NEW YORK — Following a mea culpa before media for lapses in its
focus on customer service, United CEO Oscar Munoz revealed "Polaris,"
a new approach to the airline's international business service.
Corporate "cultural caring has been missing for far too
long from United," Munoz said, saying that Polaris signaled the launch of
"the new spirit of United."
In researching the project, which had been developed under
the code name "Cobalt," the need for quality sleep and rest
"over-indexed" everything else, Munoz said, with "a good night's
sleep" registering two-and-a-half times higher than anything else.
The "magnitude of the exponential differential"
led United's teams to "design the project where sleep is the center of
it," the CEO continued.
He recounted a business traveler telling him simply that
"Sleep is the new black."
"[Polaris] will make the weary traveler a relic of the
past," he said.
To that end, Saks Fifth Avenue was commissioned to
custom-design pillows, blankets, duvets and breathable 6-foot, 6-inch mattress
cushions. "Spa-quality" amenities will include cooling-gel memory
foam pillows, and lavender pillow spray will be added to the amenity kit of
Cowshed products from Soho House & Co.
Cotton pajamas will be offered on select flights.
The product will be "lounge to landing," Munoz
said, with dedicated clubs as well as a reconfigured premium cabin. Sleep is
taken into consideration in the lounges as well, with preflight meals available
and rest-inducing chaise lounges.
Polaris will launch Dec. 1 with the opening of the first
Polaris Lounge at O'Hare, replacing the Global First club, which will close on
June 15 to prepare for the conversion and expansion.
Over the next 18 months, Global First lounges will be
converted in United hub airports in Newark, Houston, Los Angeles, San
Francisco, Washington, Tokyo, London and Hong Kong.
Polaris will also replace Global First and Business First
cabins on many international routes, meaning that in some cases planes will go
from a three-class configuration to two-class.
The service will launch with newly delivered 777-300ERs.
Although the planes will be delivered in December, they will not be certified
for transoceanic flight until the first quarter of 2017.
Subsequently, cabins will be retrofitted on Airbus
A350-1000s and Boeing 787-10, 767-300, 777-200s.
One critical challenge for the design team, said United
senior vice president of worldwide sales Dave Hilfman, was to reconfigure
Polaris cabins to allow direct aisle access for all seats and introduce bigger
entertainment systems without reducing cabin density and revenue potential.
While Polaris was the focus of today's announcement, Munoz
did not completely ignore economy passengers. In his introductory remarks about
the changes in United's service culture, he acknowledged the airline needs to
make serious investments in people, technology and products.
Not only planes and clubs needed to be upgraded, but
"yes, even coffee and free snacks" in coach.