United Polaris Expanding Routes to Asia and Europe

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United Airlines launched its new highly anticipated business/first class product “Polaris” back in December of 2016. The new Polaris product will upgrade the United business and first class experience with new lounges, dining, amenities, bedding, and most of all new seats.

These new seats are currently only found on a couple of routes but the new business class product will be expanding its routes later this year. The highly touted new hard product is found only on United’s new 777-300ERs. So far United has ordered a total of 18 of these aircrafts and while only 9 of them have been delivered they plan to have 14 777-300ERs in service by the end of the year. (The seats were intended to be installed on the 777-200s as well but manufacturing delays have been an issue for those plans.)

United Polaris seat on the 777-300ER
United Polaris seat on the 777-300ER. Photo by airbus777.

 

What routes does Polaris fly on?

The soft product of Polaris (things like new bedding, etc.) can be found on many different aircrafts but the hard product (the new seats) currently only serves three international routes:

  • San Francisco (SFO) – Hong Kong (HKG)
  • New York/Newark (EWR)  – Tel Aviv (TLV)
  • San Francisco (SFO) – Tokyo (NRT)

On August 1, 2017, it will commence flights from:

  • San Francisco (SFO) to Taipei (TPE)

The new routes will begin in September and October. Here are the expected roll out dates and routes.

  • September 6, 2017: San Francisco (SFO) to Beijing (PEK)
  • October 5, 2017: San Francisco (SFO) to Frankfurt (FRA)
  • October 28, 2017: New York/Newark (EWR) to Tokyo Narita (NRT)

As someone who flies out of IAH, it sucks that SFO and EWR are serving as hubs for the 777-300ERs but it doesn’t surprise as their trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic markets serve greater demand.

I still haven’t had the chance to fly United’s Polaris yet but I’ve seen mostly positive reviews of the product. People seem to like the better dining and drinking options as well as the new bedding. As far as the negatives, I’ve seen that some haven’t found the seats as comfortable as they would like and some feel like the cabin is a bit cramped.

Cover photo by thezipper via Flickr.