service to all, not just selfish travel.
I rarely remember my FA’s but I do remember a very nice one, Frankie P., of US Airways. I do not know what P stands for. I later learned that somebody else had a good experience in with US Airways transatlantic business class (with non-lie flat seats, ugh, but that was the standard then) and it was with Frankie.
The eggs on the outbound look scary.
They do, but they are tasty. UA just needs to get is presentation back in order and restore glasses. The food served is the same as prior to the pandemic – we just need appetizers and the dessert cart back.
I’ve had better eggs on Air Koryo. At least I hope they were eggs.
They were eggs – the question is what kind of eggs?!
Wow, even Royal Air Maroc has that beat in business. That looked awful to me in every direction.
Two days is an awfully short time for a trip to South America. Why didn’t you tack on a few days more?
Flew Polaris from GRU to EWR about 10 days ago. It was ok. No preflight drink. Food was substandard. The red socks were a high point. Seat was nice. Service was mixed. Some nice attendants. And some rude person that poked me (and probably others) while we slept ordering us to fix our masks if they slipped below the nose while sleeping. Just rude. Certainly being polite isn’t too hard! I’m looking forward to my flights next month to IST and CGK on Swiss and TK to compare the service standards.
I have only had wonderful experiences with United in both Business and First Class (primarily Tokyo). Lucky me. I also remember the great FA’s and write to corporate about their fine work. I hope the other readers will do the same.
I enjoy your articles very much but come on, Matt. Do you ever proofread your work before hitting send? I’ve found at least six typos or grammatical errors.
Is “The clear winter is Weingut Bründlmayer” code for when you approach your German informant?
Awesome I fly to Brazil from IAH. Nice job. You missed nothing. Looking forward to run into you on another United flight..
It has been 3 years since I last flew to Brazil but typically even on economy class food is way better when catered in Brazil vs when catered in the US. As always said, it is not fantastic because they load what airlines order but whatever is ordered it is well done.
There is no pillow ban, just United’S interpretation of it… A/A has pillows on their Brazil flights…
https://www.aerotime.aero/25679-fact-check-did-brazil-really-ban-pillows-on-airplanes
The fact that there is no primary source for this ban – save for anonymous United flight attendant’s interpretation of it – may raise some red flags. So, before reporting the story, AeroTime decided to contact Anvisa and ask for their comment.
The answer was as expected:
“According to art. 34 of RDC nº 02/2003 and Technical Note 101 that update sanitary measures in aircrafts and airports during Covid-19 pandemic, pillows, blankets and earphones should be single-wrapped and cleaned after every flight. Additionally, pillows should be made of impermeable material. If the pillow covers are made of permeable material, it is mandatory to clean and sanitize the pillows and pillow covers, but for many companies it is not a practicable procedure. Therefore, it is offered to the airline company the option not to provide pillows during flights.”
So, Anvisa’s website does not contain any information on Brazil’s ban on pillows because there was no ban. There was a requirement to sanitize both pillows and permeable pillow covers, and United, presumably, decided not to do that, getting rid of the soft amenity instead. Interestingly, all pillow substitutes will still have to be sanitized the same way, although doing that may have been deemed easier.