United Airlines announced it will add 1,600 United Polaris Business and United First Class seats to almost 250 international and domestic aircraft. I’d call 25-50% increases in the size of premium cabins massive.
Last week I wrote about the increase in United Polaris business class on 21 767-300s from 3o to 46 seats, plus the addition of United Premium Plus premium economy seats. While that marks the cornerstone of United’s international premium cabin expansion, United is also expanding first class on all Airbus narrowbody aircraft and introducing a whole new aircraft type.
> Read More: United Dramatically Enlarges Business Class Cabin On 767-300
Folks, United is actually being innovative here. They are leading, not following. That’s the main takeaway, which I’ll discuss more below. But here’s what to expect across the domestic fleet.
Airbus A319 First Class grows from 8 to 12
All Airbus A319 aircraft will receive an extra row of first class seats, growing from 8 to 12 seats. Six EconomyPlus seats (one row) will be removed to make way for the extra row of first class.
Airbus A320 First Class grows from 12 to 16
All Airbus A320 aircraft will receive an extra row of first class seats, growing from 12 to 16 seats. The newly-configured cabin will be staggered. United will remove three EconomyPlus seats and one United economy seat (not sure how that works…) for a net change of zero seats.
Bombardier CRJ-550
United will introduce a brand new aircraft from Bombardier called the CRJ-550. It will roughly be the size of the CRJ-700 but be quite premium heavy with 10 first class seats, 20 United Economy Plus seats, and 20 seats in regular economy class. It will have wi-fi, more room for carry-on baggage, and a “snack bar” for first class passengers.
A Bold New Strategy
Let’s give United some credit for actually embarking upon a bold strategy of its own rather rather than following others. Recognizing that there is more margin and a growing demand for premium seats, United is providing an alternative to Delta and American. It may not work…especially during the next downturn…but I predict it will work well.
I pummeled United yesterday for the erosion of its premium cabin soft product. Growing first class and Polaris cabins only magnifies the issue. Hopefully United will soon see that it CAN be a premium airline competing with the best in the world. It is on its way. But it cannot cut its way to that goal. The premium cabin cutbacks must also be reversed.
CONCLUSION
We’ll start to see retrofitted aircraft as soon as this month. I applaud United’s move and see it not only as bold for the sake of being bold, but a shrewd business move that will pay dividends.
What do you think about the expansion of United’s premium cabins across many aircraft?
This is indeed interesting coming on the heels of the Polaris cutbacks. Perhaps UA is trying to position itself as a “downmarket” F/J product? More seats and a lower price point for a somewhat watered down product to encourage AA/DL flyers to buy-up and still get something better than Y, perhaps?
omg that’s funny …. you think the airline that doesn’t know how to fly to one of the Top 3 investment banking centers of the world is “upmarket” hahhahahahahah
Ummm, what? I suggested that UA is intentionally trying to offer a downmarket premium product.
@henryLAX, I think I missed the airline you’re referencing that doesn’t fly to one of the top 3 banking centers. You mention each of the US3.
I thought maybe you meant UA and JFK but with them being the biggest carrier to NYC you may have meant DL to HKG (or TPE?) or AA to any of the cities they’ve cut over the last few years (in addition to a dramatically reduced presence in NYC).
I’m pretty sure this will suck for me. Anyone who thinks this is going to be broadly beneficial to premiers seeking upgrades is delusional. This is a substantial expense that they are looking to monetize. I expect to see an acceleration of the trend towards TOD paid upgrades prioritized before Premier/mileage upgrades.
Good. These seats should be earning revenue. Otherwise there is no point in having them. The days of elite handouts are over (for now). We need to get used to receiving what we (our employers) paid for rather than expecting handouts on every corner.
I assume that you must be a short-term UA stockholder…
then you must be dumber than Trump’s wall cuz the whole fear-mongering of TOD started way back in 2012-13-ish era and yet you continued to stay loyal hahhahahahahaha
Find me another airline that takes me non-stop to Asia, Australia, Europe and New York and Boston from SFO and I’ll gladly switch. Until then…
Yes, UA does benefit from having the best route network. Still, with the cutbacks on elite benefits, particularly 1K, there is less reason to fly them than a competitor that has a better product unless they are the cheapest, i.e., by taking it down market. I will generally purchase the cheapest business class, after taking into account upgrades at booking (I won’t waitlist for international), and that is often UA, but sometimes not. Is that the strategy they have for making money? We shall see.
Well I will say this is the opposite of what I was worried about- they raised the bar for 1K status and many including me feared this would mean cut backs in availability of first class domestic, and business class on international, seats and therefore be no net gain for those of us whole still qualify for 1k. Yes, fewer people competing for the seats, but fewer seats. This seems to be the opposite! Happily!
I hope they do not water down the soft product/service and the snack bar seems to indicate they may be doing that (hey a free snack bar, ohhh neat, wait where’s the flight attendant? we don’t have one?) maybe I am too cynical.
Shrewd; bold, and i think, ultimately, a profitable move.
removing one economy seat from the 320 is necessary to keep the seat count at 150. Keeps the FA crewing requirement from increasing
Bingo.
Ah yes…and the F/A to customer ratio in First will go from 1:12 to 1:16
I wonder what else they are taking away from the airbus planes to fit the extra row of J. One row of Y does not exactly match one row of J space wise
This is exciting news – especially the A319/320 increases as that’s what I seem to strike out on across the domestic network (GPU, RPU, CPUs – you name it). The CRJ550 is an interesting development that I, for one, didn’t see coming. I hate the devil’s chariot (CRJ200) more than anything and occasionally get it SLC-DEN. I hope that actually materializes and at some point makes its way west (and isn’t just a strong-arming tactic to combat pilot scope creep and the desire to not add a new narrowbody to the mix to lessen that limitation).
F I N A L L Y !!!!!
This is great for the A319/320 fleet.
I hate how sometimes the A320 gets switched to the A319 and boom – 4 people get downgraded to economy