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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 Sep 1, 2018, 11:06 pm
  #1291  
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 466
Originally Posted by Goflyer100
Does anyone know on which routes I can find the new Polaris business class on the retrofitted 767 and 77W? It's for a roundtrip from AMS to EWR. I've heard that the retrofitted 767 are now operating on EWR-LHR but I cannot see them when making a booking on united.com. Is the 77W with new Polaris not flying to Europe right now?
When you say that you "cannot see them when making a booking on united.com", do you mean that you don't see the new seating when looking at the seat maps? All of my recent GVA-EWR/EWR-GVA flights have been on retrofitted planes (though not all of the planes on this route are), but the old seat map was showing up until a day or two before each flight. I've also had the retrofitted plane on other US-Europe flights (again, not showing until a couple of days before the flight).
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Old Sep 2, 2018, 12:15 am
  #1292  
 
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Originally Posted by frontenac551
When you say that you "cannot see them when making a booking on united.com", do you mean that you don't see the new seating when looking at the seat maps? All of my recent GVA-EWR/EWR-GVA flights have been on retrofitted planes (though not all of the planes on this route are), but the old seat map was showing up until a day or two before each flight. I've also had the retrofitted plane on other US-Europe flights (again, not showing until a couple of days before the flight).
On the flip side, I flew EWR-GVA less than 2 weeks ago and was on a non-retrofitted 2-class 763. To the OP - until the retrofits are more widespread, I would assume that whatever plane you are flying is going to have old seats and to treat getting a retrofitted plane as a nice surprise.
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Old Sep 2, 2018, 12:18 am
  #1293  
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Originally Posted by frontenac551
When you say that you "cannot see them when making a booking on united.com", do you mean that you don't see the new seating when looking at the seat maps? All of my recent GVA-EWR/EWR-GVA flights have been on retrofitted planes (though not all of the planes on this route are), but the old seat map was showing up until a day or two before each flight. I've also had the retrofitted plane on other US-Europe flights (again, not showing until a couple of days before the flight).
This. They're specifically not loading the retrofit 767s into the seat maps for advance bookings, both to give themselves maximal operational flexibility and to prevent disappointment for passengers who got swapped to the old configuration.

There's no sure way to book the retrofit planes; the best you can do is to watch to see which sub-fleets are being converted and then try to book a flight on those planes.

As for the 77Ws, which are coming with Polaris already and only being retrofit to add PE; those are more likely to end up on the schedule, but they're also mostly using them out of SFO. There's virtually no chance to find that on AMS-EWR; it's too short and too light of a route.
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Old Sep 2, 2018, 1:31 am
  #1294  
 
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Originally Posted by PsiFighter37


On the flip side, I flew EWR-GVA less than 2 weeks ago and was on a non-retrofitted 2-class 763. To the OP - until the retrofits are more widespread, I would assume that whatever plane you are flying is going to have old seats and to treat getting a retrofitted plane as a nice surprise.
Yes, didn't mean to imply that all flights are retrofitted. Just had a run of good luck this summer. I did try to see if there was a pattern (e.g. certain days of the week where the retrofitted planes are more likely) but couldn't find one (either GVA-EWR or GVA-IAD).
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Old Sep 2, 2018, 3:28 am
  #1295  
 
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Slightly OT, but I wish they would fix the seat map for the 77W with PE when you check the flight status. The unevenly spaced Y seats and the misaligned junction of the J and Y cabin really upsets my OCD.
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Old Sep 2, 2018, 7:49 am
  #1296  
 
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Originally Posted by EmailKid
No, frames rotate, though you are more likely to see Polaris on some routes than others. sCO 772s for now, not at all.
Are the sCO 772s going to be the last 772s to be retrofitted? 2020?
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Old Sep 2, 2018, 8:25 am
  #1297  
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Originally Posted by stampchez

Are the sCO 772s going to be the last 772s to be retrofitted? 2020?
I believe 787s will be the last ones retrofitted. sCO 772s second to last and forgot where 764s (sCO) come in.

