Originally Posted by
ty97
At some point UA is going to have to fly to every city on earth with how many 787s they will have.
(joking....mostly)
Well, with 70 or so 772s that are mostly over 20 years old, I'm assuming many of these will essentially replace those planes and work into the routes.
Originally Posted by
N104UA
If I had to guess I would think the 77Ws will be put into a HD config to replace the 772A doing Hawaii and domestic works, so in a sense if the 77Ws replace the 772As something will need to replace the 77Ws (but I think that is going to be the 350s)
Seems like a waste of capability. If they're going to create another HD type plane, which it's not clear they need to, they could use the 787-8s they have (12) and use a configuration like
ANA does for domestic use (12F/323Y) or add a few more F seats ahead of 2L/2R and end up around 24/280.
Then United would have an entire fleet of 787-9s for international (Polaris) routes that would be interchangeable. (or get a subvariant with high J for certain routes that support it)