If you’re a fan of the ice cream sundae on United Airlines in Polaris business class, more flavors are arriving soon, including a personal favorite of mine.
United Airlines Adding Tillamook Strawberry Ice Cream, Biscoff Cookie Crumbles To Polaris Ice Cream Sundae Menu
A memo reviewed by Live And Let’s Fly notes that starting on June 1, 2024, United will introduce a new ice cream flavor, new toppings, and a new cake onboard:
In addition to the Tillamook vanilla bean ice cream, we’ll serve the Tillamook strawberry ice cream. We’ve also included toppings to make a strawberry shortcake sundae for customers in Polaris and premium transcontinental premium cabins.
These sundaes are available in business class on longhaul international flights that depart after 9:45 am and premium transcontinental flights between Newark (EWR) and Los Angeles (LAX) / San Francisco (SFO).
United recommends the following “masterpiece” when constructing a sundae:
- One scoop of Tillamook strawberry ice cream
- Diced shortcake
- Strawberry compote
- Biscoff crumbles
- Whipped cream
It’s those biscoff crumbles that most interest me. I recently enjoyed those over my sundae on a Delta Air Lines flight and found it a great topping.
United will also introduce a new lemon berry cheesecake to replace the salted caramel cheesecake we have seen for several months.
After customers complained of varying ice cream quality depending upon the station, United now partners with Tillamook for its Polaris ice cream.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen ice cream other than vanilla. I can recall that United regularly offered a mix of both vanilla and chocolate or vanilla and strawberry back in the days prior to the merger with Continental Airlines. I even have photo evidence from a transcontinental flight from Washington Dulles to San Diego in September 2007:
Yum…
CONCLUSION
Stay tuned for more sundae choices on United starting in June. While the headline may be the strawberry ice cream from Tillamook, I am most excited about the new biscoff crumbles on top of my sundae.
Do you like ice cream sundaes on airplanes?
Good to see
when will the sundaes return to the Hawaiian flights like before covid?
Yes and also ice cream on other transcon routes…
Will those Sundaes ever return?
Zero class.
Elaborate.
Sundaes seem to be a crowd pleaser or else the three US airlines would not make them a staple of their longhaul product offerigs.
The image in the article of sprinkling a bunch of Skittles over ice cream is not a good look for an airline trying to make the case that its the best business class, especially when United’s closest intercontinental partners (Swiss, Lufthansa, ANA) go above and beyond in terms of quality, sophistication, and service compared to United. Maybe because it’s a crowd pleaser is exactly the problem: if I’m paying for a J fare I don’t want something I can buy in a gas station. It’s just so mediocre. Even the desert on a regional Swiss flight goes above and beyond United’s flagship products on its flagship routes. Gas station standards.
It’s a hot take, I know…
They’re not skittles… never had them… never will… they’re miniature M&M’s which are more popular than skittles.
And they are generic, not real M&Ms AFAIK.
Skittles, m&ms, it doesn’t matter. It’s gas station food. :/
I agree. Nothing about this reads “premium”. Reminds me more of the dessert bar at Sizzler.
If only they would put this much effort into improving the actual food offering rather than trying to create the illusion about “enhancing” the Polaris experience, especially on the so-called “Premium” Transcon routes. I mean I love a good ice cream sundae, but I think I am with the majority of passengers that would much rather have a restaurant quality meal courses than the “OnePass” service that is more the norm than the exception.
Speaking of “OnePass” really all United would have to do is go back to the Continental-era meal service, which I thought was fabulous.
You think Frank Lorenzo is actually going to allow money to be spent?
I highly doubt that UA will bring back BusinessFirst catering anytime soon, one of the main reasons that CO had such great catering was Chelsea Catering.
As it was once explained to me by Siegfried “Sigi” Lang (Continental Airlines Managing Director of Food and Beverage and an overall great guy) Chelsea Catering essentially gave Continental low cost and in some cases free catering in one direction.
Chelsea catered other airlines and made a profit doing so which at some stations (he said LAX was one of those stations as was EWR) which allowed CO to cater their own airline for virtually no money.
Another difference was the Continental actually cared about their on-board product, something that seems to be distinctly missing at UA now a days.
@Matthew, IMHO, Tillamook is one of the best mass-market ice cream options. Great value, too, especially when compared to the “gourmet” ones that went down from 1 pint to 14 oz and cost $$$. Tillamook is 1.5 quarts, is usually the same price or cheaper, and tastes better.
I heard they were thinking of expanding this to 34 flavors. They want to call it a “guilty” pleasure.
Nah. It’s called ” another chip on your shoulder”
Imagine Maraş Dondurma with crumbled pistachio baklava.
We started buying that recently and it is delicious!!!
I got a nice scoop of chocolate out of GVA about two years ago. So they’ve done it more recently
How about introducing some sugar free, fruit-based, and/or keto-friendly desserts instead of going to town on junk food? I am not super familiar with the demographics of their customer base, but at a minimum there must be a good number of hipsters and health-conscious people who fly from/to EWR on a regular basis to make it worthwhile on those routes.
Hurray! Agreed.
Try eating their vegetarian meals in international polaris flights. I was once served blackened cauliflower. I said served nothing was mentioned about actually eating it. Or spicy chili. Bokchoy. Let’s see if they can possibly come up with some more gas forming foods.
Don’t get me wrong, I love dessert, my favorite being apple pie. But this sugar bomb might be just a little too much causing a metabolic inflammation response, especially with no exercise and sitting down in an airplane seat.
Here’s the thing. A couple million miles ago in bay current ~4MM career and counting, I figure out that while I’m not lactose intolerant per se , a big glob of it sits like a ball of lead in my stomach while I’m flying. And United is particularly frustrating in that they seem to be own by the Milk Board. Does it have to 90% of the time be ice cream AND cheesecake AND cheese plate as the options? Would a piece of fruit tart or a brownie or cake or a nice cookie be impossible as just ONE the options?