B787938

The last time I flew UA San francisco to Sydney in April 2012 the purser in her welcome announcements told us that it was her pleasure to welcome us on board to "United's Royal Pacific Service." All of the FAs in J were at least in their 60s and told me that they had all either been flying for PA or UA TPAC since the early 80s. That said I do believe Royal Pacific Service originated with UA before they picked up the Pan Am routes.

uastarflyer

I have heard the reference to RPS many times even recently.

Sitting in Y on a 747 though it is more a RPITA.

Karl-MDW

DUH! My mistake. It was "Connoisseur" Class.

Oh the years take their toll - on the brain!

AM-PM-DM

Haha, I have not seen that many vests since the movie Wall Street....

IAD777

I can remember flying on a Royal Pacific flight back in the late 1980's. The food was definitely better. Even in economy, they served a prawn appetizer that would be comparable to a J meal these days.

Someone else also mentioned the seating map. They had a very large F section. I also liked how they would have one row of "smoking" on the upper deck with only 3-4 total rows.

formeraa

Before UA started service to Asia through SEA, UA had used the name "Royal Hawaiian Service" for their Mainland to Hawaii flights. At the time, Hawaii flights were the longest, most deluxe service in the UA system. To see the menus, google "United Airlines Royal Hawaiian Service".

Once UA started service on SEA-HKG/NRT, all TransPac service changed to "Royal Pacific Service" -- even on the Hawaii flights. At the time (mid-80's), the F service on Mainland-Hawaii flights was excellent (even a level higher than the Transcon service).

ORDnHKG

You don't need to go back to late 1980s to have prawn appetizer in Y meal.

I had prawn appetizer in Y meal for HKG-ORD as late as 2000 ! The two choices in Y meal are completely different, not just the entree, one totally chinese, one totally western, even it has different deserts ! The chinese meal was designed by Martin Yan, he was UA's advisory chef at that time period.

It was 9/11/2001 totally change everything.


That wasn't comfortable at all, as it was 2-4-2 in C. Today's 2-4-2 in C are much different than in the past, as it is horizontal flat compare to minimal legroom and minimal recline in the past.

The better version was 744OP with 159 seats in F and C combine, this version exist til about 2000, when UA install E+ they then decided to cut this version. I had flown 744OP as UA 883 ORD-NRT back in 1998, and was op up to C from Y as a first time UA flyer no status pax.

http://boardingarea.com/frequentlyfl...ng-747-400-op/

UA_Flyer

Those were the 747-200SP aircraft. When UA re-brand its Royal Pacific Services to "International First Class" and "Connoisseur Class", they replaced the F and C seats and moved to 2-3-2 configuration in Connoisseur class while still maintained the large premium sections in the 742-SP. Those specially configured 747-200SP operated on JFK-NRT-PEK-NRT-JFK routes regularly in the early and mid 90's. I remembered flying them out of JFK often in those days.

I have fond memories of 744OP.^

In addition to flew them on ORD-NRT, those birds were also on LAX-HKG, and HKG-DEL for a while as part of the RTW services. I remembered I would make sure to fly LAX-HKG versus SFO-HKG in those days to get on 744OP.

uanj

formeraa, I think you are spot on. UA already had a well known Royal Hawaiian Service and extended that branding to the new Pacific flights and then to the Pan Am routes acquired in 1985.

I have to say the seats in FC and BC are far better today, but the food is much worse. The cabin also felt more spacious because those old seat designs had a low profile compared to the new ones in use today. The worst of the recent generation was CX's coffins. glad to see those things go.

RooFlyer

As I noted above, I found the service on a recent GlobalFirst TPAC flight quite unimpressive (first one I've done). As I'm not a regular poster here, I didn't want to be too harsh, but honestly, the service was frankly awful. I can only imagine what was going on in coach.

A couple of times I attempted to start up a conversation but was fobbed off both times. The Cabin Service Manager lady was like a maiden aunt when you were growing up - always with a mean look and barely tolerating one's presence.

And you say this is normal, eh? Quite extraordinary.

nevansm

As of the last time I looked (sometime last year) the control panel near door 2L on the sUA 772's lists Connoisseur Class in the cabins section of the lighting panel. I have heard RPS announcements on SFO-PEK and ORD-NRT.

FlightNurse

I remember when UA had a Bento Box option on thier transcon flights... Now that would be a nice way to eat today.

DCethics

I've got several decks of those cards -- a little worn from use. Can't remember when they stopped being available. When UA acquired the PanAm Pacific routes wife and I went IAD-LAX-NRT for 88K miles (total) in F -- they "put Japan on sale"; seat buckles still said PanAm with raised logo (1986)!!

Flexible Flyer

And let's not forget the 1977 launch of Ocean to Ocean Service