One upside to the pandemic is that it allowed airlines to accelerate planned maintenance and retrofits. In the case of United Airlines, it has retrofitted more aircraft to feature its latest Polaris business class seat and is drawing closer to completion. Here’s the current breakdown of retrofits completed and in progress.
United Airlines Polaris Retrofits – Which Planes Feature New Business Class?
As of today, the following aircraft feature United’s latest Polaris business class seats:
- 767-300
- 30 business class seats – 14 of 17 complete, three stored
- 46 business class seats – 19 complete, last two currently undergoing modifications
- 777-200
- GE engines – 21 complete, last one now undergoing modification
- Pratt & Whitney engines – 29 complete, all currently grounded
- 787-8
- 10 complete, last tw0 currently undergoing modifications
- 787-9
- 14 of 38 complete
My source is the very reliable @UnitedFleetWebs on Twitter:
Polaris status:
763 High J, 19 complete, last 2 now in mod
772GE, 21 complete, last now in mod
788, 10 complete, last 2 now in mod
78X/77W, all delivered with Polaris/PP
763 30BF Polaris, 14 of 17 complete, 3 stored
772PW, 29 complete, grounded/fan blades
789 14 of 38 complete— United Fleet Website (@UnitedFleetWebs) May 3, 2021
The 787-10 and 777-300ER were delivered with Polaris seats and thus are not undergoing retrofits.
The 767-400, which is returning to service for the ramp up in summer travels, will not be retrofitted at this time. United also maintains a subfleet of 777-200 aircraft dubbed HD for high density that it uses for leisure markets like Hawaii. These continue to have 2-4-2 seating in business class.
United’s Polaris business class seats are not industry-leading, but a substantial leap forward from the last generation of business class seats, which did not include direct aisle access for passengers seated in window seats and in the case of legacy United’s former 777-200s, had eight seats across in business class.
CONCLUSION
These seats do a great job of keeping cabin density intact while providing more privacy and comfort. It is nice to hear that the final 767-300s, 777-200s, and 787-8s are now undergoing modification. Hopefully the remaining 787-9s will also be expeditiously completed.
image: United
I took a 46-seat J 767 from JFK to SFO recently, and I would never take it eastbound to Europe until Polaris lounges reopen (and maybe not even after they do). Single galley for 46 passengers… yikes!
If you’re sitting in the back, it’ll take 2 hours to get your meal… I don’t even want to try to picture how hectic the pre-arrival breakfast would be. I’d totally take it westbound though, and just watch movies while waiting for the food…
Does 772GE cover all the wide bodies with the old high density 2-4-2 configurations? If so this news is cause for celebration.
GE 777s are the exCon seats (currently still featured on 787-9s). UA had P&W and those have all been retrofitted except for the 777HDs for Hawaii and hub-hub routes. All P&Ws are currently grounded indefinitely after the engine explosion earlier this year.
The fact that UA revealed the then new Polaris product in June 2016 means it’s been nearly 5 years and aircraft are still waiting to be retrofitted is right on par with the how Berlin Brandenburg airport was rolled out. The incompetence is unbelievable quite honestly even for the incredibly low bar set by US legacy carriers.
Fair point, but think how much the retrofit process has been accelerated during the pandemic.
That only makes it worse. If not for the pandemic, UA would be even further behind. It’s pretty embarrassing.
More importantly, what routes are they flying them on? On many routes between Chicago and Europe, you don’t see these seats all that much. Hopefully that will change soon.
Always check the seat maps, but with the 788s and 772s virtually done, you’ll see them consistently to London, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt. Hopefully Brussels, Dublin, and all destinations will soon feature the new seats.
They don’t even use a 787 with the new polaris business class for LAX-SIN route. What a shame.
LAX-SIN ended before retrofits had even begun. The original plan was not to retrofit the 789s. You can bet that once SFO-SIN resumes, it will be utilizing the new configuration.
SFO-TLV, SFO-DEL, ORD-TLV and ORD-DEL all still use the old 789 configuration. Such a shame.
Plus, with more countries opening up, I wonder how long until Polaris Clubs start reopening.
@Rob @Matthew
Is there any chance UA will ever market the long haul Hawaii flights as Polaris? That would drive the demand to open the Polaris Lounges (and justify one in HNL). DL markets their long haul flights to HNL as Delta One, same as international
Potentially, but UA can still fill planes without the extra soft product. Thus, I doubt it will.
@Matthew I’m not a UA hating troll either. In fact, I’m a Star Alliance loyalist (not blindly — I’ve been lucky to have fabulous service and experience on so many SA carriers including UA). Question: The official UA Polaris tracker website says only 3 of 27 787-9s have been completed with only one currently being retrofitted. Is the website simply not correct? If so, why is this unofficial Twitter user more in the know than the UA site?
That’s a very good question. I’ll check with United.
@Tom @Matthew
Could the discrepancy be due to some of the new 789s being delivered with Polaris and not needing a retrofit?
The seat is good. I’m glad not to likely sit in any more 2-4-2s. But at this point, the Polaris seat seems to me to be roughly the same quality as the other major carriers. And since the Polaris F&B has deteriorated to being the worst of the major carriers (not to mention the closure of the Polaris lounges), the overall product is still one to avoid if you can. And I say that as a 1K for many years, and currently a Plat.
Really, Polaris as marketed was always a fiction, even before the pandemic, except for an improved seat and the short-lived lounges, at least those that were actually built.
Every time through the years that I have seen any information about United’s Polaris seat installations, it has always said that the work was being done in Hong Kong or mainland China cities. Thus the work has been extensively done in China, or perhaps totally in China. When large United States companies choose to send jobs overseas when they could do the work at home it bodes poorly for American jobs going forward. We have lost our manufacturing base in this country because companies, with the government’s blessing, have allowed our jobs to be sent overseas, and it just keeps happening in industry after industry. Now United Airlines is a part of it. There should be greater loyalty to American workers, because it affects all of us in the United States when our good jobs are sent packing. There are a lot of aviation mechanics in the United States, too.
Useful post. I checked the tracker recently and I think its out of date / not being maintained.
Interesting that the pandemic accelerated the installations, because seems like it is taking a long time.
Disappointing that in April, 2 of the 3 planes flying LAX EWR being the old layout (+1 new layout LAX-JFK). If you can ask a follow-up to United, please ask them when they will commit to all of the transcontinental premium service using the upgraded Polaris.
On a sidenote, I never understood why UA doesn’t offer transatlantic premium service to BOS and Dulles (and possibly MIA) at least on the red-eyes.
“On a sidenote, I never understood why UA doesn’t offer trans[continental] premium service to BOS and Dulles (and possibly MIA) at least on the red-eyes.”
For IAD, I long was under the impression that the reason was that most of the transcon traffic to DC was governmental/ corporate contracts, so unlike NYC, they did not think they needed to make it attractive, just direct. Though as NOVA has become more of a hub of high-end flyers, I wonder if that is still correct.
@Nate SFO-BOS was briefly ps or whatever it’s called now. Went away with little fanfare during Covidtimes. In fact, I didn’t realize it ended until just last month when I was perusing the ps site! https://thepointsguy.com/news/united-boston-transcon-changes/
I just booked a flight Igor December 2021 and it still shows the old 787-8 seat map – so no Polaris retrofit
It’s really fitting that the upcoming EWR – BER route will still be on an aircraft with the 2015 Polaris seats. REALLY disappointing