worldtrav

It's all about cost cutting not COVID. BA have managed for years to source and serve 187ml bottles of Pommery or Nicholas Feuillatte. UA could buy and serve them in their Polaris cabins but choo$e not to.

gmt4

UA 931 ORD-LHR 20 July.

My first INTL flight since Feb and first time I was back at LHR since Jan. LHR was weird to say the least. Only activity was in Term 2 & 5 and the normally long taxi times and waiting in sequence to depart are obviously gone. Totally weird to see QR and EK jets at the T2B gates and T3 as a parking lot full of VS jets. The flight went out on a 78J with only 8 booked in J, 3 blocked for crew, and 2 gate upgrades. Premium Plus was completely unoccupied. I think there were only 60 or so in Y, so everyone could have probably had their own row. FAs were friendly, but *ahem* VERY senior is a polite way to say it.

-No Predeparture beverage, except for a bottle of water plopped down on the side shelf.
-No menu
-Was told no inflight snack (except for Y cabin pretzels)
-Entrees were the standard Beef Short Rib, Whitefish, and pasta
-No dessert served
-Asked for a red and was brought he most putrid, foul white I think I've ever had. Tasted like old wine that has been left out and exposed to high temperatures and spoiled.
-Arrival meal was only a completely uninspiring very dry and flavorless sausage and egg frittata

The best part was they served the beverages to the entire J cabin on American Airlines napkins. No kidding. I brought it up to the FA, she sort of laughed and said she has been catered with DL glasses and other airline napkins in the past. The male Purser didn't seem to care much. I watched as two FAs brought it up to him and he sort of shrugged then carried on talking to one of the crew riding in one of the blocked seats. They did take them back, and gave me UA napkins. Truthfully, I don't care about napkins. But its the consistent lack of situational awareness and general give-a-crap that irks me about UA. No amount of cost cutting can or will save an airline if the employees aren't invested in and show pride in their work. I burned plus points for this upgrade and no way would pay and actual J fare for any of this.




Predeparture beverage

Love the Glenfarclas 12



Awful white

AA napkins

Arrival meal

worldtrav

That Camelot wine is worse than anti freeze. They could do much better but choo$e not to. They aren't even trying, all in the name of Covid.

PTahCha

I believe the only domestic economy meals being served, pre-COVID-19, was on premium transcon E+. Choices are typically pasta duet or General Tso's chicken. Here are a few pictures:

From LAX - General Tso's chicken, or "chicken":



From EWR - pasta duet, or "pasta":



I would say Polaris meals are still better.

It was served in long-haul Polaris Business.

UA never sourced 187mL bottles of bubbly, even for coach. If it takes them 6 months to source a new ice cream bowl in normal times, it would be almost impossible to source a new bubbly and have it available worldwide without considering the potential tax consequences. It's easier with the coach wines since they were already sourced.

Health Theater and cost-savings.

worldtrav

You're wrong, United served pre departure sparkling wine from mini's. It was awful nonetheless but the supply chain was in place.

PTahCha

With that said, do you want them to serve that to you so you can complain about it? Maybe they realized that it's a terrible product and chose not to serve it en mass.

seanp7

The PDB sparkling and Camelot Chardonnay truly are ghastly (especially at room temp, which is usual IME).

At least UA are trying with the Polaris meals. It could be a lot worse (TK, BA, etc).

restlessinRNO

I certainly agree with your first comment.

BlueSky72

That chicken looks absolutely revolting. For pete’s sake!

fly747first

Underachieving chickens are bred at UA.

DELee

Does that make them little turkeys?

David

uastarflyer

Some of these recently shown dishes, it’s no wonder they are served covered in foil. Yikes.

worldtrav

They should be embarrassed to serve that chicken a la urine, but they're not.

canadiancow

I took a quick look through the a few pages of the thread, but didn't see any photos of the current food.

I'm flying SFO-FRA on Friday, and was wondering what I can actually expect to receive. Is it going to be the same food as before, just all at once? Or is it different? If no one has any photos I'll be sure to post some during the flight.

Edit: My post was moved here since it has a better answer to my question. The last photo of an international Polaris meal was a month ago. Does it still look the same?

bocastephen

No first hand knowledge, but I would expect no changes to what you've already seen upthread - a cheap, ill-prepared, somewhat disgusting platter of crap served all at once on a single tray - quantity wise, something smaller and less filling than a pre-virus domestic first class meal, and dramatically smaller than what was served in Polaris before the virus.

Curious - why did you select United vs Lufthansa who is offering a better inflight product right now?