May 29, 2017, 1:21 pm
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, 4686 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
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
- 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
✨ Polaris (& PP) Retrofits: Schedule, ....
Oct 24, 2018, 7:34 pm
#1381
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: NYC/ EWR/ PHL
Programs: UA Platinum, Hilton Gold, Hyatt Discoverist, Marriott Gold, IHG Platinum
Posts: 2,212
Oct 24, 2018, 8:51 pm
#1382
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: Portland OR
Programs: United 1K 1MM, Marriott Bonvoy Platinum, Hilton HHonors Gold
Posts: 560
To add merrit to this, if you consider that UA is getting 10 787-10's with Polaris factory installed over the next 12 months, that's one Polaris bird every 36.5 days. Add these to the current retrofit of 777-200's of 4 lines at about 9 weeks (63 day) per line, and we could be seeing close to, or even above, the average of one bird every 10 days for a while.
A 8 week mod time gets you 6.5 ships per year, or 13 over 2 years. By the end of the year there should be 12 772s done, so 43 to go, plus 25x 789 and 12x 788. So that’s 80 over two years (unless Kirby has some 772 retirements up his sleeve). Four mod lines gets you 52 on an 8 week schedule, or 68 on a 6 week schedule. Neither of those is enough. Five mod lines on a 6 week schedule gets you 85, which is enough and gives you a month and a half slack plus extra time for the 788/9 certificatatione.
Oct 24, 2018, 9:23 pm
#1383
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: New York, NY
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Posts: 9,453
I'm not sure the 787s will need an 8 week mod. The early 787-8s will probably get new Y seats, but I don't think the later -8s or the 787-9s will need to be reconfigured in the back.
Oct 24, 2018, 11:48 pm
#1384
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Delaware
Programs: UA Mileage Plus, Amtrak Guest Rewards
Posts: 1,393
Is June 2019 still the projected date to start the Eights? Right in the beginning of peak summer season? I'm guessing they're hoping to have a few Tens on line by then to be able to move things around.
Last edited by phkc070408; Oct 24, 2018 at 11:52 pm Reason: Addition
Oct 25, 2018, 6:02 am
#1385
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: NYC (Primarily EWR)
Programs: UA 1K / *G, Marriott Bonvoy Gold; Avis PC
Posts: 9,005
They would still need PE installed though, right? (I know that’s not as heavy a lift and maybe requires very little additional time...)
Oct 25, 2018, 7:01 am
#1386
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: NYC
Programs: Marriott Platinum Elite, National Executive, United Gold
Posts: 1,181
Oct 25, 2018, 8:05 am
#1387
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: New York, NY
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The -8s will get Polaris at the same time, and the advantage there is a smaller fleet, which can be standardized in shorter order.
The 77W are a little trickier to extrapolate from since they are being modded during a regular B-check, and already have Polaris. These are the only frames (to my knowledge) that will be getting PE in a separate installation from Polaris, now that the first few reconfigured 77E have PE and the existing Polaris 763s are not currently scheduled to receive PE.
Oct 25, 2018, 1:14 pm
#1388
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: NYC
Programs: Marriott Platinum Elite, National Executive, United Gold
Posts: 1,181
That's fair, I was only looking at PE installations in isolation, which is out of context with respect to the 787 retrofits.
The 77W are a little trickier to extrapolate from since they are being modded during a regular B-check, and already have Polaris. These are the only frames (to my knowledge) that will be getting PE in a separate installation from Polaris, now that the first few reconfigured 77E have PE and the existing Polaris 763s are not currently scheduled to receive PE.
Oct 28, 2018, 3:44 am
#1389
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Delaware
Programs: UA Mileage Plus, Amtrak Guest Rewards
Posts: 1,393
Well, the good news is that we just got 3 772s released with Polaris all within a two-week period. The bad news is that now all three of the 772 lines are fresh and none of them will exit until close to the end of the year. In fact, the next releases will probably be the two 763s in a little over a month.
Since there’s only one of the three-class 763s left, I was hoping they would have opened a third line in HKG and gotten that last odd-ball knocked out, but no luck with that.
Since there’s only one of the three-class 763s left, I was hoping they would have opened a third line in HKG and gotten that last odd-ball knocked out, but no luck with that.
Oct 28, 2018, 3:54 am
#1390
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Portland OR & Bangkok
Programs: United GS, Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 662
Well, the good news is that we just got 3 772s released with Polaris all within a two-week period. The bad news is that now all three of the 772 lines are fresh and none of them will exit until close to the end of the year. In fact, the next releases will probably be the two 763s in a little over a month.
Since there’s only one of the three-class 763s left, I was hoping they would have opened a third line in HKG and gotten that last odd-ball knocked out, but no luck with that.
Since there’s only one of the three-class 763s left, I was hoping they would have opened a third line in HKG and gotten that last odd-ball knocked out, but no luck with that.
Oct 28, 2018, 6:02 am
#1393
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: NYC (Primarily EWR)
Programs: UA 1K / *G, Marriott Bonvoy Gold; Avis PC
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That said, I would take a guess and say you’re most likely going to find them plying routes from SFO, ORD or IAD (since that is where the legacy 3-class sUA 772s mostly flew from). I would imagine ORD has the highest concentration of such birds, so better odds there, perhaps?...
Oct 28, 2018, 1:59 pm
#1395
Join Date: Mar 2015
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