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✨ Polaris (& PP) Retrofits: Schedule, ....

Old May 29, 2017, 1:21 pm
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Last edit by: kirkwoodj
Check the current status of aircraft reconfigured (or delivered) with new Polaris seats: http://view.ceros.com/united/polaris...-desktop-4/p/3.

A Polaris Update and Polaris Mod Schedule to indicate the status of specific aircraft are maintained by those that manage the United Airlines Fleet Website.

Except for 773- and 781-operated flights, and those markets selling Premium Plus, Polaris-equipped planes have not been allocated to specific routes. You won't know until approx. 36-48 hours before departure if you'll have a newly reconfigured aircraft, and even then, it may be replaced with a non-retrofitted aircraft.

777-300ER - All 22 aircraft have Polaris (60 seats) and installation of Premium Plus cabins (24 seats) is complete.

767-300ER - As of September 2020, 31 of the 38 aircraft have been reconfigured with the Polaris seats.
- Retrofit is from 3-cabin to 2-cabin with direct-aisle-access seats. No 3-cabin 767s remain in service.
- 76A configuration is 30J/50Y+/134Y, total of 214; fleet to consist of 17 ships (former 3-cabin 767s).
- 76L configuration is 46J/22PE/47Y+/52Y; fleet to consist of 21 ships (18 former 2-cabin 76C and 3 used ships from Hawaiian).

767-400ER - [16 aircraft] None updated yet; modifications put on hold due to Covid-19.

777-200ER - As of September 2020, 46 of the 50 aircraft have been reconfigured with Polaris and Premium Plus seats.
- Configuration is 50 Polaris seats, 32 in the front cabin and 18 in the second cabin (behind 2L/R)
- Configuration is 10 across in economy, with 24 Premium Plus seats, 46 86 E+ seats and 156 E seats, with E+ in front economy cabin plus exit rows and bulkhead at 3L/R, i.e., almost the same as current pmCO planes, except with 4 seats in middle section.
- Seat map (v5) on united.com

787-8, 787-9 - As of November 2022, all 787-8/9 are converted or in mod. No chance of flying old configuration anymore.
- 788 configuration has 28 Polaris seats (20 in front cabin, 8 in rear mini-cabin), and 21 Premium Plus seats (2-3-2).
- 789 configuration has 48 Polaris seats (32 in front cabin, 16 in rear mini-cabin), and 21 Premium Plus seats (2-3-2).

787-10 - 13 787-10s have been delivered in 2020. All come with Polaris and Premium Plus cabins factory-installed. Another 19 should be added by 2024.

FAQ:
Q: Does a Polaris ticket mean the aircraft has the new Polaris seat?

A: No, Polaris is the label UA uses for long haul international business class. It is also the label UA uses for the new seats, so this does create some confusion.
All the 773s and 787-10s are 100% the new seat.
The rest of the long haul fleet in various stages of conversion, see http://view.ceros.com/united/polaris...-desktop-4/p/3

Q: How to tell if my aircraft is the new style Polaris seats?
A: If the unassigned business class section is showing orange seats or all the seats are side-by-side or there is a section for 4 adjacent seats in the middle, this is an old style lie-flat aircreaft
If the unassigned bussines class seats are dark blue seats or the all the seats appear to have direct aisle access, then you aircraft is the new Polaris seat.
You can also look at the FT maintained, United Fleet Site and crosscheck the tail number or check thePolaris Update tab

Q: How to tell if my aircraft has the new PremiumPlus (PP) / Premium Economy seats?
A: If the unassigned seats just behind business class are purple seats or the aircraft is 773 or 787-10, then yes. However, the purple color seat will only show on routes where PP is being sold.
Aircraft with PP seats are being used on some routes but are not being sold as PP. In those cases, the seats are considered to be a part of E+. In those cases, an indicator of PP sold as E+ will be if the first few rows of economy, there are just 2 seats on the sides (with the rest of E+ showing 3 seats).

