United Airlines is revamping its premium cross country product using Airbus A321neos. They’re dubbing this dedicated fleet the ‘Coastliner’. It’s a refresh of p.s. on the Newark – Los Angeles and San Francisco routes, and eventually JFK as well once they gain access through their JetBlue partnership in 2027.
- Lie flat business class suites
- Premium economy
- Snack bar
- Polaris lounge access for business class passengers
These planes will feature 20 Polaris suites, 12 Premium Plus seats, and 129 economy seats. Seats are removed for a snack bar in back. The first aircraft enter service this summer, with 40 of 50 flying by early 2028.
United sees this as an upgrade over a mix of 757s and widebodies, though that remains to be seen since business class is a dense herringbone seat facing away from the window (controversial amongst American’s customers on their Airbus A321XLR, less so JetBlue’s customers).
Adding Polaris lounge access to match Delta and American on cross-country routes matters for competitiveness – Polaris lounges are generally nicer than American’s Flagship lounges but not as nice as Delta One lounges. However they are already overcrowded and this adds to their use, though much of those additional passengers will come throughout the day at non-peak times rather than just before the transatlantic early evening departures.
Polaris Lounge Newark
Polaris Lounge Newark
This doesn’t actually add capacity on these cross-country routes. In fact, the opposite is the case. There are fewer premium seats on these planes than what United flies today, and far fewer coach seats. Their cost per passenger should be higher, even as their trip cost falls, so they’re betting on higher fares.
It’s a beautiful aircraft and the new 1-1 suites with doors are an excellent idea. JetBlue really lead the way with their newer Mint. Glad AA and UA are adopting something similar. Delta is dropping the ball by giving up on their own lie-flat for XLR (opting for mere recliners… boo hiss…)
I wonder how UA will address the capacity reduction with these. I fly LAX-EWR frequently and the widebodies including the ultra dense 772HD always go out completely full. Maybe they keep 1 or 2 787s on the route to capture that demand and feed the transatlanic flights? Service is already close to hourly during certain parts of the day so hard to see how that increases. I hope it’s not just a fare increase as Gary suggested.
The Polaris lounge access will be a game changer for me personally when selecting the carrier to fly back on SFO-JFK for work and make UA much more competitive on LAX-JFK.
I usually choose DL or (sometimes AA), but neither have a notable premium product offering with their SkyClub of Admiral’s Clubs though both are among the better versions of what they have in their lounge network. DL’s J product is better than AA’s 321T (though that will change with the XLR), but AA’s F product is better than DL’s J.
However, a competitive Coastliner product on UA with access to SFO’s Polaris Lounge will be easily the best product and experience on this route.
Now UA will still have an issue with a competitive lounge offering at JFK while AA has a similar issue with a competitive lounge offering at LAX (given QF first lounge access is not always a given anymore), but more options are always better.