The delayed Zodiac seats have not helped and undoubtedly having to retrofit the rest of the int'l wide body fleet will take years.

I think the new Polaris lounges in EWR and SFO will make a big difference but it seems that is at least 6 months off still.

So it's not really a hoax it's more like it was a premature launch with the typical complexity of introducing a totally revamped product on a worldwide fleet. At least certain flights to Asia are more or less a given to get the new seats which are great but I hear you - the implementation is not exactly taking place at warp speed....

Adam

At United marketing always is the first step, and the reality follows. Heck, I was on a "Continental" (according to the flight crew) flight last month - and the merger was five years ago.

I flew UA Polaris twice last week (HKG-SFO and SFO-SIN). Both had gel pillows and wine flights. I wound up not asking for the bedding even though I normally do as I honestly don't find a 1" mattress pad that much more comfortable than what is already provided.

I do wish they rolled out more lounges already. ORD is a fantastic lounge and it would be nice to have one in SFO already.

A hoax? No, not at all. They got people excited about the product and the offering. Only a few flights offer the new seat to date with more coming this year.

-RM

I don't think it's a hoax, but I understand why one my think that. All this hype but when polaris started, the seat is no where to be found. I've had numerous GS friends who had no idea about the hard product and thought polaris was just some blankets.


With any new product, there will be some growing pains. Now UA tends to cheap out so we'll see how it ends up. (ie. PDB cup unstable so replace with cheap cup instead of better cup)

Their plan for the lounges is a big disappointment. Only one lounge and not another one planned to open til a year later? And no 77W's fly to that lounge?

United has produced a case study in how not to rollout a product. It was a complete and utter failure. As the cool kids say, #epicfail .

For starters, United should have never launched "Polaris" until at least a couple of planes with the new seats were on routes. Moreover, it shouldn't have called the old business-class seats "Polaris" because the average passenger -- judging by many of the comments I've read on blogs and elsewhere -- doesn't realize the old, cramped seats without direct-aisle access aren't actually the "new" Polaris seats. As a result, many passengers have a negative first-impression of Polaris. And, as we all know, you can't re-do a first impression.

I get that it takes time to change the fleet, but United itself has admitted that a "majority" (their words, not mine) of long-haul aircraft won't have the "new" seats until 2021, by which point the seats will hardly be "new."

You've taken intl 'polaris' flights with no bedding being offered and no wine flights? In regards to the bedding, was it not offered or was it just not provisioned enough for the cabin?
If there was no wine flight, I can't say anything about that, other that my experience doesn't mirror yours.

Agreed that it's not a hoax. The FAs actually did better job of delivering the amenities. I did see that not a lot of people asked for the mattress pad. I always do, as it helped me sleep for long stretch of time. The key here is better lounge and more aircraft with these styles of seats. However, I don't know when the 787/777s are going to get those.

Do you think the mattress pads are cleaned or replaced between flights?

People can't have it both ways. Many of the changes that UA has made since the soft-product rollout have been driven by customer feedback. Everyone complained that there was "too much" bedding with no place to put it...so UA took one of the pillows away. Then people complained about the cups being flimsy...so UA reverted to the standard plastic cups. As for no bedding offered or wine flights, both are "on-request"; the bedding is typically not provisioned at 100% (I think they increased initially but there weren't many takers) so while some FA's are proactive with this, I think some are afraid that they will run out.

It's been beaten to death that some believe UA was putting lipstick on a pig or is falsely advertising Polaris because not all planes have the new seat. I'm sure I will get flack about this but here goes...its really only been 7-8 months since Polaris rolled out. It is far from perfect and I think UA is still trying to perfect a lot of the elements. I'll agree that there still is work to do, still improvements to make, but logistically major product changes, and subsequently trying to strive for consistency doesn't happen overnight. Outstations have a wide-range of issues to work through so unfortunately there will always be inconsistencies. Even the so-called 5 star airlines can have issues ensuring that the product is provisioned correctly or meal recipes are made to specs. There is some quality control but you are dealing with many different vendors in many different countries. No matter how hard you plan there is always going to be variances. Most importantly, service changes need to flow to FA's; this seems to be the biggest problem because some unfortunately are set in pmCO/pmUA mentality and changes seem to be hard to accept but it is getting better.

Bottom line, the product is evolving and considering how bad the previous product declined, Polaris is a step in the right direction.

The seats will be nice, but to me, the biggest upgrade will be the Polaris lounges. They really need one at IAD. The bedding is okay, wines a little better, food about the same. So it does feel that they rolled out the advertising 6 months to a year early, frankly. Or they should have advertised it as a coming attraction.

Thank you for being the voice of reason.

The notion that this conspiracy theory deserves its own thread while every single compliment or rave review is dumped into a single "positive experiences" thread typifies what's wrong with FT.

:mad:Meh, IAD is fine because they at least have the Global First Lounge. Where work is really needed is EWR and IAH that have neither a GFL lounge or a Polaris lounge.

I just went though IAD yesterday and must say it is a MUCH better experience than EWR.

1. Landed, was greeted by GS rep who told me to head to GFL at C4 after clearing customs.
2. 8 min later I was in the GFL sipping Laurent-Perrier.
3. 40 min after arrival, I was driven per Mercedes to the ramp at A5E, avoiding all of the moon-buggies.

This beats EWR where the only saving grace is the GS escort to the front of the Pre-Check lane.

I agree with the OP. Maybe not a hoax, but 'fake news'. ;)

Even the awkward mimosa / bloody mary cart thing takes forever because 50% or more pax ask for a drink that requires a galley visit. Simple things like attentive wine top-ups, addressing by name, etc could have remained but it's definitely slipping back to 'normal' UA BusinessFirst for me. DL's switchover to 'DeltaOne' or whatever seems to be better executed and consistent.

*I do like the royal blue / navy blue table linen and the shallow bowl crockery.

I'll agree with this. While any new product rollout of this complexity is going to have its bumps, UA doesn't have a labor culture that allows them to handle that gracefully, or consistently. Too much change and execution error, not enough training/clarity, and (from a pax perspective) the ongoing saga of never knowing what you're going to get when you step onto a UA Int'l flight.

Ice cream, no ice cream. Wine flights, no wine flights, now maybe wine flights if the FA is feeling up to it. Maybe bedding, maybe not. Mash that all in with still having to pick a "good" route, or you're mashed into pmUA 2-4-2 J seats, and well... it's a hell of a lot easier for me to just book CX or SQ half the time. *shrug*

I loved Polaris when I flew it on December 6. Now it's pretty much just BusinessFirst again. Maybe the bear was a vital part of the experience!! ;)

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