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

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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, ....

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Old Dec 1, 2018, 12:34 am
  #1456  
 
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Originally Posted by cesco.g
763-JJ could be assigned to 764 routes or 763 routes initially, with the extra seats not being offered for sale.
1. That's 16 J seats not being sold

2. Even if they did upgrade 16 Y passengers to J and 22 Y passengers to PE, where do the other 47 passengers who lost seats get put? That's a lot of IDB
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Old Dec 1, 2018, 9:57 pm
  #1457  
 
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Originally Posted by phkc070408
1. That's 16 J seats not being sold

2. Even if they did upgrade 16 Y passengers to J and 22 Y passengers to PE, where do the other 47 passengers who lost seats get put? That's a lot of IDB
Newbie here. I saw that, too on my flight to TPE, the outbound is the old config. with center seats of the first three rows of E+ at the windows blocked (2-4-2), but the return had three rows of Premium Plus seats, and they changed the row numbers. Had I not paid attention and made changes, my 50K aisle seat would have been a middle seat in the new config.!
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Old Dec 3, 2018, 4:11 am
  #1458  
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Flying SFO-TPE this week and about 36 hours ago, I noticed the app showed the aircraft as a 772, despite the 77W seatnap. Now that we’re within 48 hours of departure, the seatmap is showing the 77W with premium plus. Most of the PEY seats are showing as selected.
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Old Dec 3, 2018, 4:16 am
  #1459  
 
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Judging from the wiki, none of the 767-400ERs are retrofitted yet?
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Old Dec 3, 2018, 5:07 am
  #1460  
 
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Originally Posted by dinoscool3
Judging from the wiki, none of the 767-400ERs are retrofitted yet?
That is correct. There is no timetable for if/when they will be retrofitted.
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Old Dec 3, 2018, 9:43 am
  #1461  
 
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Originally Posted by PsiFighter37


That is correct. There is no timetable for if/when they will be retrofitted.
Yes, I believe all the sUA planes are going first in the retrofit schedule. Makes sense. 2-2-2 sCO >>> 2-4-2 sUA
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Old Dec 3, 2018, 11:13 am
  #1462  
 
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Originally Posted by UAL250
Yes, I believe all the sUA planes are going first in the retrofit schedule. Makes sense. 2-2-2 sCO >>> 2-4-2 sUA
I saw it mentioned somewhere that the first CO 777 is actually in mods right now concurrent with a C check.
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Old Dec 3, 2018, 11:38 am
  #1463  
 
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Originally Posted by rmadisonwi
I saw it mentioned somewhere that the first CO 777 is actually in mods right now concurrent with a C check.
This is true, and the mod is being carried out in HKG (where sCO 777s typically undergo heavy maintenance) so it does not impact the schedule of the IPTE 777s. There are currently 4 777s confirmed in Polaris mod, and another 777 (N77012) went to HKG over the weekend... unclear if that one is also due for a Polaris reconfiguration or just in for a short visit.
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Old Dec 3, 2018, 12:51 pm
  #1464  
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Originally Posted by EWR764
This is true, and the mod is being carried out in HKG (where sCO 777s typically undergo heavy maintenance) so it does not impact the schedule of the IPTE 777s. There are currently 4 777s confirmed in Polaris mod, and another 777 (N77012) went to HKG over the weekend... unclear if that one is also due for a Polaris reconfiguration or just in for a short visit.
Thanks for the update.

Just curious about the sCO 777 conversion vs sUA 777 conversion, perhaps this has been asked before:

Are they going to have the same Polaris cabin layout? I note the bathrooms and closets are not located in the same spots between the sCO 777 and sUA 777.
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Old Dec 3, 2018, 2:11 pm
  #1465  
 
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Originally Posted by UA_Flyer

Thanks for the update.

Just curious about the sCO 777 conversion vs sUA 777 conversion, perhaps this has been asked before:

Are they going to have the same Polaris cabin layout? I note the bathrooms and closets are not located in the same spots between the sCO 777 and sUA 777.
It will be interesting to see. The sCO 777s have a crew rest facility immediately aft of the cockpit, on the port side. I am not aware of any plans to add an overhead crew rest facility like the 787/77W or a below-deck bunk like the sUA 77E, although there are OFCR (overhead flight crew rest) STC kits available.
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Old Dec 5, 2018, 8:15 am
  #1466  
 
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I'm currently doing LHR-ZRH-SFO in J on Swiss metal, but on a United Saver Award. I've been looking at LHR-SFO directs, and the 9am just updated with a new Polaris configuration. It's the full 155k vs 70k, which I'm happy to put in, but is there a chance that this bird could get switched back to pre-Polaris configurations?

I've flown SFO-FRA-SFO and SFO-NRT-SFO on 77W routes, so it's never been a question of what product I'm going to receive--curious if this group has experience on how often swap-in/swap-outs occur.
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Old Dec 5, 2018, 8:20 am
  #1467  
 
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There is a real possibility, I was recently on a longhaul flight which switched aircraft three times within 72 hours prior to departure. I would stick with your LHR-ZRH-SFO routing, and enjoy the soft product and lounge in E at ZRH on LX.

Originally Posted by soyouwantausername
I'm currently doing LHR-ZRH-SFO in J on Swiss metal, but on a United Saver Award. I've been looking at LHR-SFO directs, and the 9am just updated with a new Polaris configuration. It's the full 155k vs 70k, which I'm happy to put in, but is there a chance that this bird could get switched back to pre-Polaris configurations?
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Old Dec 5, 2018, 11:57 am
  #1468  
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Originally Posted by soyouwantausername
I'm currently doing LHR-ZRH-SFO in J on Swiss metal, but on a United Saver Award. I've been looking at LHR-SFO directs, and the 9am just updated with a new Polaris configuration. It's the full 155k vs 70k, which I'm happy to put in, but is there a chance that this bird could get switched back to pre-Polaris configurations?
Definitely a chance - it's pretty random until the frame takes off for LHR. Personally I think you're crazy to burn 85k extra miles for Polaris over LX J, but to each their own
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Old Dec 5, 2018, 12:41 pm
  #1469  
 
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Originally Posted by EWR764
This is true, and the mod is being carried out in HKG (where sCO 777s typically undergo heavy maintenance) so it does not impact the schedule of the IPTE 777s. There are currently 4 777s confirmed in Polaris mod, and another 777 (N77012) went to HKG over the weekend... unclear if that one is also due for a Polaris reconfiguration or just in for a short visit.
United's Polaris fleet tracker is saying there are 5 772's in mod.Coupled with the 2 lines dong 763's that brings the number of mod lines to 7, which my my calculations is exactly what's needed to complete the entire fleet by end of 2020.
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Old Dec 5, 2018, 8:06 pm
  #1470  
 
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Originally Posted by usbusinesstraveller
United's Polaris fleet tracker is saying there are 5 772's in mod.Coupled with the 2 lines dong 763's that brings the number of mod lines to 7, which my my calculations is exactly what's needed to complete the entire fleet by end of 2020.
Indeed - also, now 9 772 frames have been refitted (18%) so the pace is now finally picking up.
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