Winter 2019-2020 EWR-HKG back to non-polaris seating 772? (Now 77W - Polaris w/ PP)
 

I am booked EWR-HKG nonstop in 2020. Currently it is 772 with the old seats. Is it possible that they will change to the new Polaris Seats for these flights prior to my trip? I saw that EWR-HKG was already Polaris seats but only see SFO to HKG as Polaris and only 773. I would really prefer the new Polaris seats!

A chance yes but not guaranteed.
All the 3-class 772 will be got by en of 2019
the 2-2-2 pmCO772 will be converted by end of 2020
And there is a chance the route with be switch to a different aircraft type.

If you in early 2020 on a 2-2-2 pmCO772 there is no way to know at this time except there is a chance -- which will improve as 2020 progresses

I see that United is flying the EWR HKG route currently (now) with the 773 and Polaris seats. Any idea why they would change back to the 772 and the old seats later in the year and into 2020?

The 772 on the schedule later in the year and in 2020 is likely just a placeholder. When UA loads the W19/20 schedule onto the website, it's likely the 77W will reappear - EWR-HKG is a Premium Plus market so I doubt there will be a substitution.

When would United load/update the Winter 2019-20 schedules?

HongKong - back to old business class - no Polaris?
 

hi,

I am looking at Honk Kong (UA 179) for Dec 20 and I see that the seat map has reverted back to the old 8-across business class on the 777-200.

Currently the Hong Kong flights have the new Polaris seating (4 across)

Question - why is United going back to the old 8-across business class to Hong Kong? Does anyone know?

By Dec 2019, there will be very, very few remaining 2-4-2 772, 3-class,
23 of the 33 have been converted and 1 is in process -- so this may just be a placeholder seatmap as protection against a delay in the conversion process

IIRC EWR-HKG reverts to the pmCO 772 in the winter schedule, which has 2-2-2 Diamond seats and not 2-4-2 IPTE seats. Or at least that's what I'm seeing in mid-December and mid-January. I don't think the pmUA 772s (with IPTE seats) have the range to do EWR-HKG, especially in the winter.

As others say, there's a chance that the plane gets swapped out for a Polaris-equipped one at T-48h or so, but the chances of that would be fairly low, given that only a handful of pmCO 772s have been retrofitted.

HKG was one of the first markets for IPTE, and then late in the IPTE upgrade program, HKG went back to the barcaloungers while the last few planes were being retrofitted. UA could do the same thing with the Polaris upgrade, since HKG was an early market.

My last few flights to HKG out of ORD have been on the pmCO 772 (March, May and July 2019). Prior to that, I was hit or miss on getting new Polaris out of ORD or the old 2-4-2

Trying to determine Polaris for UA EWR-HKG
 

Looking at award tickets in January...in the upcoming months, UA 180 is listed as 777-300 with the new Polaris seats, 4 across, what I would ideally want...now, in January, the aircraft is a retro-fitted 777-200, 6 across, which granted, is better than the old Business Class, BUT...does this actually make sense for them to switch the aircraft BACK to a retrofitted 777-200 for an important flight like EWR-HKG?

Of course, I tried to contact UA about this and got a really generic response about how much of their fleet has been upgraded...gee...real helpful. Is there any way to really confirm which aircraft they'd go with this far ahead, or is it just sort of a crapshoot...

Too far ahead. You're not going to get any answer you can rely on by calling in. Waste of time. The middle seats are fine on the 6-across.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

I vastly prefer the 2-2-2 configuration to the 1-2-1, assuming I can get a seat in the center column. It's much more spacious, albeit less private.

Anyway: (a) the 2-2-2 is not the retrofit version, that's the pre-retrofit version; (b) there's no way to know what configuration you'll have until you land, although about three days before your flight, you'll get a preliminary indication; and (c), yes, they would really use that on an "important flight" like EWR-HKG. In fact, they used that configuration for years on that flight -- it's the pre-merger Continental configuration. Demand is generally lower in the winter than it is in the summer, so they will occasionally downsize a route. (In this case, they're also adding a second daily SFO-HKG flight, so they may expect to see a hit in EWR-HKG bookings anyway).

Good luck. :)

I agree that confidence at take-off is well over 99%. :)

Thank you folks...that was very helpful, even if the answer is there is nothing close to an answer...I'll just keep avoiding UA Biz until those odds get better. Thanks for merging into the appropriate thread too :)

Newark - HongKong - reverts back to PMCO?
 

Another thread on Hong Kong - there is already 2 today! In Business Class, currently the B777-200's which are flying this daily route are the new Polaris Configuration (4 Across). However, starting mid-November they revert back to the 6 across Diamond backs PMCO seats. I notice that even the Chicago - Hong Kong are the 6 across old style seating. Only the SFO - HKG flights fly the new the new Polaris seating thru end of schedule

Any chance they get switched back to the new config (new polaris 4 across?). What are the chances, considering that there is about 4 1/2 months till my travel date. If they do get the new config - how do they manage the seat allocation, Does the new config 777-200's and the PMCO 6-across have the same # of business class seats.

Any comments, feedback welcome!

Thank you!

Both have 50 J seats. Rest assured, any time they switch aircraft, your carefully selected seat will end up somewhere entirely different!

