First look at United Airlines’ all-new Polaris, economy seats

In case you missed it, United Airlines has officially debuted all-new cabins coming to new Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets.

The cabin experience, dubbed United Elevated, introduces the Polaris Studio, a business-class-plus experience with more onboard space and an elevated ground experience and service flow, including a caviar appetizer.

United is also introducing new Polaris pods with sliding doors, and revamped Premium Plus and standard economy seats that should further elevate (no pun intended) your onboard experience.

Though the first jet equipped with United Elevated cabins won’t be flying until early next year (from San Francisco to Singapore and then to London), the airline celebrated the unveiling with a takeover of a warehouse in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard.

Inside the space, CEO Scott Kirby and other top execs showed off the flashy new products for media and select customers and employees. As a seasoned Polaris traveler myself, I’ve been excited about this announcement for quite some time, and here are my impressions from a few minutes testing out each of the seat mock-ups.

United Polaris Studio impressions

The star of the show was no doubt the Polaris Studio suite, an all-new cabin experience for United. This seat takes advantage of the bulkhead location and cabin curvature to offer 25% more living space than the traditional Polaris pod. There will be eight Studios on the 787-9 Dreamliner in a 1-2-1 configuration.

Once inside the pod, you’ll notice that everything feels bigger, especially the massive 27-inch 4K TV, the largest offered by any U.S. airline. The footwell area is also super-sized, with more room for your feet and an ottoman for a buddy to join you during the flight. Unfortunately, just six of the eight Polaris Studios feature buddy seats — the ones that are missing it are seats 1D and 1F.

The ottoman will have a seat belt so someone can sit there while the plane is cruising.

That said, it might not be the most comfortable place to sit for extended periods of time, as there’s not much room in the suite for two people’s legs.

The Polaris Studio also features an oversized tray table that’s got my 11-inch iPad Pro on it for scale. I didn’t have time to take measurements, but this must be one of the larger tray tables flying on a U.S. airline.

Next to the tray table is a small enclosed storage compartment that should be great for glasses or wallets.

The seat itself felt supremely comfortable, as it was well-padded with soft-to-the-touch fabric. I also found the design accents and colorways inviting without being too blingy or cheap-looking.

Better yet, you can customize the mood lighting at each seat with eight different color options. This feature wasn’t enabled in the mock-ups, but I’m excited to play around with it once the plane is flying.

I briefly reclined the seat into a bed and found it to also be comfortable. The tray table storage area does get in the way of being able to extend your legs freely, but it wasn’t worse than any of the similar seats that are flying these days.

(United chose a highly customized version of the Adient Ascent seat for the Polaris cabins — a seat that’s used on other carriers like American and Qatar).

The best part of the seat is that there’s plenty of privacy thanks to a sliding door.

There was a small gap even when the door was fully closed, so I’m not sure if this was an issue with the pre-production seat mock-up or just a design choice by United’s product team.

United Polaris impressions

Meanwhile, just behind the Studios are the standard Polaris pods. The new 787-9 Dreamliners will have 56 Polaris pods in an industry-standard 1-2-1 configuration.

For the first time ever, United will offer multiple arrangements of Polaris pods. In the forward business-class cabin, seats will face away from the aisle. In the rear business-class cabin, seats will face toward the aisle. The latter layout should be preferred by couples traveling together, and it also allows United to offer the first-ever double bed in Polaris history.

Both the center Polaris Studios and regular Polaris pods have a privacy divider that can be lowered all the way to bed level. Once the divider is down and the doors are closed, you’ll enjoy a spacious double bed configuration that’ll make it easy to stay close to your loved one throughout the flight.

United will even provide an additional mattress pad that’s specially fitted to go on top of the privacy divider.

Just in case you were wondering, you can’t play footsies as the footwell areas remain separate for each passenger.

I demoed the double bed in the Polaris Studio, as did TPG’s Ben Mutzabaugh and Clint Henderson. We all walked away impressed with the setup. I imagine, however, the experience would feel more cramped in a regular Polaris pod.

Speaking of feeling cramped, the standard Polaris seat definitely felt a bit tighter relative to the existing product. I’ll mark this as developing and reserve judgment until I try a long-haul flight with these new seats.

The seats themselves were very comfortable, and they had a similar design motif to the Polaris Studio. I love the wood-grain finishes that United chose; it really adds an extra premium touch.

Some of the bells and whistles that you’ll find in Polaris include customizable mood lighting, small storage closets with mirrors, entertainment remotes with trackpads, an AC outlet, two USB-C ports and a Qi wireless charging pad.

While there are digital and manual seat controls, United didn’t opt for one-touch buttons, meaning that you need to keep the buttons pressed to move the seat around.

Just like Polaris Studios, the sliding doors in Polaris didn’t close all the way. The gap wasn’t too big to be annoying during the event, but I’m sure it will be noticeable during a flight.

United Premium Plus impressions

The purple seats, as they’re affectionately called by many United flight attendants, also got an upgrade. While the shell of the Premium Plus product remains unchanged, the airline made some thoughtful upgrades throughout.

For one, they’re no longer entirely black and purple, as they now feature a mix of colors. They also feature larger (and super crisp) 4K TVs with Bluetooth, repositioned outlets, water bottle storage areas and a wireless charging pad.

The storage pocket contains a new well-positioned headphone hook, and new winged privacy dividers provide additional personal space.

All in all, the Premium Plus product is certainly an upgrade, though it’s not nearly as exciting as what’s happening in the pointy end of the plane.

United economy impressions

Finally, you can’t forget about the economy cabin, which will be arranged in a 3-3-3 layout across 15 rows. In total, United will offer 33 extra-legroom Economy Plus seats and 90 standard economy seats.

The economy seats haven’t changed much. Perhaps the biggest upgrade you’ll immediately notice is larger 13-inch 4K screens with Bluetooth support. The one upgrade you actually won’t see when walking up the aisle is the elimination of the entertainment box below the seats — that means that your legroom and storage space won’t be taken up by an unwieldy and awkwardly positioned box going forward.

Bottom line

All in all, United’s new cabins promise to offer a better flying experience across all cabins.

The new Polaris Studios are sleek and spacious, while the regular Polaris seats got some stylish upgrades as well. I’m a little concerned that the Polaris pods aren’t as spacious as the existing product, especially the popular odd-numbered window seats, but we’ll reserve judgment until these new planes are flying.

Regardless, the good news is that United is flexing its premium muscle with these new cabins — and the carrier promised on Tuesday even more cabin upgrades and announcements coming over the next few months.