Here are a couple of quick airline updates from press releases issued by American and United today.
United Offers Flat-Bed Seats on “All†Long-Haul International Flights
United Airlines now features 180-degree flat-bed seats and personal on-demand entertainment in the premium cabins on all scheduled, long-haul international flights from the airline’s eight North American hubs and between Seattle and Tokyo Narita. United is the only U.S. carrier to exclusively provide flat-bed comfort to premium cabin travelers on such scheduled, long-haul flights from the continental United States.
The release goes on to state 183 of United’s international aircraft now feature lie-flat seats. Where can you still find the old “Barcalounger†seats in business class? They’re on United’s 777s operating between Honolulu and Tokyo, as Chris McGinnis reported yesterday after receiving an update from a United rep.
Today's Honolulu-Tokyo Seat Map on a United 777
According to the United Airlines Fleet Website, there are three 777s still sporting the configuration shown above: N768UA, N772UA and N779UA.
American Launches JFK-Dublin Route With Bonus Mile Offer
American Airlines today launches daily nonstop service between New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Dublin Airport (DUB), adding a new destination to American’s extensive network and giving customers traveling from Dublin nonstop connections out of JFK to cities throughout North, Central and South America . The new flight is in addition to American’s existing nonstop service from Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) to Dublin and complements its 12 other daily nonstop flights from JFK to Europe.
The new JFK-DUB flight is operated with a Boeing 757-200 sporting 16 angled-flat business class seats and 166 in economy.
Here are the bonus mile offer details for the new route:
To celebrate the new service, American is offering AAdvantage® members up to 20,000 bonus miles every time they fly a round trip on the route, including travel on American-operated flights marketed by British Airways or Iberia. Customers flying on Business Class and select Economy Class fares (booked in Y, B or H) will receive 20,000 AAdvantage bonus miles for every round trip, and those flying on all other Economy Class fares will receive 10,000 AAdvantage bonus miles for every round trip, from June 12 through Sept. 15, 2013. To participate, members simply need to register prior to travel at aa.com/offers using the promotion code AADUB.
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First Reconfigured United Premium Service 757 Takes to the Skies
UA also uses the above 777 configuration on IAH-HNL. Of course, that’s not an international flight, but interestingly, the their HNL-GUM 777-200 appears to be just 38″ pitch in Business, with no first. (They’re no longer calling it BusinessFirst on the seating chart on their website.)
@Tom: Thanks, I didn’t know IAH-HNL used an international 777.
@Kris: I saw one of those in January while sitting in the IFL at NRT… first class was wide open based on the seat map, interestingly.
@Jeremy: Two of the three are going to be reconfigured as 2-class “Hawaii” birds, according to the United Fleet Website. The other has no additional info.
HNL-GUM-NRT runs domestic 777s. And while there are 3 777s in the old intl config, they fly the Hawaii routes almost exclusively.
Are there no plans to upgrade those three aircraft too?
The flight was just released today, but I don’t see any saver award space on this flight. 🙁
@Andrew yvR: Check again in a few days (or more)… new flights (from my experience working in United’s revenue management department) don’t have a history of activity, so as time goes on, they’ll adjust the levels accordingly.