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[Rumor] More Polaris "Enhancements" coming May 1, 2018? ...

Old Mar 25, 2018, 4:42 pm
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Last edit by: WineCountryUA
Originally Posted by EWR764
Word is out on another site (not my post) regarding a company memo about the May 1 "enhancements".

POLARIS SERVICE ENHANCEMENTS
Frequently Asked Questions

1. When do the service updates go into effect?
A: The service updates are effective May 1, 2018, on all long-haul international flights.

2. Why are we making changes to our United Polaris® service?
A: Customers have positively received our United Polaris lounge, and this year we are opening more United Polaris lounges beginning this summer in San Francisco, Houston and New York/Newark and in the fall, Los Angeles. As we continue to add more lounges, we want to take into account the feedback that customers have given us — they’ve emphasized their desire to rest and relax during their journey, especially onboard. The updates to the service flow will allow us to continue providing a premium product with high-quality food, wine, amenities and more, but it’ll be delivered in a more efficient way.

3. What is the new international United Polaris meal service flow?
A: The meal service flow for both first and business class will be the same:
Pre-departure
• Pre-poured sparkling wine, orange juice and water offered from a silver tray, with other beverages available upon request.
Main meal service
• Hot towels
• Linen placement
• Pre-meal beverage cart
• Appetizer and salad cart
• Bread and beverage refills
• Entrées
• Bread and beverage refills
• Dessert and pre-plated cheese cart
• Individual water bottles with hang tags
Mid-flight service (when applicable)
• Display mid-flight snacks on console, self-service unit, fold-down trays or galley countertop.
• Heat and serve hot on-demand items (when applicable) upon customer request.
Pre-arrival service
• Hot towels
• Pre-arrival tray setup with entrée and choice of beverage
• Breads and pastries

4. Will we be able to offer other pre-departure beverages?
A: Yes, upon customer request fulfill other pre-departure beverages in accordance with each departure country’s pre-departure liquor procedures. Refer to the Flight Attendant Policies and Procedures Manual to determine if you are allowed to open beverage carts/carriers that contain alcohol on the ground.

5. Is there still a chocolate offered during pre-departure?
A: Pre-departure chocolates/dessert will be catered on the pre-arrival tray instead for customers to enjoy during or after their flight.

6. What’s changing with the Bloody Mary and wine specialty beverage carts?
A: Wines and Bloody Marys will continue to be available upon request, but the dedicated cart service will change. This was a common flight attendant suggestion for improvement. A new branded cart cover is being sourced to improve presentation in the aisle and will be available shortly after launch.

7. Can we still offer wine tastings?
A: Absolutely. Although the wine arches with the 3 tastings will not be boarded, we can continue to honor customers’ requests to sample select wines.

8. What about the United Polaris first class soup and salad course?
A: The salad and appetizer will be delivered at the same time on a tray setup, instead of having a soup course.

9. What about the turndown service?
A: We will continue to offer the turndown service upon request.

10. Will Express Dining continue to be offered?
A: Yes, Express Dining will continue to be offered and can be requested and delivered at any point during the flight.

11. Will we continue to offer the mini desserts and fruit and cheese?
A: The mini desserts will continue to be offered from the three-tier cart with the signature ice cream service. In addition, pre-plated cheese will be added to the dessert cart. To make room for the fruit and cheese on the dessert cart, the specialty tea box will be removed from the cart, although specialty teas will continue to be available from the galley.

12. Are there any updates to the mid-flight and pre-arrival services?
A: There will be a few updates to both the mid-flight and pre-arrival service.
Mid-flight service (when available) – While we’ll no longer have formal presentation of mid-flight snacks, snack provisioning levels will remain the same and will continue to be displayed near the galley as is done today. Hang tags advising the customers that mid-flight snacks are available will be added to the individual bottle waters distributed after the main meal service. Hot snack items, when available, will also be delivered upon request.
Pre-arrival service – We’re removing tray table linens to reduce trips through the aisle. The tray itself will continue to have a linen liner. The pre-departure chocolate/dessert will be catered on the pre-arrival tray for customers to enjoy during or after the flight.

