United announces order for Airbus A350-1000 aircraft
 

From their Facebook page:

https://hub.united.com/en-us/News/Co...000-order.aspx

Today we announced an order with Airbus for new A350-1000 aircraft. The agreement converts our existing order for 25 A350-900s into A350-1000s and adds 10 firm orders for A350-1000s, giving us a total order of 35 aircraft. The increased seating capacity of the A350-1000 will enable us to replace older, less efficient aircraft currently serving long-range, high-demand markets. We expect delivery starting in 2018.

Seeing as how they already announced that the A359s were going to replace the 744s and they've now upped this order to A351s with larger capacity, I guess we can say goodbye to any chance of UA considering the 748. I really will miss flying the 747...

I won't..not in Y. There's hardly a worse flying experience on a US carrier that Y on a UA 747.

Good news ^

Plenty of people here will be very surprised by this order, given CO's longstanding relationship with Boeing and the assumption that the former CO management calls all the shots at United. This is one of the biggest post-merger investment decisions the management team has made, and it's for an Airbus product. Maybe the inherent bias towards the "CO" way of doing things just isn't as strong as some people would like to think it is.

It looks like its Chase bank calling the shots to me these days!! :D

As long as it comes with cubbies between the seat and the window, I'll be happy.

I think that this was simply a case of Airbus having the right product for UA, whilst there's a big gap in Boeing's line up in that particular space. UA has to replace the 747s - but they don't want anything bigger and they need something much more fuel-efficient. The 747-8 is clearly not it and nor is the A380. The 787 is still too small, the 777-300 likewise plus old technology. I suspect that UA would have strongly preferred to go with Boeing for political reasons, but just couldn't this time around.

same here. i kind of knew in the back of my head they wouldn't get the 748, but i still was hoping.

also since the planes won't be here for a while, i'd be interested for the day when they announce the seating layout, just how much of a sardine can Y will be and whether they're going to choose a new BF seat or not (i'm just going to go ahead an assume it'll be two class).

Perhaps after a year and a half of CO calling the shots and having eroded some of the industry's best revenue performance, the CO contingent is losing its clout.

Paying for 787-10s and 350-1000s with PQDs now I see. It all makes sense.

My guess is 4x4x4 in C and a roomy 5x5x5 in Y.

F will feature upgraded soups. :)

I have my fingers crossed that the A350 will be just a shade too narrow for a 3-4-3 arrangement in Y. 10-abreast on the 350 requires a 16.4" wide seat, which I do not think is workable, and makes the 3-3-3 17.3" of the 787 look positively luxurious by comparison.

Yeah really
 

I wonder if they charged the order on the Chase United Card:p

If 10-abreast requires 16.4" wide seats, would that mean that 9-abreast gets you a luxurious 18.2" wide seat, or am I missing something?

I for one am really surprised. Given the projections for traffic out of major us mega-cities (NYC, SFO, LAX, ORD) and foreign cities (NRT, HKG, PEK, LHR, FRA) along with slot control at many airports, and generally increasing traffic world wide, I would have expected UA to buy a larger aircraft.

Using the seating arrangements published for 3 class AC (in actuality, airlines end up with slightly less actual seats) the Boeing current line up is:

787-8 240 7000-8200 nm
787-9 280 8-8500 nm
787-10 330 7000 nm

777-9x 407 (7 foot stretch on current 777-300ER)
777-300ER 386 7930nm

350-8 270 8480nm
350-9/ 350-9R 314 8100/10,300nm
350-10 350 8420 nm

If you assume that UA wants a larger aircraft, and they clearly do, and clearly need one their options were going with the 350-10 (as the 787-10 does not have the range for many Transpacific and west coast TATL missions they need it for) or waiting and hopping Boeing could get the 777-9x off the ground in a timely manner.

Absent, simply not trusting Boeing to get the job done, I would have assumed they would have waited for the 777-9x as it better meets there needs.

I think this is IMHO a very interesting vote of non-confidence in Boeing given UAs major need for a larger AC and the fact the 777-9x would appear to better meet UAs future needs.