narvik

If I'd have to choose and given that Polaris lounge food-offerings are decent IMO, I do actually prefer a J seat (or even a PE seat) to maintaining the food quality from its peak.
Sad that it's a trade-off/compromise, but it's the better option I reckon, and kudos to United for increasing the J/F seats.

Added: I have noticed that I will occasionally enjoy a meal at a Polaris lounge in lieu of eating on board these days.

cesco.g

Sadly, PL pre-departure food offerings are only an option from U.S. hubs, not any outstations beside the planned LHR, NRT, HKG.

greenpau

Right ... there are currently ~50 international destinations with Polaris marketed service, many of which are served from more than one hub, and Polaris lounges currently available in five domestic outbound hubs. If I was given a choice between the Polaris Lounge upgrades and delivering a decent onboard soft product, I'd choose the onboard any day.

Out of SFO, I don't show up hours before the flight to use a lounge when I am flying for 14h to HKG, 17h to SIN, 14h to SYD, 14h to TLV, 11h to ZRH/FRA ... etc. Between the major cutbacks/shortages on wine due to round-trip catering (where a second glass of the menu printed wines has become scarce), these overcooked pre-plated entrees, and the trimming of the mid-flight services, these things really mount up. Streamlined services and pre-departure dining make tremendous sense for late-night medium haul TATL departures ... but on ULH services from the West Coast hubs with hours to kill, they stand out as cheap.

Operating Expense cuts like these are irresistible to airline operators and controllers who don't think beyond the next two fiscal quarters. The UA exec model today is to invest heavily on items that can be Capitalized, such as real estate investments in Lounges and new technology development, then trim the monthly operating expenses to the bare bones.

texas gold

I just returned from two transatlantic and two transpacific routes with the new service model in place. The new model is pathetic and a serious downgrade to the Polaris experience. In both the 772 and 789's that I was traveling on the drink/nut service is now only done with one cart per aisle, starting at the front and moves all the way to the back. There are no more separations with the first four rows and the last four rows with separate attendants. I was in the second Polaris cabin and it took more than an 1,5 hours to get my first beverage. The flight attendees seemed rushed, stressed and not pleased with the changes and apologised. The food service was very poor. The new casserole dishes are small, much more in line with domestic First in size and quality. The food was overcooked, barely edible and the portions were measly at best. Here again the crew were embarrassed, service felt rushed and the galleys looked like a tornado had gone through them. This is not a good development and a serious step back from what was already "bottom of the class" in terms of food offerings.

EWR764

restlessinRNO

texas gold - It is sad to read your detailed TATL & TPAC accounts. I am always annoyed when it takes one hour to get a first beverage, but 1.5 hours would be a new low. Someone has to be sitting in the second Polaris cabin!

bdw1120

Will United recall the Polaris Cookbook?

narvik

Don't quite get this though. Aren't the pre-plated meals supposed to make life easier for the FAs? Or was this a flight where they already cut one FA from the roster?

texas gold

Someone with more info might know more than me, but on both of my flights last week the crew did state that they had reduced the crew. The pre-plated meals were supposed to compensate for the galley position that was removed. I'm not sure why they only have one cart of drinks per aisle instead of the two serving each row 1/2 cabin. The sad thing was, both crews were great and really quite ashamed of the new service structure.

EWR764

This is something I keep hearing from flight attendants, along with reports of terrible morale. The cognitive dissonance is pretty remarkable, considering the fact that these, by all means, should be viewed as "good times" for the company.

I think United cut too close to the bone here, and much like when it slashed domestic catering last spring, there needs to be a substantial backlash from frequent flyers. United walked back those changes a bit, and we need to demand the same in this case.

I am always baffled to see visible, meaningful cost cuts in the international premium cabins, which the company positions as its "flagship" product. The Polaris meal service right now is demonstrably worse than DL/AA, and that's a problem.

Kacee

The new service sounds terrible. That said, some UA crews have always been inexplicably slow with the initial beverage service. The sCO crews could be particularly bad about this, though I also recall 1+ hour waits on the UD of the 744. Some crews are just not very efficient.

MrAndy1369

So embarrassing to see all the cuts to Polaris, which seems to now be reduced to domestic F service, with bits and pieces added. Reminds me of AA in 2014 after the merger; they've since then walked back a vast majority of cuts and now has a pretty decent J/F product.

I remember when Polaris was first shown... I was blown away. It was truly premium and made UAL unique. Heck, even their website still shows the product as premium, including (now-misleading) meal photos. Really sad to see how far things has fallen in the past 3 years.

EWR764

It was nice for the 15 minutes or so it lasted, but anyone who expected some of those 'frills' to survive in the long term was only kidding themselves, now that several waves of middle managers looking to cut costs have taken their turns with the red pencil. It's only a matter of time before we start to see cuts to the Polaris Lounge product... if you don't believe that, just wait and see.

The sad thing is, the product is going to continue to degrade, until someone wakes up and realizes, "Hey, our crappy product is actually costing us business again" and product investment is trumpeted with glossy pictures, press releases and a media event. Then, a few months later, the cost-cut cycle simply begins anew...

halls120

MrAndy1369

Would you say the food quality and appearance is a far cry now from the original, initial rollout? And, another question: would you say, in general, the product on average feels and seems substantially different from its original rollout?