United Airlines operates a wide and diverse fleet of aircraft. They have over 770 planes with many different interior setups. You could find yourself squeezed into your 2-4-2 business class middle seat aboard an old United configured 777-200 or seated in 1-2-1 first class for the same exact cost on the same plane, as United officially stopped selling First class last year. The inconsistency has been a problem for United Airlines.
The United Polaris concept was introduced December 2016. It was a huge upgrade to not only the seats but to the food and lounges as well. The initial rollout was painfully slow. United opened the Polaris Lounge Chicago in December 2016. The first plane with United Polaris Seats didn’t start flying until February 2017 with the delivery of the 777-300ER.
United Polaris Progress
Although there was a slow start, United has really been pushing the envelope to get planes reconfigured and lounges open. Just last week we saw the opening of the Polaris Lounge at Los Angeles (LAX) and the last 767-300 entered the refurbishment shop for seat reconfiguration. Other open Polaris lounge locations include Houston (IAH) , Newark (EWR), and San Francisco (SFO).
As far as the planes, the airline has committed to pulling one plane out of service every 10 days through 2020 to reconfigure them with Polaris seats, and if you follow their Polaris tracker, that seems to hold pretty true.
As things stand now:
- All 777-300ERs and 787-10s feature the new Polaris seats, since they were delivered with these
- 13 of 14 Boeing 767-300s have been reconfigured (#14 is in the shop)
- Note: Only 14 of the 38 767-300 will get Polaris refurbishments
- 13 of 51 Boeing 777-200s have been reconfigured
Notably not on this list are the International/Transcon 757-200’s, 767-400’s, and 24 767-300’s which are not due to get the upgraded interiors, due to retirement’s.
The newest members of the United Fleet have also been left off this list. The 12 787-8’s and the 25 787-9’s are used on some of the longest flights in the United Airlines network. They are configured in a fully flat 2-2-2 set up, vs the 1-2-1 of Polaris. The good news is that we now have a timeline for reconfiguration of these planes.
According a quote AusBT received from United’s VP of Marketing
- The first United 787s should be reconfigured with Polaris seats in the fourth quarter of 2019
- All United 787s should have Polaris seats by late 2020
With 37 planes to be reconfigured the year-long schedule should be fairly attainable as they working to get these planes in and out of service every 10 days.
How Can You Guarantee To Fly In Real Polaris?
Right now there are only 2 ways to guarantee the new seats and that would be by flying onboard a Boeing 787-10 (781) or a Boeing 777-300ER (77W). All planes were delivered with the new Polaris seats. Be sure to check your seat map as that should help you find Polaris seats. Hopefully we will all be flying on in the real Polaris seats soon, as they are one of the best products around.
Check out Sam’s review United Polaris
oh btw, they ARE converting some of the Ex-CAL 777s to hawaii/domestic flying with the crappy 2-4-2 seating.
The 14 767-300s receiving Polaris is correct.
But, UA bought 3 Ex-Hawaiian 767-300s and will convert those along with 14 of 21 currently 2 class units (with sCO style Business lie-flats) to a High J Polaris configuration of 46 Polaris, 22PE and 99Y. One units is in HKG for conversion as is one of the three Ex-HA units.
The remaining 7 1992/93 build 763s with 2 class seating are to be retired, but could end up on Transcon, Hawaiian or selected TATL service during transition.
764 units will be the last of the fleet to get Polaris seating.
You may also be pleasantly surprised at the last minute. In December, I flew ORD-MUC, and got 777-200 Polaris seats on the way there, but not the way back. The new seat pattern didn’t show up in the app until couple of days beforehand. The extra seats might also be why my upgrade cleared. Unfortunately, when they reshuffled the seating for the new configuration, my wife and I were on the distant seats, but better than flying backwards.
I’m not sure if the reverse surprise is likely to happen in case of a last minute equipment swap, I’m guessing they try to avoid that.
The ex-Continental 777-200ER’s never featured 2-4-2 in Business Class. They’re all 2-2-2, same seats as the 787-8 and 787-9’s.
The 777-200ER’s in 1-2-1 /2-4-2 in J are the old legacy United aircraft. These are all being converted to the 50-seat 1-2-1 all-aisle access Polaris product.
Everyone who made a comment is correct, thank you for being my copy editor! updated the post to reflect that
Pretty sure the 2-4-2 777-200 configurations are ex-United aircraft.
As a retired Continental employee, I must offer a minor correction to your article. The old 2-4-2 business class seats were never a Continental product but found on the old United metal. Continental metal had 2-2-2 business class configuration.
The terrible 2-4-2 Business Class configuration on the 777-200 is ex-UA, not ex-CO.