Don't believe any mention has been made of 757s (if so, I missed it). OTOH, MAX-10 has been reported to be going with some version of high end Biz on SOME frames when delivered (total order 100).
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Old Sep 2, 2018, 8:55 am
  #1298  
 
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Originally Posted by EmailKid
I believe 787s will be the last ones retrofitted. sCO 772s second to last and forgot where 764s (sCO) come in.

Don't believe any mention has been made of 757s (if so, I missed it). OTOH, MAX-10 has been reported to be going with some version of high end Biz on SOME frames when delivered (total order 100).
Sounds like the 764s will start after the 787s begin (which is scheduled for June 2019 AFAIK). There are nearly 3x the number of 787s in the fleet vs. 764 so that program could ultimately take longer.
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Old Sep 3, 2018, 2:48 pm
  #1299  
 
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Originally Posted by SethLevy
From my recent research it looks like at least 4 of the 772 have been completed and are in service. Aircraft - 2888, 2786, 2796 and 2704. I have a flight UA895 on 8/30. Is there a way to track the aircraft to see what routes/flights they are flying over the next week? thanks.
I'm flying 2704 CDG-IAD tomorrow, looks like it has mostly been bouncing between SFO/IAD and CDG the last few weeks.

Originally Posted by Goflyer100
Does anyone know on which routes I can find the new Polaris business class on the retrofitted 767 and 77W? It's for a roundtrip from AMS to EWR. I've heard that the retrofitted 767 are now operating on EWR-LHR but I cannot see them when making a booking on united.com. Is the 77W with new Polaris not flying to Europe right now?
I've caught new polaris on TATL flights EWR-FRA and IAD-CDG (and the reverse of both of those).

Originally Posted by PsiFighter37

On the flip side, I flew EWR-GVA less than 2 weeks ago and was on a non-retrofitted 2-class 763. To the OP - until the retrofits are more widespread, I would assume that whatever plane you are flying is going to have old seats and to treat getting a retrofitted plane as a nice surprise.
+1 this is the assumption you must make until more of the fleet is upgraded. For my flight tomorrow at OLCI it still showed the legacy seatmap. I just happened to notice about T-18 that is flipped after I checked in to the new polaris seat maps.
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Old Sep 5, 2018, 3:25 am
  #1300  
 
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So what's going on with the 77W PE retrofits? N2333U is coming out of SFO and according to the seat map on Flt 871(05), PE wasn't installed on that plane either. They only installed it on the one plane, N2331U and stopped.
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Old Sep 11, 2018, 11:15 am
  #1301  
 
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Originally Posted by EWR764
The tracker only shows retrofit programs in progress. The 787s are due to start next summer, and the 767-400s thereafter, but no firm timeline for those ships yet.
Steward on UA927 yesterday (787, no polaris) said those 787 won't get polaris.

How would the seat config even look like with polaris ? Any pictures already ?
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Old Sep 11, 2018, 11:34 am
  #1302  
 
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Originally Posted by te36
Steward on UA927 yesterday (787, no polaris) said those 787 won't get polaris.

How would the seat config even look like with polaris ? Any pictures already ?
Steward is wrong. 787-8/9 Polaris program is scheduled to start in June 2019.

No seat maps or approved LOPA yet, but this is the 787-10 seat map. The 787-8/9 will likely have two J cabins (split by 2L/R crossaisle) and a 21-seat PE section.

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Old Sep 15, 2018, 3:28 pm
  #1303  
 
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The 78Js are going to be a fine aircraft with Polaris and PE!
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Old Sep 15, 2018, 6:37 pm
  #1304  
 
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Originally Posted by jsloan
There's virtually no chance to find that on AMS-EWR; it's too short and too light of a route.
UA70 EWR to AMS had the polaris retrofitted 767 today (sep 15). So there are chances of having the retrofitted plane on that route.
Just never know what to expect
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Old Sep 15, 2018, 7:08 pm
  #1305  
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Originally Posted by chebert999
UA70 EWR to AMS had the polaris retrofitted 767 today (sep 15). So there are chances of having the retrofitted plane on that route.
Just never know what to expect
My comment was in regard to the 77W. It wouldn't surprise me to find a retrofit 767 on any 767 route -- but I would be shocked to find a 77W on EWR-AMS. It's a much, much larger plane.
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