The first United Airlines “ghetto bird†Boeing 767-300 (formerly pre-merger United’s two-class domestic -300) has completed its reconfiguration and is now flying with 30 lie-flat BusinessFirst seats, 49 Economy Plus and 135 regular economy seats. Tonight it’s operating as flight 908 from Chicago to Amsterdam and returning tomorrow as flight 909.
Source: United Airlines
It’s a nice looking cabin up front and I do quite like the “Continental†BF seats, though I hope they upgraded the audio/headsets – I was disappointed at the audio quality and lack of noise cancelling capabilities on my BusinessFirst flight to/from Dublin last month. BusinessFirst offers a 15.4″ touchscreen monitor, electrical and USB outlets and an iPod jack. Economy offers a 9″ touchscreen on-demand inflight entertainment system and access to electrical outlets.
Stay up-to-date with the other -300s scheduled to undergo the same reconfiguration by bookmarking the United Airlines Fleet Website and following them on Twitter. Ship 6674 (N674UA) is the aircraft back in service and the mainline tracking page will be updated tomorrow or Wednesday to reflect its return to revenue flying.
That’s nice news for me as a AMS-ORD flyer, will this bird be staying on this route?
So they are 86’ing First on this route….interesting.
It would seem that UA first class on intl flights will eventuality only be available on the 747’s…..?
Hubby and I flew Global/First on that route in Late April to see the tulips. no sure I like the 2-1-2 seems to miss 6 more aisle seats
Looks like it will be flying AMS/ORD all but one day of the week, according to the timetable. As for real life, who knows.
Andrew… this configuration is not slated to replace any three-cabin birds. While AMS-ORD goes two-class, the three-cabin 763 will be flying elsewhere.
Also, noise-canceling headphones are now available in s-CO BusinessFirst cabins.
% It would seem that UA first class on intl flights will eventuality
% only be available on the 747′s…..?
Eventually international first won’t be available at all from UA, following in the pattern of AC, CO, and several other airlines.
Even SQ no longer offers first on most of its “regional” out-and-back flights (e.g. the SIN-TPE/KIX-SIN runs — as different from its “long-haul” flights (e.g. SIN-NRT/ICN-North America-NRT/ICN-SIN runs) which still do offer first.
The (new) UA management don’t believe that offering international first class makes good business sense (i.e. profit, revenue, cost, economics generally). However, they also believe it isn’t worth the cost/effort to remove the first suites from existing PM UA aircraft. So PM UA aircraft with first suites will keep them until either (a) the aircraft is removed from service OR (b) the next interior cabin refresh.
Now that looks a lot more comfortable than the flights I have taken and about to take (heading back to the UK from the Philippines shortly). The extra leg room is a big thing for me.
Unfortunately, it is a real “ghetto bird.” There are only 4 lavatories on this configuration. Truly unpleasant.