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I already knew that the past few weeks would have been busy for the United Airlines scheduling team (I have no idea if that’s what they’re really called) with all of the 787-10 Dreamliner routes being planed for next year but it now it would appear they’ve been working on more than just that – there’s a new European route coming next year too.
United Airlines has just announced that it will start up non-stop service between Denver and Frankfurt from next year.
The new route will launch on 2 May 2019 and will be United’s 15th non-stop flight between the US and Germany.
Here’s what the currently published schedule looks like this:
UA182 DEN 15:40 – 09:20+1 day FRA (Daily)
UA181 FRA 11:05 – 13:20 DEN (Daily)
The route will be operated by a United Airlines Boeing 787-8 configured with just two cabins (Business and Economy) and three different seats:
- 36 Business Class lie-flat seats
- 70 Economy Plus seats
- 113 Economy Class seats
United’s website will tell you that the Business Class cabin is “Polaris”….but don’t be fooled by that.
While true Polaris cabins look like this…..
…and offer all-aisle-access seating, the Business Class cabin on the 787-8 actually looks similar to this:
The seats may be lie-flat but they’re certainly not like the true Polaris seats and they don’t offer all-aisle-access either.
The 2-2-2 cabin layout may make be fine for couples but it’s hardly ideal for solo travelers.
The Economy Plus seats offer 35″ of legroom (which is great) but no more width than the regular Economy Class seats (~17″) so they’re great if you’re tall and narrow but not so great if you’re wide at any point on your body.
Surprisingly the Economy Class seats on the United 787-8 come with a bonus – they offer 32″ of legroom as opposed to the 31″ you’ll find in most transatlantic Economy Class cabins – but their ~17″ width isn’t going to leave people feeling particularly comfortable (or with any sense of personal space) on flights as long as this one.
Tickets/Awards
Tickets for the new route can already be booked at United.com and Economy Class awards appear to be available too.
As far as Business Class awards go there don’t appear to be any of these loaded/released just yet (at the time of writing) but this may change over the next few hours
Bottom Line
This is another route on which to burn United Miles to/from Europe so it’s definitely good news….it will be even better news when United finally catches up with modern day flying and installs some proper Business Class cabins on its aircraft.
