United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz took the stage at Gotham Hall in New York nearly 3 years ago. He was new on the job and looking to make a splash advancing the narrative that his airline was turning itself around, righting the ship. And what better way to distance itself from the Newspeak-like “Project Quality” of his predecessor Jeff Smisek which aimed to cut billion in costs than to introduce a new premium product that didn’t just elevate the business class seat, but the whole business class experience?
Nevermind that the concept was developed and approved under Smisek, this was new territory for United.
- They’d offer fully flat direct aisle seats. That’s not revolutionary, but an improvement for United. The big advance came by packing seats as densely as before, accomplishing direct aisle access without sacrificing space — which meant the ability to continue to offer as many business class seats for sale even as they improved what they offered.
- New lounges would have sit down dining, nice bars, nap spaces, showers and even concierges.
- The inflight soft product would provide the best bedding of any carrier in business class.
- And really elevated food and beverage, that was as much about the presentation as it was about what was served.
I think Henry Harteveldt did the best job of encapsulating what United was doing with its soft product, from mimosa and bloody mary carts to wine tasting flights, to myriad options that passengers were encouraged to take advantage of — United was giving business class passengers permission to indulge.
I view business class as being primarily about the seat, and here United was making improvements that meant people wouldn’t need to avoid flying United though a seat that still lagged competitors somewhat. But they were taking this up a notch in tandem offering a service that passengers could look forward to in the way you might an international first class experience.
Looking back at the video United made about Project Cobalt, their effort to test, refine, and hone in on a new business class that would become Polaris, it’s striking to see what the Polaris soft product was supposed to be. (HT: cerealmarketer)
There was supposed to be a pillow selection!
There have been a number of cut backs to the United business class soft product since then. United says the service took too long and passengers want to sleep. That may even be true.
They eliminated the bloody mary and mimosa carts when they found they were way over expected cost on wine. The airline points out you can still have these items on board. By not bringing them by your seat, though, fewer passengers take them. That may be better for service flow. It cuts down on cost. And it also eliminates the special, indulgent quality of the product, the permission to indulge and sense of being spoiled as flight attendants encourage you to try what’s offered.
United even cut a flight attendant out of business class and made it easier for the rest of the crew to cover by pre-plating meals that could just be re-heated. There’s no question that meal presentation has declined markedly.
And it’s not just the plating, one customer notes “I enjoye[d] the hot bites when they started. The wraps and snack carts looked tasty. Now they look like picked over leftovers and they are almost always “out” of the soup and grilled cheese.” Another points out, “there is “bare bones” sparse roundtrip provisioning of wine. They’ve decided it’s ok to say “sorry, we don’t have it”, have the FAs in apology mode, and go from there.”
United’s President Scott Kirby described their approach to product as ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ and described how he sees the schedule (that they fly) as their product.
The rollout of new seats has been slow. As of this writing only 13 of 38 Boeing 767s have been converted and just 15 of 51 Boeing 777s have the new hard product. It always seemed clear that United wouldn’t sustain their new inflight offering. Although in some ways I expected that there would be more progress actually rolling out the seats before it was cut back so far. Unfortunately as they’ve made cuts to the product they failed to reinvest those dollars elsewhere in the onboard experience, they’ve just cut further.
When United launched Polaris it said a majority (50.1%) of its long-haul aircraft wouldn’t have the “new” (by then old) product until 2021. By contrast, it took Delta about 4 1/2 years to get almost all of its long-haul fleet with lie-flat seats.
I’ll take everything else. Just hold off on the alcohol please. Thank you. L 😛 L
These cutbacks have Scott Kirby written all over them. Kirby would squeeze a silver dollar until the eagle screamed.
they’ve actually sped up the pace of refurbishing the planes…credit where credit is due. But that’s not what you do – complain, complain, complain
UA is such an afterthought in my travel plans
I could not help but notice that you have replies from a “Jason” that seems to almost always complain about your reports , feeling that you complain too much about airlines. So I ask myself why does this person bother reading your blogs then. Just don’t read them, then you wont have to write in and complain. Just saying.
Ugh. The soft product was the sop to the people to make up for the excruciatingly slow roll out of the seats…and now they’ve cut back what made it special and unique. Like KLM with their cute houses or any Asian airline with their anything, those little touches are what makes business class feel like a special journey and not a drudgery to get to your destination. I used to LOOK FORWARD to business class flights to enjoy the new bedding, wine, food etc. Now I am actively looking to other airlines, United.
