BF263533

I always fly a foreign partner over United. Was going to try Polaris but I will do another airline.

lhrsfo

Sleep is obviously the number one consideration on overnight flights, but is not very relevant for most people on day flights and the service should reflect this distinction.

My regular flight is ex-SFO at 7:35pm (3:35 am in my destination, LHR). The whole dinner performance takes 2.5 hours usually. It gets in the way of sleep. Likewise, they wake you up 1.5 hours before landing (4am SFO time) by turning the lights on and clattering the carts. So that turns 10 hours of available sleep time to only 6, which is not enough.

By contrast, the return is a day flight, departing LHR around noon and arriving around 3pm. Most people will have a long nap (say 2-3 hours) but are otherwise awake for the rest of the flight. This is where you want the long lunch service, the extended pre-arrival meal service etc.

They simply don't take into account the requirements of their customers.

greenpau

tarheelnj

After years on this flight in 8E on the 772, it's going to feel strange to experience a different seat config - not complaining, just experiencing a brief nostalgic twinge for a hard/soft product combo I got very used to for 16 hours.

trust77

Once you experience 9A or 9L, you'll never want to go back to 8E.
Enjoy the ride...

elg26

It must be as Im only a few days later in a 1-2-1 config

elg26

Its a combination of being a little tall for the sleeper seat and maybe having a glass or 2 more red wine then I should.....even though Im drinking h2o also...

Also end up binge watching shows which I get into..

The thing is that since always land in HKG at 700pm, i don't mind only getting 4 hours sleep...

Kacee

I hope that's not going to change with NH opening its own lounge for the 380 at HNL.

I'm surprised SQ and BR didn't do a better job negotiating at SFO, because the food options in the Polaris Lounge are pathetic, particularly late at night when the bulk of the BR/SQ pax are there (SQ1, BR17/27).
For that reason, I find it a mistake to sleep more than two hours on UA869 SFO-HKG. The more sleep the better on the return.

cerealmarketer

This is my beef - international and domestic - many times just don't have or want to budget the time to have a meal before a flight. A good quality meal option onboard is a time saver. If I want to sleep I can decline it or ask for part.

If the meal is inedible or nonexistent then I have to budget more time on the ground.

Another factor to consider...

A friend worked with Swiss around the late 90s.

Said the catering budget per head for biz class was higher than first because so many first pax decline the service to sleep - while biz class is drinking through more of the flight.

Their theory was biz class folks want to try everything, they're on another's dime. First class tends to have been there done that. Also back then no lie flats in biz.

bob_the_d

i'm in this camp. i am often times in a rush. if i'm paying a premium fare, i'd expect something decent.

and i think i've just accepted that we're not a service economy. especially after living for a while in asia, the contrast is pretty sharp. i think we're capable of great service, but it's definitely in the light of "oh wow, that was different" and it's definitely not the norm. i think the various comments around "if you want good soft product, go fly a JV carrier" pretty much exemplify that. american carriers just aren't interested in service. and seeing as how a lot of people aren't interested in it, i guess i can kind of see why airlines don't invest in it. and i don't say this as a complaint, but more of just as a sad acceptance of where we are. oh well.

tbh, i was actually pretty happy with the late 2017-mid 2018 polaris, or whenever it was shortly after the 77Ws were introduced and people were excited about the new seats. i found the FAs to be pretty happy, the meals were pretty decent, and i, for one, was a happy camper. i didn't have any complaints. if they just didn't mess with that, i would be fine. did it exceed all the other premium carriers out there? no, of course not. but i thought it was still pretty good and worthy of a premium fare. i haven't been on polaris since last december though, so i'm not excited to find out what's changed.

sinoflyer

Asian carriers, in general, have trained their customers to accept "NO" and "not possible" as integral parts of their service, something that Americans won't tolerate from their home carriers. There is also the lurking reality of the FFP, one of the reasons why FT exists in the first place, which is very much a factor that customers consider when evaluating a service or product (or deciding to click "Purchase"). Considering that UA is massively expanding J cabins fleet-wide, perhaps U.S. carriers, as a whole, are the ones that have done serious homework and understand what their customers really want.

HNLbasedFlyer

Considering I've been in the HNL UC at least 200 times at lunch periods I've never considered the chips and salsa and pretzels to be much more elaborate than other UC's. Heck, the LAX club I was at last week had a far better spread than I've ever seen at HNL.

Plane-is-home

Catbert10

I really wish the *A partners would exert some influence to improve the arrival PL access issue. Flew in on a partner - no shower for you, buddy!

1kBill

For me, it's because of the padding. I find the padding in UA's long haul premium seats to be best I've experienced compared to many other carriers. It's unfortunate their cabin layouts are subpar from a passenger perspective.