13. Will there be any new service items introduced to support the new United Polaris service?
A: Yes, there are a few new elements that will be introduced, including:
Cart covers – Similar to some of our competitors, branded cart covers for both the half and full carts will be boarded for use in the aisle on both the beverage and meal tray carts. Cart covers will be available shortly after launch.
Hang tags – To be placed on individual bottle waters at the end of the main meal service to advise customers that mid-flight snacks are available.

14. Will we be changing the domestic meal service procedures to align with the new United Polaris service (e.g. pre-poured pre-departure beverages)?
A: We will continue listening to the feedback of our customers and our flight attendants and will adjust our processes where necessary to deliver the best service for our customers.
Some key points:

- Return of the salad/appetizer cart, although I suspect it's just going to be the meal cart with a fancy cover, to reduce the number of galley trips with hand-run trays
- Beverage carts coming back to the aisle (similar to DL and the former 3-cabin sUA business class service) with branded cart covers
- Soup is gone in Polaris First (so no more differentiation; the product isn't expected to last the full year, anyway)
- Wine tasting arches are gone
- No bloody mary carts (already announced)
- Hot bites will stay
- Bread refills to be offered (return of the bread basket?)
- Pre-departure chocolates returned to the pre-arrival tray

In many ways, this is going to look like the former three-cabin BusinessFirst service with nicer linens and serviceware. Overall, not the sweeping change (or depth of cuts) I was expecting. No word on provisioning of the other items (gel pillows, mattress pads, slippers, PJs, etc.)
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[Rumor] More Polaris "Enhancements" coming May 1, 2018? ...

Old Feb 10, 2018, 10:37 am
  #181  
 
Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 4,767
Originally Posted by fly18725
...

Really, you could say United is aligning its initial cocktail service with “more celebrated” airlines hat don’t use carts and hand run everything from the galley.
Would that be the same "more celebrated airlines" that offer their premium cabin customers decent wines? The same "more celebrated airlines" that list their wines in the menu? The same "more celebrated airlines" that actually have those wines on board that are listed in the menus?
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 10:41 am
  #182  
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Originally Posted by worldtrav
Would that be the same "more celebrated airlines" that offer their premium cabin customers decent wines? The same "more celebrated airlines" that list their wines in the menu? The same "more celebrated airlines" that actually have those wines on board that are listed in the menus?
This. Why other airlines can serve the wines they actually advertise and United can't is indeed a mystery.
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 10:42 am
  #183  
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Originally Posted by milepig
This. I recently was on an Icelandic flight from KEF to LHR in Premium Economy, or whatever they call it, and based on that experience I wouldn't hesitate to use them for the relatively short hop to KEF from ORD, and certainly from the East Coast. Clean Modern plane, GREAT IFE that ran circles around UA, decent food that I could preorder. No reason to not fly them for a fraction of the price UA wants for J on similar length flights. You don't get the big lie flat seat, but the flight is only marginally longer than many domestic flights. The vultures are circling and unless they run out of money sometime soon will give the legacy's a run for their money on these relatively short flights.



I'm not a big fan of TK. The service actually isn't all that great, and the J seats are the worst semi-lie-flat seats I've even been in. Horrible. Ground service is hopelessly inept, onboard is better but not world class.

I'm actually a fan of the LOT 787 experience and fly via Warsaw every change I get. The food is actually good, they board the nice wines that the menu says they have, service is pleasant, seats are great. Amenities like seat covers are actually provided without having to ask. And you can't beat the price. A bonus is that Warsaw is a dream airport for transfers, and when I was late landing one time there was someone waiting at the gate to help me who walked me through a back way to my next gate.
And you are fully aware that LO & TK seats are EXACTLY exactly same (actually fairly enhanced on majority of TK aircraft)?

