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

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Old May 29, 2017, 1:21 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
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 Feb 28, 2018, 12:26 pm
  #811  
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Originally Posted by limey1K
I'm flying EWR-KEF at the end of May and the flight is listed as "Polaris Business" but I couldn't find any reference to 752 Polaris conversion here using the search feature. Any ideas?
Polaris Business does not mean Polaris seat (yet that's a bit weird). The EWR-KEF 752's will be the existing 752 lie-flats in business and will be marketed as Polaris Business.

Originally Posted by uastarflyer
Originally Posted by WineCountryUA
Sort of doubt halting Polaris conversions (especially on sUA 777s) for a year or two would be terribly popular.
for paid J customers getting GF seat priority - very popular

for the masses in Y - 9 across instead of 10 - very very popular

The complain factor should be pretty low.
Was think about the issue of further extending the 2-4-2 seating, probably one of the biggest knocks on UA's lie-flat offering -- especially here on FT.

Additionally the issue about the roll-out of Polaris seats -- folks tend to want it faster, not slower.

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Feb 28, 2018 at 12:32 pm Reason: self-merge
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Old Feb 28, 2018, 12:29 pm
  #812  
 
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Originally Posted by WineCountryUA
Polaris Business does not mean Polaris seat (yet that's a bit weird). The EWR-KEF 752's will be the existing 752 lie-flats in business and will be marketed as Polaris Business.
Thanks for the quick reply. Now I'm a little disappointed.
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Old Feb 28, 2018, 1:06 pm
  #813  
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Originally Posted by WineCountryUA
Polaris Business does not mean Polaris seat (yet that's a bit weird). The EWR-KEF 752's will be the existing 752 lie-flats in business and will be marketed as Polaris Business.

Was think about the issue of further extending the 2-4-2 seating, probably one of the biggest knocks on UA's lie-flat offering -- especially here on FT.

Additionally the issue about the roll-out of Polaris seats -- folks tend to want it faster, not slower.
understood - and obviously UA wants to remove IFC as a priority. The CO 772s have the same dated Biz class seats as the gleaming new 789s after all.

But as a mostly Coach flyer, and Coach representing 80%+ of the seats, my perspective is they can postpone the retrofits for a decade...
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Old Mar 4, 2018, 12:00 am
  #814  
 
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From a business standpoint, I'm surprised that United doesn't want to try and get the 772s done as quickly as possible. Even though we as passengers don't want to see the 10x in coach, it is a revenue opportunity for the company.

On the other side of the coin, 10x means a higher chance of an empty seat next to you.
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Old Mar 7, 2018, 10:17 am
  #815  
 
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Weird. My flight IAD-AMS did an aircraft change 767-300 to 767-300 (I got both a text from UA and an email from EF), and when I checked it showed the seatmap with new Polaris seats (the version 3). But a few minutes later, it changed back to showing the current seats, version 2. The plane number is 6457. So I am guessing UA was doing some plane swaps and I am not going to experience the new seat after all. But at least I was alerted so I could reclaim my original seat.

Has anyone seen this? (I could not search the whole thread since the long running scripts are making FT unreadable today.)
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Old Mar 7, 2018, 12:49 pm
  #816  
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Yes, frame scrambles with 2-3 changes in 15 minutes are pretty common. Most of the time it doesn't change the seatmap since the frames are the same, but here you got hit.
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Old Mar 17, 2018, 8:59 pm
  #817  
 
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When will EWR-LHR get Polaris seats??

I have been flying LU through FRA (booking through UA) just to have a comfortable first class flying experience. Yes, the limo on the tarmac is a nice touch, but I'd rather go direct.

I don't understand how UA has so thoroughly bolloxed this rollout.
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Old Mar 17, 2018, 9:43 pm
  #818  
 
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any ideas about when IAH-EZE will get the new seats?
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Old Mar 18, 2018, 6:35 am
  #819  
 
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Originally Posted by caseminole
any ideas about when IAH-EZE will get the new seats?
Since that route is currently operated by the sCO 777-200, I wouldn't expect it to happen for a while.

On another note, unlike the 763 retrofits where the new aircraft can be easily inserted in place of an old model due to identical seat counts, it will be harder to sub a Polaris 772 in for a non-polaris 772. Since we expect that the Polaris 772s will have 50J seats, the same number as the sCO 772, me wonders if they will get mixed into that pool. This would prevent a possible shortage of premium cabin seats and of course there won't be a shortage of Y seats.
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Old Mar 18, 2018, 7:03 am
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has there been any info on the 764 retros?
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Old Mar 18, 2018, 8:09 pm
  #821  
 
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Is UA On Schedule in retro aircraft for Polaris?

I have been keeping an eye on the UA website as to how many planes have been fitted out with the new Business Polaris seats. They do not seem to be moving too quickly. Do you think they are on schedule or not getting enough refitted?

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Mar 18, 2018 at 9:34 pm Reason: merged into exisiting thread
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Old Mar 18, 2018, 8:19 pm
  #822  
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Comically slow. Not nearly enough seats or lounges done so far. They've already revised back the public plans.
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Old Mar 18, 2018, 10:07 pm
  #823  
 
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Originally Posted by TonyBurr
I have been keeping an eye on the UA website as to how many planes have been fitted out with the new Business Polaris seats. They do not seem to be moving too quickly. Do you think they are on schedule or not getting enough refitted?
Currently UA does not have a lot of slack in the fleets, UA is reconfiguring just one to two planes at a time, and I bet this will decrease in NA summer.
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Old Mar 18, 2018, 10:24 pm
  #824  
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Originally Posted by N104UA
Currently UA does not have a lot of slack in the fleets
That's one explanation.

They had no problem reconfiguring and densifying the entire 772A fleet (19 aircraft) in less than a year. They had three at a time in for mods.
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Old Mar 18, 2018, 10:30 pm
  #825  
 
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Originally Posted by Kacee
That's one explanation.

They had no problem reconfiguring and densifying the entire 772A fleet (19 aircraft) in less than a year. They had three at a time in for mods.
I think we'll see multiple mod lines for the 777s once the STC is achieved. The 763ER have been in 2-3 at a time, coordinated with a major HMV and a number of life-extension programs, so it's a pretty comprehensive mod. I am not sure if the 777 retrofits are being scheduled with a heavy check.
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