tuolumne

You have flown 45 carriers, and that certainly is an accomplishment. I congratulate you on that.

With all due respect, perhaps you should attempt to fly once again on United in a 3-class 747 or 777 in C before making such dramatic proclamations and conclusions. You had a bad flight. I just had one in Delta business, my first time on their old 777s. That doesn't mean I go all "Nagoya" on Delta (though I did go there on UA in 2004 ).

Grog

Ah, but I indeed stated that the truths were truths. You've not truly yielded the existence of such in this case. So, we are not on the same plane (no pun intended).

JVPhoto

Well you've said that you are a full time travel blogger so I guess knowing the industry/company/product you're writing about or is every flight meant to be a blind taste test?

jamesinclair

1. Exactly. FA should enforce rules. If they are unsure, they should check their manual.
2. Why should there be ANY push-back in changing seats when there are empty ones available?
3. Why is customer service on the ground lying to the customer being tolerated?

leungy18

was is the key word. It was industry-leading back when I was in 1st grade and Dennis Hastert was still Speaker of the House and the iPhone didn't exist. That's ancient history.

B/E Diamond may not have good storage, but the wider space in between seats meant that little items could be stashed here and there, and the less-dense configuration meant that you had more overhead space. (In the middle 2 seats I usually had the overhead to myself)

I'd prefer the Thompson Aero Vantage seats like they have on Finnair's A330s over UA's 2-4-2 configuration, and it's far behind the reverse herringbone seats that AA has and the B/E Apex seats that JL has.

IPTE F is fine. But considering the cost of UA F can go well into five digits...the soft product is seriously lacking.

cairns

My first post here....

I don't understand all the animosity over the OP's review. It was fair and accurate IMO. I've flown UAL a lot (since 1988) and have had both good and bad experiences (some very similar to his). Could he have mentioned that this was the old product? Yes, but probably the only flaw and in his defense UAL is advertising the old product as "Polaris".

FWIW I would rather fly Emirates coach to Dubai (I'm based in IAD) over the old United business product- much cheaper, a generous 34 inch stretch, usually an empty next to me and food and service that blows UAL off the planet. Not to mention Skywards miles are worth a lot more IMO.

Finally, I would have sent the lamb back. It's one of my favorite dishes on UAL but what he was served was an undercooked horror. Reminds me of a first class UAL flight to Tokyo- supermarket sushi and no wasabi or soy sauce. I actually got sick. But it could have been the fish.

entropy

You'd take EK Y 10 across in a 777 over IPTE C? sorry buddy, (welcome to FT) but that's just crazy talk. I'd take UA in barcolounger C over 10-across Y. (and I'm not UA apologist either).

its all friggin rewarmed airplane food, in Y or C, and even in F. Sure, they plate it nicer, but GMAB.

porciuscato

The bathroom one of my flights was not working. They spontaneously gave me a 100 euro voucher. That's about the worst I've experienced on LH/LX.

The writer can only review what he experienced. Would you like him to report on what United claims the experience is? Or what you claim it to be? Why not just read United's marketing literature then?

As someone who flies a lot, I can attest that the review isn't that far off the "usual" experience. I've had ~20 flights on United flat seats this year. I can't remember a single time when the seat was both clean and fully functional.

FlyerJT

Ah, there's some confusion I can clear up. One of the benefits of TPG having many writers: specialization. I can talk nuances of AA for days, but I'm only familiar with UA's MileagePlus* and not the nuances of UA's products/services. That's Zach's wheelhouse.

And that's the reason that I was selected for the LH/UA reviews - and the reason I didn't do the AA/BA reviews. We wanted to have a fresh look at each product. So, this particular set of reviews was meant more as a semi-blind taste test. I knew about the 8-wide going in and - as they say - my body was ready. I was actually at piece with that part... it was the rest of the hard and soft product failings that really shaped my opinion.

*In about 10 hours, I'm continuing a ticket I started 39 days ago: ATL-EWR-LFW-ADD-CPT-JNB-HKG-KIX,NGO-GUM-ROP-SPN.

tuolumne

You're right - UAL should have rolled out a new product 3 years ago. But Smisek was a penny pincher engaged in multi-billion dollar stock buy backs, not large cap-ex product enhancements. Apparently he wasn't happy with how much the then unnamed Polaris product was going to cost, and it's questionable if his team was still at the helm if we'd even have a new United Business "Polaris" brand and/or soft-product enhancements.

IPTE was world class up until the time of the merger. Regrettably, the 777s took forever to re-configure. However IPTE on the 3-class 767s, and 747s is still entirely competitive, IMO. It's the 777, with the narrower fuselage, where the middle two seats are too close together.

Recall how long AMR was rolling around with their angled lie flat NGBC while UAL went lie flat - literally 5-7 years. They have leap frogged UAL in some respects today but lets not forget the years where IPTE was actually the benchmark, as strange as that my sound today.

Now that they are rolling out Polaris, they are rolling out a high-density J, which we will see if it truly isn't replaced 3 years from now with a different seat. The loss of F is going to hurt, especially GS, so I'm sure UA is monitoring that closely.

LDVFlyer

Back then, the benchmark was Cirrus. US Airways launched the product and Delta implemented it shortly thereafter as well.

FlyerJT

I think there was quite a bit of misunderstanding on my "rather fly Y" comment. What I meant is that this single experience I had was worse than experiences I had in Y on JL, CX, LH. Thus, I'd rather have flown those products than on this flight.

I'm sure that many of the UA flyers in here have had quite pleasant experiences with UA (even on the 8-wide 772), where the FAs were dreamy and the chocolate fountain flowed on the ice cream cart and into glass bowls. Cool. Keep flying UA's 772. From the discussions here, it seems like my experience was a perfect storm of issues - that you have experienced from time to time - coming together with a lousy neighbor to make this a terrible experience for me.

And, unfortunately, airlines only get one shot. As much as I might like it, I can't fly back and forth on a product again and again to get the full scope of what an average experience might be like.

diburning

You forgot

*Too much credit card shilling under the guise of providing "informative" travel advice, sold with clickbait titles and vapid "content."

leungy18

Smisek sucked. Penny wise, pound foolish.

Since the 767 is flown on shorter routes anyway, the IPTE is not that bad on a daytime flight, but still unacceptable for a red-eye IMO.

I think the longest route served with the IPTE seats is HKG-ORD on a 777. 16 hours. That's just ridiculous. How do you sleep with so many strangers in such close proximity?

The 747s are going to be gone soon anyway. Never tried the upper deck, sadly.

N104UA

Did you not see the part of the menu that said "we apologize if your first choice is unavailable"? Every airline has that and unfortunately your first choice was unavailable.