You can complain about this or that aspect of LO or TK service (for the record they both use outsourced employees at their respective hubs), but I am not sure why you can claim than LO seats are superior to these used by TK...

And for the record both carriers are better than UA...
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 11:58 am
  #184  
 
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Originally Posted by TPJ
And for the record both carriers are better than UA...
Not if you want a lie-flat. TK's 77W lie-flats are inferior to UA's, and the hot cabins make it impossible for me to sleep.
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 12:32 pm
  #185  
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Originally Posted by TPJ
And you are fully aware that LO & TK seats are EXACTLY exactly same (actually fairly enhanced on majority of TK aircraft)?

You can complain about this or that aspect of LO or TK service (for the record they both use outsourced employees at their respective hubs), but I am not sure why you can claim than LO seats are superior to these used by TK...

And for the record both carriers are better than UA...
The seats on most of the TK A330/340s are angle flat and miserable. The seats on the LO 787s are true lie flat. Not sure what you’re referring to.
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 12:48 pm
  #186  
 
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Originally Posted by worldtrav
Would that be the same "more celebrated airlines" that offer their premium cabin customers decent wines? The same "more celebrated airlines" that list their wines in the menu? The same "more celebrated airlines" that actually have those wines on board that are listed in the menus?
The discussion was about service delivery. I don’t see a correlation between the use of a dedicated cart and your other complaints.
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 2:23 pm
  #187  
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Originally Posted by fly18725
​​​​​​​The changes being discussed will not have a meaningful impact on CASM. Maybe encouraging lower wine consumption could have a very small impact, but eliminating a Bloody Mary cart at the beginning of service, while still offering Bloody Marys, seems to be more oriented on pacifying FAs and improving service flow.
That is a good point. In my limited experience, usually the quality of service is based on load. When the flight is full in J, food comes slower, colder and FAs are not as relaxed/attentive. Polaris is a lot more work for the FAs (and less space too with the added stuff). In fact, talking to an FA, she said the 77Ws carry as many people as the 744s but 1 or 2 fewer FAs - not sure if that is true though.

Still, cutting out mid-flight hot snack on >12 hour flights is too much.
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 4:06 pm
  #188  
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Originally Posted by cricketer
Doing my return FRA-SFO tomorrow, let's see what happens. No hot bites on the outbound on Feb 1.
Please report back.

Originally Posted by windhund
I had heard of 20-40% discounts off J rack rates (I think also on here), but 50-60%, wow.
Originally Posted by spin88
United is not getting a "premium" in any respect at this point. Its rack rates are not usually lower than OALs, but it offers very large (up to 50%, and someone posted here their corporate discount was more than 60% off rack rates in J) discounts for "managed" traffic.
Would that (up to 60%) be off high-fare e.g. J, C booking classes, or even include lower P, Z, D booking codes as well?

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Feb 10, 2018 at 5:01 pm Reason: merging consecutive posts by same member
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 4:34 pm
  #189  
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I did a dummy booking on our travel portal a week or two ago, and was surprised to notice that it was pricing as JXR1/8N65, but booking into Z. While technically a 65% discount, I think it might be getting treated as a Z fare, which made it more of an ordinary fare.

In general, the steep corporate discounts are only off of full fare (FJCYB) tickets.
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 4:47 pm
  #190  
 
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Originally Posted by cesco.g
Would that (up to 60%) be off high-fare e.g. J, C booking classes, or even include lower P, Z, D booking codes as well?
off full fare. discounts used to be (pre- "changes you will like") lower, but are now for certain accounts 50+%. And yes, OALs have discounts as well, but I don't know of them offering the kind of steep discounts UA is offering at this point (DL is not, nor to my knowledge is AA, but perhaps someone has seen them).