And on a recent flight from PEK to SFO I was told no pajamas were loaded. They didn’t even have the correct immigration forms onboard and they only had two red wine available. One nice thing was the pursor proactively offered mattress pad to passengers (and I was furprised to see how few people actually took it!)
Two words: Scott Kirby. He’s the real leader of United and is doing his best to see how much worse than Smisek he can be.
I guess I’ll have to fly one of Dougie’s widebodies to get a sense of where we stand in the service area of the J category. Sounds like FS dining is . I need a new Cole “Hannity” kit anyway.
I”ve flown over two million miles on United and the standard of service is lacking and needs
to to put passengers over profit. This won’t happen in todays market. At one tine United had the highest safety standards in the industry week above FAA min. requirements. United now follows the
:Lorenzo model I switched to other carriers for international travel and don’t regret it. One over entitled who voted with his feet. United doesn’t miss me and its customers can’t figure it out/
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I hope HBR does a case study on the Polaris roll out.
Jason can gripe all he wants — let’s face it, we all like to “complain complain complain” as he does — but the truth of the matter is that United promoted a product that they didn’t have. I used to not be much of a “branding” guy and considered it a bunch of hooey, but I’m now been starting to understand the value of it.
When United initially advertised Polaris (hard to actually a “roll out”) I was confused. How much of Polaris is the hard product? The soft product? The lounge? Are they rolling out the Polaris soft product on planes that don’t have the Polaris hard product? I realize most people don’t geek out over these kinds of things, but from a macro level branding perspective, if people can’t be sure of what they’re getting, they’ll default to the lowest expectation. In my view of the world, I saw the Polaris fleet refurbishment schedule, and then immediately put it out of my mind as a product that may be relevant to me in the foreseeable future. Then I forgot about it altogether.
A “brand image” isn’t what the marketing department wants it to be, it’s what consumers perceive it to be. United screwed up the Polaris brand image from the get go and I think it was obvious to a lot of people.
I have not been on UAL with Polaris yet because we fly to Europe via LH since it is direct to FRA . Tonight we will remedy that by flying SFO to AKL and will see what the Polaris experience is like. Time will tell.
Fire Scott Kirby, he ruins airlines.
We must be among the lucky few because we just flew from Berlin to EWR this week on a Polaris fitted 767. Admttedlly we have not flown United Buisness on an international flight in years. So we have little comparisons. We can compare to the United international First Class product we flew ten years ago but that No longer exists. That was an old, tired product in beat up seats and very average food. Business looked even worse. This Polaris product in nice modern and comfortable seats was very good indeed. Better than the Swiss Air business product and seat configuration we flew on the way out to Berlin in the A330. Yards better than the miserable BA business class on the 777’s and 747’s. So who needs Mimosas and Bloody Mary carts moving up the aisles. Stupid idea to begin with they finally realized. Wines both red and white very nice and in ample supply . Main food and service also good. Not the most creative as in Austrian Air but so much better than the Swiss Air miserable steak they served. Yes United dropped one of the flight attendants in Business to save a few bucks and this means the rest have to work a little harder. But as a passenger I did not see the difference in the 9 hour flight. Just lovely entertainment packages and great seat controls. Yes the Aisles too narrow and entrances to seats narrow but normal size people can manage. Once in seat, just lovely and great privacy. Nice size bathroom. All in all a very acceptable offering, and at the 60,000 point level.
I am allergic to dairy so I always ask the sauce put aside when in UA international J. Now the sauce with butter or cheese will be over my pre-plated meal, I guess I just have to abandon flying UA on over ocean flights.
recent 16-hr polaris flight iah-syd, 10 or so hours in:
me: “the menu says there are mid-flight snacks. Can I find out what they are? All I see are those chips and fruit and leftover desserts”
FA: “Oh, they’re listed on the menu”
me: “actually, the menu specifically says to ask your FA about availability”
*after request, FA comes to my seat and I show her menu with quoted language*
FA: “Huh, wonder why they say that? Well, there’s tomato soup”
me: “but are there any sandwiches or such?”
FA: “yeah. I think there’s a grilled cheese”
Polaris is memorable, for sure.
You know, when you have bloggers like you who in essence say “soft product doesn’t count, it’s all about the seat” then this is what you get. Which is why I commend TPG’s excellent reviews, as service is all about the soft product and the little things (the seat is just the price of admission).
Incidentally, a hotel is all about the bed … so why there’s a TV for sports in it?