Q: Will the aircraft I see at booking be the same configuration at flight time?
A: Unfortunately with the fleet in transit, aircraft swaps happen. UA tends to use placeholders until 2 days before travel and even after that last minute swaps do happen.

Q: My flight seat map shows 772 with polaris seats is it a retrofit?
A: Possibly. The flight status page shows the most accurate scheduled aircraft. If a 77W is swapped in, it will list the aircraft as 777-300ER. However, if the 772's seatmap shows blue rectangular boxes in the business class cabin instead of orange "pointy rounds", this would indicate that a retrofit aircraft has been swapped.

See also: United Future/Changed Routes w/ Polaris seats

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✨ Polaris (& PP) Retrofits: Schedule, ....

Old May 7, 2019, 3:05 pm
  #1636  
 
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Originally Posted by Brucemcdou
Ah, thanks for that, I'd been working on the assumption that all 777-200's would eventually be converted but now I see that some of the current configuration will be with us for a long time. I must say that that particular model with the smallest premium cabin is exactly the one that I would have thought should be converted but then I don't run the airline!
The 77G are intended to fly high volume domestic routes. The small premium cabin is to maximize seat count.
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Old May 7, 2019, 4:01 pm
  #1637  
 
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Originally Posted by findark
Do we know if they are committed to finish the sUA 772 before the sCO 772?
There's currently 11 sUA 772 not modified with additional 2 in mod right now.
There's currently 18 sCO 772 not modified with additional 2 in mod right now.

One could interpolate from that data that all the sUA will be finished first.
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Old May 7, 2019, 4:09 pm
  #1638  
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Originally Posted by narvik
.....

One could interpolate from that data that all the sUA will be finished first.
That is exactly what UA said when they announced the retrofits. And 787s will be last.
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Old May 7, 2019, 5:27 pm
  #1639  
 
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Been looking at ex-IAH flights on the 5 daily international 772s (NRT, 2x LHR, FRA, EZE) for the past 10 days or so and not a single reconfigured aircraft. Seems odd that if the rotation is quasi random and the retrofit % is up to > 40%, none of the ex-IAH flights are getting the retrofits (unlike the 763s, where I see quite a few retrofits on SCL/GRU/LIM/GIG). Is this a coincidence for the days I looked at, or are the reconfigured 772s being deliberately kept away from IAH? I'm particularly curious as I have EZE and NRT coming up in the next month. Sorry if this is addressed upthread, but this is a long thread ...
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Old May 7, 2019, 6:22 pm
  #1640  
 
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Originally Posted by st530
Been looking at ex-IAH flights on the 5 daily international 772s (NRT, 2x LHR, FRA, EZE) for the past 10 days or so and not a single reconfigured aircraft. Seems odd that if the rotation is quasi random and the retrofit % is up to > 40%, none of the ex-IAH flights are getting the retrofits (unlike the 763s, where I see quite a few retrofits on SCL/GRU/LIM/GIG). Is this a coincidence for the days I looked at, or are the reconfigured 772s being deliberately kept away from IAH? I'm particularly curious as I have EZE and NRT coming up in the next month. Sorry if this is addressed upthread, but this is a long thread ...
IAH-NRT last Monday (I think) was nose number 78001 (Gordon Bethune) which has Polaris. I think only two of the GE powered exCO planes have Polaris (79011 is the other). You can track both on Flightradar24 to see where they've flown and where they're planning to fly.
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Old May 7, 2019, 6:56 pm
  #1641  
 