Let me give an e.g. lets say I need to go SFO-LHR week after next fare is $10,069 on UA, $10,455 on VS, and $10,457 on BA. If I have a corporate rate with Apple (just as an e.g.) then the actual ticket is more like $4500 on UA. (They have a discount with delta as well, but my understanding is that it is not as deep).

However, if I look out at Thursday March 29 - Thursday April 5, I get fares of $3612 on UA, $3850 on VS/BA, but these P fares are likely to only get a 10% or so discount.
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 6:49 pm
  #191  
 
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Reporting back from FRA-SFO today:
  • Hot Bites were listed on the menu! One of the FA's said they are gone eastbound to Europe, but available on the westbound daytime flights as most people stay awake. I have no idea what was available for the hot bites because I unexpectedly slept for 6 hours :-)
  • The duvet has changed --- I was a little surprised at how compact it looked rolled up, and when I unrolled it it was a lot thinner than what we've been used to. I don't know if this is an actual change, or I just got an old one that has been washed and dried a lot and has thinned out. Felt like the former though.
  • Lemongrass Chicken. Holy Smokes. This might have been better than the spicy chicken udon noodle thai curry soup. I tend to avoid rice (given that I gorge on the dessert options), but the accompanying rice was surprisingly soft and moist. The chicken was tender and cooked just right. And the lemongrass sauce - wow. Now granted, I've been eating meat and potatoes in Eastern Europe for a week, but even then.
  • I miss Channel 9 -- have never seen it turned on on the 77W :-(
  • Gel Pillows and Mattress Pads were stored above 2L as well as 9A
  • Crew was friendly, but boy was the FA on my aisle slow with the meal service. He seemed a tad slow at the start, but eventually fell a whole course behind -- the other aisle was being served cheese while we received our main course. Speed isn't so much an issue on daytime flights, to be sure, but the result of this was lukewarm nuts, and soft, melty ice-cream.
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 7:11 pm
  #192  
 
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  • I miss Channel 9 -- have never seen it turned on on the 77W :-(
I've had Channel 9 on on two of my three 77W flights. The same pool of pilots can fly the 772 as 77W, so it's Captain-specific and not plane-specific (all 77Ws are capable). Thus not a Polaris "Enhancement." Let's see if the 787-10s and A350's come Channel 9 capable.
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 7:45 pm
  #193  
 
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Originally Posted by cricketer
Reporting back from FRA-SFO today:
  • Hot Bites were listed on the menu! One of the FA's said they are gone eastbound to Europe, but available on the westbound daytime flights as most people stay awake. I have no idea what was available for the hot bites because I unexpectedly slept for 6 hours :-)
  • The duvet has changed --- I was a little surprised at how compact it looked rolled up, and when I unrolled it it was a lot thinner than what we've been used to. I don't know if this is an actual change, or I just got an old one that has been washed and dried a lot and has thinned out. Felt like the former though.
  • Lemongrass Chicken. Holy Smokes. This might have been better than the spicy chicken udon noodle thai curry soup. I tend to avoid rice (given that I gorge on the dessert options), but the accompanying rice was surprisingly soft and moist. The chicken was tender and cooked just right. And the lemongrass sauce - wow. Now granted, I've been eating meat and potatoes in Eastern Europe for a week, but even then.
  • I miss Channel 9 -- have never seen it turned on on the 77W :-(
  • Gel Pillows and Mattress Pads were stored above 2L as well as 9A
  • Crew was friendly, but boy was the FA on my aisle slow with the meal service. He seemed a tad slow at the start, but eventually fell a whole course behind -- the other aisle was being served cheese while we received our main course. Speed isn't so much an issue on daytime flights, to be sure, but the result of this was lukewarm nuts, and soft, melty ice-cream.
Yes agree that lemongrass chicken is the best food item and largely consistent in its delivery, taste and tenderness
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 8:00 pm
  #194  
 
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What is service like on the South America flights? I find SA service to usually be inferior. I have two overnight flights in December and probably will eat dinner in the terminal, not on the plane.
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Old Feb 10, 2018, 9:19 pm
  #195  
 
