While the retrofit process will take several years to fully complete, United has just rolled out its third Boeing 767-300 with new Polaris seating.
I wrote about the first 767-300 retrofit here, which is a 1-1-1 configuration with direct aisle access at every seat. It’s narrower than the Polaris seats on the new 777-3ooERs but still represents a marked improvement from the old 2-2-2 seating.
> Read More: First United 767-300 with Polaris Seats Takes Flight
> Read More: My First Impressions of United 777-300ER Polaris Business Class
Progress is slow, but the first 777-200 with a reconfigured Polaris cabin will roll out “early” next year.
How Many Aircraft with “Real” Polaris Seating Does United Have?
Currently, you can find the new Polaris Business Class on the following aircraft:
- 14 Boeing 777-300ERs
- 3 Boeing 767-300ERs
Four more 777-300s will be delivered in 2018 with the new seats. You can find Polaris on routes including:
- Newark ⇄ Tel Aviv
- Newark ⇄ Tokyo Narita
- San Francisco ⇄ Auckland
- San Francisco ⇄ Frankfurt
- San Francisco ⇄ Tokyo Narita
> Read More: United 777-300ER Current and Future Routes
I flew in a real United Polaris seat for the first time last month from San Francisco to Hong Kong. The seat is far better than either variant of the business class seat found throughout much of the fleet.
Let’s hope that in 2018 United can speed up the retrofit process…
the new 767 is 1-1-1 not 1-2-1…
Thanks. That was an honest typo.
Any news on if the 787’s will be getting refitted?
Anyone know what routes will feature the new seat product on the 767-300 ?
I believe it’s random right now. No specific routes.
one thing to remember is that there is the same number of J seats from the non-polaris two class 767 (30 seats).
so it is pretty easy to route swap, I saw some EWR>LHR usage earlier on (TPG did a review), but now some domestics which could be positioning flights, 1 is currently flying from IAH>SCL.
check this site though, it shows the 3 new in service 767s separated and can be tracked by tail numbers:
https://sites.google.com/site/unitedfleetsite/mainline-fleet-tracking
Any insight as to why no new Polaris planes fly from two very key UAL hubs: IAH and ORD? I am sure there is a deliberate roll-out plan, but it is not obvious to me (and I am sure that many flyers in those two markets are wondering when they will benefit from Polaris–other than ORD having the only Polaris lounge to date).
I facebook messaged United and asked them what routes feature the NEW Polaris SEAT product and they answered: All our routes feature the new product! Ha Ha gotta love their social media team.
It looks like the new seating is for people that don’t like their spouse very much.
Very exciting. Does anyone if the routes with plane assignments expire? If you look ahead to November, every flight that WAS a 777-300ER with the Polaris seating is switch back to a normal seated 777-200. It looks like many of these plane-assigned routes started in October ’17 so maybe they only assign the route for a year and then change the plane assignments?
Does anyone have some insight here? Thanks.