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Originally Posted by st530
Been looking at ex-IAH flights on the 5 daily international 772s (NRT, 2x LHR, FRA, EZE) for the past 10 days or so and not a single reconfigured aircraft. Seems odd that if the rotation is quasi random and the retrofit % is up to > 40%, none of the ex-IAH flights are getting the retrofits (unlike the 763s, where I see quite a few retrofits on SCL/GRU/LIM/GIG). Is this a coincidence for the days I looked at, or are the reconfigured 772s being deliberately kept away from IAH? I'm particularly curious as I have EZE and NRT coming up in the next month. Sorry if this is addressed upthread, but this is a long thread ...
Originally Posted by iflyabunch
IAH-NRT last Monday (I think) was nose number 78001 (Gordon Bethune) which has Polaris. I think only two of the GE powered exCO planes have Polaris (79011 is the other). You can track both on Flightradar24 to see where they've flown and where they're planning to fly.
Still few & far between. There were 2-3 per week last summer for IAH<->AMS, now gone.
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Old May 8, 2019, 1:40 am
  #1642  
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Originally Posted by EmailKid
That is exactly what UA said when they announced the retrofits. And 787s will be last.
IMHO, I would not be surprised, if the 764s will be awarded that " last man standing honor".
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Old May 8, 2019, 3:35 am
  #1643  
 
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Originally Posted by cesco.g
IMHO, I would not be surprised, if the 764s will be awarded that " last man standing honor".
According to the PolarisTracker, the 787s start in "Late 2019" and the 764s "Starting in 2020." While that doesn't mean that the 764s won't be finished before the 787s, but it displays the priority of aircraft.
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Old May 8, 2019, 7:49 am
  #1644  
 
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Originally Posted by iflyabunch
IAH-NRT last Monday (I think) was nose number 78001 (Gordon Bethune) which has Polaris. I think only two of the GE powered exCO planes have Polaris (79011 is the other). You can track both on Flightradar24 to see where they've flown and where they're planning to fly.
Are you suggesting the ex-IAH 772 routes are only being served by GE-powered exCO planes (and if so, is there a reason for that)?
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Old May 8, 2019, 8:08 am
  #1645  
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Originally Posted by st530
Seems odd that if the rotation is quasi random
It's not. UA is assigning the retrofited aircraft to designated P+ routes. That doesn't leave many extra. I believe they're mostly rotating those in and out of destinations that receive P+ service (e.g., NRT, HKG),.
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Old May 8, 2019, 8:49 am
  #1646  
 
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Originally Posted by st530
Are you suggesting the ex-IAH 772 routes are only being served by GE-powered exCO planes (and if so, is there a reason for that)?
I believe that is the case. The current 77Y (GE90 772 in old CO configuration) and 77E (GE90 772 in Polaris configuration) are being used interchangeably for now, since only 2 77E frames are actually in service, which aren't sufficient to reliably dedicate to a single route. On the other hand, the 77N (PW 772 in Polaris configuration) is both dedicated to certain routes where P+ is being sold, and surplus frames are being used interchangeably with 77J/Q (PW 772 in old UA three-cabin configuration).

In the next few months when UA starts finalizing its winter schedule, I would expect more city pairs to be selling P+ as additional 77E are returned to the fleet. My guess is the remaining long haul EWR 77Y markets (PVG, PEK, GRU, DEL when it resumes) will be prioritized, with IAH/ORD 77Y markets to follow in the summer 2020 schedule.

Even though the cabin configuration will be the same, the fleets need to be distinguished internally because of the engines, for performance as well as parts/spares logistics.
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Old May 8, 2019, 1:28 pm
  #1647  
 
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Originally Posted by st530
Are you suggesting the ex-IAH 772 routes are only being served by GE-powered exCO planes (and if so, is there a reason for that)?
Based on my experience flying out of IAH, this seems to be the case for the long-haul 772 routes. I'm not sure what the reason would be.
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Old May 8, 2019, 7:36 pm
  #1648  
 
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Originally Posted by iflyabunch
Based on my experience flying out of IAH, this seems to be the case for the long-haul 772 routes. I'm not sure what the reason would be.
It could be so they can just inventory spare parts for the GE engines there, instead of having to have parts and mechanics trained for both engines.
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Old May 10, 2019, 12:18 am
  #1649  
 
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Are the ex CO 772s getting personal air vents? With the dense 10 across Y this really is necessary. TIA
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Old May 10, 2019, 1:25 am
  #1650  
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Originally Posted by Halo117
Are the ex CO 772s getting personal air vents? ...
Base on in-person reports of the initial retrofits, it appears not.
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