United Airlines today announced the rebranding of international cabin classes and the upgrade of food, entertainment and amenities on those flights. United First will be named United Global First on three-cabin aircraft and Continental’s BusinessFirst name will replace United Business beginning March 3, 2012. The enhanced amenities will include:
- Additional in-flight food choices, including a fourth entrée selection in BusinessFirst.
- An ice cream sundae dessert option with a choice of six toppings.
- Expanded wine selections chosen by Doug Frost, Sommelier and Master of Wine.
- New amenity kits featuring Philosophy-brand skin care products.
- Duvet-style blankets and higher-quality pillows and hot towels.
- Improved in-flight entertainment including noise-reduction headsets.
Domestically and on some limited international flights, United will keep the monikers United First and United Business and offer enhanced amenities, most of which are seen today and include:
- Warmed, all-natural scones and cookies, made from scratch exclusively for United.
- Warmed cinnamon rolls on breakfast flights.
- Pasta salads as a light snack.
- Premium snacks including all-natural pop chips, Emerald nuts, Cliff organic energy bars, Toblerone Swiss milk chocolate and fresh fruit.
- Warmed nuts offered in a small china bowl on all lunch and dinner services.
- Ice cream sundaes on many transcontinental lunch and dinner services.
- Complimentary snackboxes on United Express flights longer than two hours.
Later this year, additional improvements will be seen including larger overhead bins on Airbus A319s & A320s, satellite-enabled inflight internet service and an overhaul of the premium service 757 p.s. fleet that will include flat-bed seats in BusinessFirst.
I’ll be certain to review the new amenity kit as soon as I acquire one for my Amenity Kit Review series. Here are my reviews of the current First Class and Business Class offering on United, and I hope United greatly enhances the Business Class kit, which scored terribly and is currently one of the worst in the industry. Perhaps they’ll simplify things and offer just one amenity kit for all premium cabins as American Airlines has done.
I like the new names for the United premium classes, I just wish they harmonized the seats in Business/BusinessFirst. Hopefully the amenity kit in F will have pajamas.
Confusing to have the word first in two different cabin names on the same plane.
@NYBanker: I tend to side with you about the names.
Hopefully they rename the Economy cabin areas to Economy Plus First and Economy First…. so that we can ALL feel special.
I want to be in “First First.” Or “Really First?” Or “More First than the other First.”
I may need to change the name of my website to avoid confusion… 😉
So will the “world’s leading airline” (per Smi$ek) also be upgrading the FAs in the forward cabins?
@Ganz: I’d love to think they would as Jeff has even remarked in the past he knows the service levels compared to foreign carriers is anything but First Class.