HNLbasedFlyer

Depending on the day of the week they often clear the entire upgrade list.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Yeah, mid-week is 1K CPU heaven on the current 767s/777s and often for others deep into the waitlist. I'm not looking forward to the return of the sardine can.

jdr918

This is a few months earlier than your flight, but in early November 2021 I booked HNL-SFO in a HD 772 late May 2022. Today it was just upgauged to a 77W and offering (Z) space for $350 upgrade from (K), which seemed like a no-brainer to me. .

Edit: Looks like the thread I posted in merged into this one. Had previously selected 48 A & B in the HD 772 as P2 and I would prefer no middle seat over extra legroom. With change to 77W, we always try to nab PP sold as E+ as we do for SFO transcons. Only bulkhead PP was available for $189 ea, compared to First for $350. Although First is wide open right now - six seats occupied - not sure of our chances for a CPU as we are both only Premier Silver and the flight is on a Sunday. Will be curious to see how the cabin fills to see if we would've cleared or not.

Pat89339

Thanks everyone for the heads up. My April flight switched to a 777-300 and I was able to grab my preferred seat.

UAalltheway

Interesting, all the SFO-HNL flights I was looking at on the HD 772's in March-April-May just a couple of days ago have been mostly switched to 777-300ERs, with the HD 772 not reappearing on the schedule until sometime in the June timeframe. Does anyone know if there has been a delay in reintroducing these birds back into the fleet? My impression from reading this thread (? or somewhere else?) was that they are cleared to fly and should be in the air by now.. has there been a delay in the clearance, or just lack of demand/need to bring them back in right now?

Indeed some of these flights seem to have 20+ day-of-departure upgrades, which is great for us, but which I presume will unfortunately be the exact reason UA will want to get the 772 HD's back to optimize profit as it seems to indicate a lack of F purchase demand. I will admit this can vary greatly around weekend / holiday days, however.

legalalien

My understanding is that the procedure to inspect and retrofit the engines has been cleared, not the actual airplanes with said engines on them.

Plane-is-home

that flight changed to a Polaris config overnight 👍🏻

uastarflyer

I know what you meant, however the P&W fleet includes many with Polaris and PP. i want them back asap

Kacee

If they were to focus on returning the non-HD aircraft to service, fine.

It's unfortunate UA has not taken advantage of the downtime to upgrade the cabins on those aircraft. The continued existence of the HD configuration is a testament to where this airline is heading.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

The worst thing about those a/c is lack of PremiumPlus and no upgrade means a seat in 10-across in back. If I was to lose out on an upgrade on the HD, I'd rather be in back on any of UA's mainline narrow bodies.

fumje

Unfortunate indeed, although I suppose might the logistics of getting them to XMN during the grounding have been a little more complicated? Doable I think, but maybe that's part of the calculus, even if there also still exists a "cram aboard as many seats as possible" inclination.

JimInOhio

Don't the HD 772s not have sufficient range to make Polaris truly worthwhile from a return on investment standpoint?

HNLbasedFlyer

Well - if they could fly those planes from ORD to HNL - they'd certainly make it to LHR or even CDG, which are shorter distances. Or, deploy them from EWR or IAD and they could fly anywhere in Europe.

Kacee

Plus they were in heavy use on the premium t-cons. A worst-in-class (by far) product on those routes.

I agree with comments upthread that the old IPTE seat is extremely comfortable, but the eight across layout is a nonstarter these days, especially for a solo traveler. Plus the particular configuration of the F cabin on this aircraft means there are only a handful of seats that do not have serious drawbacks due to galley or lav proximity.
Yeah it's not a bad upgrade class, but I would pretty much never risk that for the reasons you describe. For paid J, I'd only consider it at deepest discount P fare, and even then, would only choose it if there were no better alternative on another carrier.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

The seat between the armrests is fine, but the armrests are extremely narrow (for a F cabin), which allows the sardine-pack of the cabin. The 8-across is really what bothers me, too. My guess is they will return to mainly the Hawaii market.