2019 Let's Eat - United First, United Business, & Premium Transcon Service
 

This thread is for premium cabin flights marketed as United First, United Business, and Premium transcontinental services. This includes:

• North America (including all 50 US States, Canada, and Mexico)
• Caribbean and Latin America (excluding Brazil, Argentina, and Chile)
• Intra-Pacific/Oceania/Micronesia (such as HNL-GUM and GUM-MNL)
• Select European Routes (such as to/from KEF)

Basically any premium cabin that is not marketed as Polaris goes in this thread.

Don't forget to post the date and route information along with the meal information! :)


Here's United's official page on North America premium cabin dining (including meal time windows):
https://www.united.com/web/en-us/con...ng.aspx?POS=US

North American premium cabin dining includes all First and Business class flights (including p.s. Premium Service) within North America, the Caribbean, and Latin America


For the curious folks, the 2018 thread is here:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...n-service.html

With that, Let's Eat 2019!

Announcement in LAX baggage claim that deliveries were taking 30-45 minutes. LAX bag reclaim is slow, but normally not that bad.

January 7, 2019: UA275 EWR - LAX (official) inaugural service on the 78J (787-10) from Newark. The chicken meal was really sad looking and didn't taste good.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...72c471b70f.jpg

78J inaugural LAX-EWR January breakfast
 

The fruits were ripe & sweet. The chicken chorizo with scrambled were very tasty with the hot sauce package as a welcome little touch.
There were roastbeef-cheese and cheese-tomato wraps offered pre-arrvial.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1d83ba047c.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1793067112.jpg

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c80bfff93a.jpg

3 Jan 2019
EWR-LAX

On the westbound, kale is alive and well.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d2c65753d2.jpg


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...775c05e9b0.jpg

Balsamic vinaigrette was the salad dressing. 3 different bread, including garlic bread, were offered.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6f5ab5373d.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0c301dcba1.jpg


Turkey and cheese wrap + cheese/hummus tomato sandwiches were offered midflight. The updated snack basket was also onboard. Sadly, no more gummy bears.

I flew the 78J EWR-LAX flight on January 9. Seated in 1A, it took 2.5 hours for the flight attendants to finish the meal service. I got tired of waiting for appetizers, so I just gave up and snuck to the back to buy a sandwich.

Anyone else experiencing painstakingly slow service on this new bird?

I don't recall exactly when the service began on the January 7's 78J flight from EWR to LAX, but appetizer wasn't served to me until around the Chicago area, so around 2 hours in. I couldn't be sure, but the service was divided between rows 1 through 6 and rows 7 through 11.

Also in the minus column, the appetizer of prosciutto was way too salty.

It was & I had the same menu on the 78J-inaugural this Monday. The prosciutto "ball" turned out to be 3 decent-sized slices, once "unwrapped", which I did enjoy along a pretzel roll.
The salad would have been fine, but I skipped it due to the sweet dressing it came with.

Pre-arrival I tried a bite of the turkey sandwich: it was very dry!. This needs some condiments on the side: mustard, mayo, pickle ......

I'm really disappointed to see the post-cut TCON entrees now showing up on p.s. (although the ravioli with leeks is really tasty). Doesn't feel like this bodes well for the future of domestic dining..

This is totally an issue related to the staffing model. They have a total of 8 flight attendants working, serving up to 318 customers. In business class, there are 4 flight attendants serving 44 customers. However, 2 of them need to stay in the galley preparing, plating, and heating up to 20 trays, leaving only 2 flight attendants, for each flight attendant, delivering hot towels, 20 nuts and drinks, taking away nut dish, dropping 20 trays one at a time, roll service, removing 20 bowls/dishes, refilling drinks, dropping off entrees, more rolls, refilling drinks, removing dishes, then roll down the dessert/cheese cart. Comparing to standard domestic 1 tray and done service, it's about 3x the work and half as many people needed to do this timely.

And yes, it did take almost 2+ hours on my flight on 78J.

The hummus and cheese sandwich is much more preferable to the turkey sandwich for exactly that reason.

No!!!!!!!!!!!!

Although I usually ask for the bigger better quality Haribo buy on board from the back after raiding the small bags in the snack basket.They've been happy to oblige.