United Airlines pleasantly surprised its top end paying passengers late last year announcing a new first and business class which includes fully lie flat bed seats in business in a configuration not completely dissimilar to BA. Besides Delta with its diagonal lie flat bed design, no other US based carrier has introduced fully lie flat beds in business class. Details of the upgraded first and business classes are here. This should mean that at least one US carrier has a product that can start to be competitive with European and Asian airlines, as long as its soft product and lounges can also be brought up to scratch.
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However the rollout has not been fast. So far only one Boeing 767 and one Boeing 747 have been refurbished, with a second 767 about to be rolled out, and they appear to be concentrated on the Dulles to Frankfurt (IAD-FRA) route, and the occasional domestic US route. However, United will spend the next 18 or so months rolling out the new seats on its long haul 747s, 777s and 767s, with priority on routes to Europe, Asia and Australia (where it has the most serious competition). United says that it plans having 12 767s upgraded by September 2008 and 15 747s upgraded by December. Boeing 777s clearly come last with 50% upgraded by March 2009!
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The current United long haul first class seat is reasonable, but the business class is an old fashioned cradle seat, akin to the seats Air NZ now only has on its 767s, and Lufthansa used to have. As I fly United maybe once every couple of years, I look forward to reconsidering it as an airline worth trying on long haul international routes once more, but clearly I'll be looking for 767 flights first.
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