News Backgrounder
United’s premium class rollout curtailed by troubled Zodiac
April 1st 2017
United Airlines’ (UA) entry-into-service of its Polaris business class cabin proved more challenging than the Chicago-headquartered airline thought, said the airline’s CEO, Oscar Munoz. Read More »
The airline is “not happy” about production delays at Zodiac Aerospace’s UK facility, where its Polaris business seats are manufactured. The spat hit a new low when UA had to ground its two just-delivered -300ERs because it did not have seats for them. As it stands, the aircraft that operated the Hong Kong inaugural Polaris flight is only one of two airliners in United’s fleet equipped with the new seat.
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United Airlines debutted its B777-300ER on the Hong Kong-San Francisco route on March 27. The airline has 14 -300ERs on order and hoped to receive all of them by July this year.
Zodiac also was at the forefront of A350 delivery delays, which prompted a spat between Airbus and its A350 launch customer, Qatar Airways.
UA managing-director for Greater China and South Korea, Walter Dias, told Orient Aviation the decision to launch the B777-300ER and Polaris on the Hong Kong route was to up its ante against airlines serving the route. Cathay Pacific flies from Hong Kong to San Francisco up to three times a day.
United Polaris has 1-2-1 all-aisle access, a lie-flat bed configuration; an improvement on the 2-4-2, B747-400 BusinessFirst product it is replacing.
Following the -300ER rollout, UA will equip its incoming A350-1000 and B787-10 fleets with the new premium class offering. The carrier’s B767-300ERs and B777-200ERs will be retrofitted with Polaris by 2022.
Mystery still surrounds UA’s A350 and B787 orders. Munoz has said the carrier should reconsider these commitments and perhaps opt for smaller aircraft because of overcapacity in the market. At the Polaris launch, UA declined to comment to Orient Aviation on the subject.
UA has lost its place as the largest carrier flying between Greater China and the U.S. Its Star Alliance fellow, Air China, overtook it this year. But the airline still offers more trans-Pacific services from Greater China to the U.S. than any U.S. carrier. It flies 100 flights a week between Asia and North America, excluding Canada.
The airline has added nine routes between the U.S. and the Asia-Pacific since 2012, which expanded its regional network by 19%. In China, it serves Beijing and Shanghai and has monopolistic routes to Chengdu, Xian and Hangzhou.
Western China was “one of the fastest-growing markets not only in China, but in the world”, UA said, so attention must be paid to this market. Its B787s enabled it to serve “slimmer long-haul markets, making the development of interior China markets possible”.
UA said its growth in China is strictly curtailed by the Chinese government. It codeshares with Air China on its Chengdu and Xian flights, but said additional partnership opportunities hinged on “regulatory approval”.
Chinese bureaucracy also stands in the way of a fully-fledged United-Air China joint venture, the U.S. carrier said. “The current regulatory environment does not allow an immunized joint venture partnership, but UA continues to build on a “strengthened partnership” with the Mainland flag carrier.
Last year, it entered into a multi-year extension of its codeshare agreement with state-controlled Air China and created an executive board structure to enhance commercial cooperation, laying “the groundwork for a possible joint venture between our two carriers when these partnerships become legally permissible,” UA said.