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Since I have benefitted from FT over the years, I will share my thoughts to approaching Polaris (with a nod to Seneca and Marcus Aurelius) with the hope that it may benefit fellow FT'ers (or that you might be able to add your own thoughts). Let me emphasize that I have no idea of what was discussed at the UAL C-suite or boardroom (like whomever thought 2-4-2 dorm-style seating was ever acceptable, or likewise the Polaris PDB plastic champagne “flutes”). My own understanding is that Polaris was part of the UAL's decision to become a two-class carrier (I am sad to see GF go). Hence, UA consciously made the decision to cede the first class (and therefore, higher-end) market and provide the best (or at least a competitive) business class. Also, being based in Houston I have yet to experience the Polaris hard product.

Eighteen months after Polaris was introduced, we have an idea of Polaris is and isn't. Approaching a flight, I try to consider what is in my control and what is in UA’s. In my control: when and what I eat; and if I want to work, sleep, or be entertained on board. In UA’s control: what is served on board; IFE; FA’s attitude; condition of plane. Out of everyone’s control: weather. WRT Polaris, did UA overhype what was come? IMHO, yes. In the press release announcing Polaris, Oscar said “…United Polaris offers an elevated customer experience and redefines the meaning of premier business travel.” Hmmm…. Similarly, in October of this year Delta announced an upgrade of their international long haul main cabin dining, stating “Our goal is to truly recreate the experience our customers would have at their favorite restaurant at 30,000 feet, taking into account what menu items naturally complement one another, the service behind the offerings and the overall presentation.” Really?? For coach? A touch of hyperbole maybe?

Ok, so with respect to UA, what do I do? I don’t expect a high-end “restaurant-quality” meal (although some are surprisingly tasty). Forget real caviar or prime rib from a trolley carved at your seat. Yes, yes, I know: you are paying a lot of money, how hard could it be? Even US carriers used to cook breakfast to order in first class on certain international long haul routes years ago. I don’t know, but I do think that high-quality, high-touch service for a 50 passenger cabin is a tall order. If at all possible, I try to get a good meal in before the flight. Maybe I bring my own snack. It’s a shame since post-9/11 that one cannot get their favorite drink through security (I know, I know, you were never supposedly able to bring your own drinks, but pre-9/11 it was possible and most crews did not care if you were discrete). For pre-departure lounges, in IAH I skip the very crowded UC in Terminal E in favor of the C1 UC (even if flying from Terminal E). If it is a morning flight and I want to spend a significant portion of the flight sleeping, I make sure I either stay up very late the night before or get up very early and exercise. On the chance that there are problems with IFE or wifi, I make sure my computer, phone and ipod are charged up, that I have at least one good book on my phone and maybe even a hard copy book. Fortunately, I am only 5’11”, so I am able to sleep on UA C. I ask for a gel foam pillow; if they forget or blow me off, I try to notice the overhead where they are stored and grab one myself once things settle down after takeoff. I skip the pajamas and wear a golf shirt and comfortable trousers instead. I have not been enticed by the pre-arrival “snacks” (especially breakfasts), so if I am hungry I either pick at what’s served or order express dining for later in the flight. (I truly hope the Polaris lounges will offer worthwhile meals that allow one to skip eating on board.) Again, I remind myself that this is business class, not first.

At the end of the day, what do I expect?: minimal delays (and if so being told why we are delayed—good UA experimental program in progress), a safe flight, and a comfortable lie-flat seat. Direct aisle access for every seat should be a huge improvement. Attitude of the crew is the variable that can change an ordinary flight (even one with a few flaws) into a great one and UA has some very special FA’s. It’s international travel, so sh*t happens; I find the mutuality of smiles, empathy, respect, grace and a sense of humor go a long way!

What are your Polaris work-arounds?
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Last edited by BeanTownBoy; Feb 10, 2018 at 9:32 pm
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