Well, the EWR-HKG route is currently covered with the 77W, the 777-300ER. These planes are only available with the Polaris / PE layout because they are relatively new to the fleet.

The sCO 772 resumes on this route on the westbound departure from EWR on 27-Oct-19, which is one day after the SFO/HKG route looses its 77W and goes to a Polaris 772 twice daily. While I'm sure the changes are related, I can't explain how SFO going from a 77W to 2X 772s causes EWR to loose its 77W. I would assume this is just the date for the fall schedules to go into effect.

Related to your question, since SFO/HKG is going to utilize 4 Polaris 772s (2 per day, both directions), and there are only 5 of them in service now, I would expect the sCO 772 and be delighted if a Polaris bird appears on your flight. Keep in mind that there will probably be a few more retrofitted by then, but the ones not dedicated to flights with PE service will be few and far between.

If you're really interested in flying in Polaris, the only way to guarantee that now is to do a connection in SFO.

......

To HKG, perhaps, but EWR will have guaranteed Polaris hard product on EWR-LHR and EWR-NRT.

There's no indication that SFO-HKG will be on sCO772, they can use one of many retrofitted sUA772. But since EWR-HKG is not selling premium economy, it's a sign that it will revert back to 772 and be assigned whatever plane is available 24h before flight.

Actually there are far more than five Polaris 772s in service--the five you are talking about are specifically pmCO birds. I believe the SFO-HKG flights will for now be operated by the pmUA Polaris 772s, of which there are maybe 15-20. For now, the five (and counting) pmCO Polaris 772s are being randomly assigned onto routes that are operated by pmCO 772s in general, including EWR/ORD-HKG come this fall.

I don't believe so. The PMUA 772s with P&W engines don't have quite the range as the PMCO 772s with GE engines.

They don't, but you also don't need the full range of the GE-powered 772s to make it on SFO-HKG. In fact, before this year ORD-HKG was routinely run with P&W-powered 772s, and it did just fine. Maybe a few payload hits a year on the westbound, but nothing overly problematic.

My comment was with respect to EWR-HKG which was what the OP was inquiring about.

Yes, but since I forgot about the PW 772s, as my brain was fixated on the GE units, they could use the PW 772s on the SFO-HKG route, since the PW engine can handle this route and a bit more. I stated that 4 Polaris GE 772s would be tied up for the SFO-HKG route, thus they wouldn't be available for use elsewhere on the system, including EWR-HKG. I was wrong. That said, there will be 5 (plus any additional ones completed by November) GE Polaris units to go around the system, which, while still under 50%, dramatically increases OPs change of getting one.

The winter schedule is not finalized yet and I suspect we will see some changes and aircraft swaps in the next few weeks. I would be surprised to see United actually stop selling Premium Plus on EWR-HKG during the more realistic booking window (8 weeks and in).

Actually, I think they are selling Premium Economy on EWR-HKG. I have someone booked in PE on that route late August. And paid extra for it

Just doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations, by the time the winter schedule goes into effect (EWR-HKG to 772 from 77W), UA should have 8-9 modded sCO 772ER in service, with two more in mod, leaving 10-12 to be retrofit. That should be sufficient to dedicate the new configuration (with Premium Plus) to the HKG route at least, with ample redundancy.

In the coming weeks, I suspect we'll see a whole slate of additional routes offering premium economy for sale, effective the W19/20 schedule. EWR-LHR is already one.

They are selling PE through the end of the summer travel season. They are not selling PE once the route changes to the 772.

That doesn't mean that they won't end up using an aircraft with PE seating, but they're not obligating themselves to do so at this point.

If they are going to swap the new config Polaris to the fall 2019/ early 2020 EWR - HKG flights, I understand the # of business class are the same on both the pmCO diamond seats and the new config Polaris which is 50. What about the reduced Economy seats on the newly config Polaris which might cause a over book situation, since now they are selling in the old pmCO economy seats, which have a lot more than the new config of the B777-200.

That is assuming they are going to sell every single economy seat in the old config.

They would move passengers into P+ as needed. There are more seats in total, because the pmCO config is 9-across and Y in the new config is 10-across.

If they're dropping 77W to HKG out of SFO in favor of 772s, UA may have decided it's better to have all 772s, in whatever configuration, going to HKG in order to allow more operational flexibility.

Correct... but I would caution anyone booking this flight now and angling for a P+ seat with an equipment swap. I wouldn't be surprised to see this go to a dedicated P+/Polaris bird once the schedule is finalized.

thanks.. do you know when is the winter schedule finalized, when is it effective from?

Sometime in the next few weeks, one would think.

Seems like UA will have some 77Ws on their hands to play around with. SFO-HKG is going away and will presumably be replaced by SFO-AKL (two frames each). Then you have, for now, EWR-HKG and SFO-LHR (901/900) losing the 77W too, IIRC. So EWR-HKG could well end back up on the 77W.

Looks like the EWR - HKG is back on 77W (777-300) with the new Polaris Config for the late fall/ early 2020 schedule. Strange though they have blocked all the P+ seats (i.e. not available for purchase), even though it is the new equipment. So they might still do an equip swap