United Airlines older Polaris better than you think

Our aircraft had United's original Polaris business class seat in a 1-2-1 layout. Window seats alternate by row: one sits beside the window with its side table on the aisle, while the next has the table against the window and the seat closer to the aisle. Solo travellers should book the odd-numbered rows, where the seat sits flush with the window for greater privacy.

On first impressions, the cabin looked clean and fresh with strong United branding, despite its age. Our seat however told a different story, with crumbs and debris around the high-touch areas. Crew hand out sanitising wipes at boarding, a legacy from COVID times.

Each seat is 20 inches wide and converts into a fully lie-flat bed between 70 and 75 inches long, with the odd-numbered rows gaining the extra five inches. Features include a 16-inch HD touchscreen, an adjustable armrest and headrest, USB-A charging, a universal power socket, and personal air vents. For storage, there's a small cupboard beside the seat plus a slot under the screen that suits a tablet or other small personal items. This older version of the Polaris seat lacks wireless charging or a sliding privacy door, both of which feature on United's new Elevated 787-9s.

The seat control panel lets you adjust the legrest and lumbar support, while a tactile roller switch moves the seat smoothly into bed mode. The same panel also controls the reading light and a do-not-disturb setting.

The seat stayed comfortable throughout the flight, particularly when sitting upright or slightly reclined. In bed mode, the footwell feels tighter than in business-class seats on other airlines' Dreamliners, though the quality pillows and blanket helped make up for it.

From boarding through to landing, the crew delivered warm American hospitality that felt genuine in every interaction we saw. They adapted their style to each passenger, chatting easily with those who wanted conversation while giving others space, which made the service feel personal throughout. In terms of warmth, the crew came closer to the attentive style of the leading Asian carriers, even though United's wider product sits nearer to its European rivals.

The meal service let this down slightly, with parts of it feeling rushed before the crew disappeared from the cabin for some time afterwards. Serving each course from the galley would help the meal feel more premium than it does from a trolley, while wine pairing suggestions plus better menu knowledge would support the airline's premium ambitions. For the rest of the flight, crew made regular passes through the cabin to check whether passengers needed anything.

Ordering and selection

Polaris passengers can pre-select their meal up to 24 hours before departure through the United app or website. The pre-order menu includes several gourmet dishes you can't get once onboard, while choosing from the regular menu in advance guarantees your first-choice main.

The drinks list is strong for a US carrier, with a menu available on the entertainment screen covering everything except wines and cocktails, as well as the printed card. Laurent-Perrier La Cuvée Brut Champagne leads the wine list, while whites range from a Stony Hill Chardonnay from Napa Valley to a crisp Bordeaux Blanc from Château Guiraud.

Rosé wines include Whispering Angel from Provence, while the reds pair a full-bodied Shafer "One Point Five" Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa with a lighter Lingua Franca Pinot Noir from Oregon's Willamette Valley. Crew can also offer a cellar selection of reds that changes by route, with Taylor Fladgate Late Bottled Vintage Port to finish the meal.

Spirits cover the essentials with Tito's vodka, Bombay Sapphire gin, Bacardi rum, plus Corazón tequila, while whisky drinkers can pick between Buffalo Trace bourbon, Jack Daniel's, or a Glenfarclas single malt Scotch. Baileys and Courvoisier VS cognac suit an after-dinner drink, with an Aperol Spritz the only cocktail on the menu, despite others such as a Bloody Mary being available. Beer drinkers can choose from Stella Artois, Michelob ULTRA or Bell's Two Hearted IPA.

Non-alcoholic drinks include the Coca-Cola range, Seagram's mixers, AHA flavoured sparkling water plus Minute Maid juices.illy supplies the coffee, including a cold brew, while Twinings teas range from English Breakfast to chai, with oat milk creamer available on request.

Delivery and quality

Before departure, crew confirm each passenger's online pre-order and take orders from anyone who hasn't made one. There was no explanation of the courses, no check on allergies and no recommendations from the crew, which felt like a missed chance to set the tone for the meal.

After take-off, the crew served drinks with warm nuts straight from a galley trolley and laid a crisp white tablecloth ready for the main meal.

We started with the spicy prawns with chorizo dukkah on a cauliflower purée, which came with pita bread, a salad and vinaigrette plus a side of cornichons, olives and sun-dried tomatoes. The appetiser was excellent, with properly cleaned prawns that carried plenty of flavour. The pita bread arrived cold and quite hard, although the crew offered a separate bread service from the drinks trolley with a choice of pretzel, white or seeded rolls.

We pre-booked the salmon with lentils and asparagus through the United app, which proved underwhelming. The salmon itself was well cooked, but the dish as a whole lacked flavour and sat in a pool of melted butter, while the lentils and asparagus were mushy. Crew offered drink top-ups when serving the main, although United doesn't place water on the meal tray as most other airlines do.

Dessert was the highlight of the whole catering service, thanks to United's signature ice cream sundae trolley. We may have gone a little overboard, loading ours with caramel sauce, chocolate fudge sauce, flaked almonds, glacé cherries plus whipped cream, stopping short only of the strawberry sauce. It was genuinely excellent, and a refreshing change at a time when many airlines treat dessert as an easy place to cut costs.

Inflight snacks and pre-landing meal

Mid-flight snacks include a grilled cheese, lamb pie, sweet potato and coconut soup, as well as galley snacks. We went for the grilled cheese, which was acceptable though a little soggy. It is difficult to replicate a crispy texture in the air.

Around 90 minutes before landing, the crew served a second meal on a single tray, and we chose the vegetarian paneer curry with a side salad plus a chocolate brownie. The overall quality was good, although the curry lacked real depth of flavour. The side salad was fairly basic but came with a vinaigrette, while the brownie made up for it by being rich and gooey in the middle. The timing works well on this daytime route, leaving you well fed on arrival while still hungry enough for an early dinner in Los Angeles.

Sleeping amenities and amenity kit

Waiting at the seat on boarding is a large, soft plush pillow alongside a smaller memory foam pillow, and two blankets. The quality is good across the board, with a bedding set that rivals some of the Gulf carriers known for their business class sleep experience. The memory foam pillow is excellent, but the blankets are a little on the thin side. The crew don't actively offer a turndown service, although this was a daytime flight where most passengers stayed awake. On an overnight sector, we'd expect this to be offered proactively as part of the service. Crew hand out slippers after departure, which are available in one size.

A United-branded amenity kit with Perricone MD skincare also sits at the seat on boarding. Inside, you'll find an eye mask, socks, earplugs, tissues, a pen, plus a cleansing wipe, with a Perricone MD lip balm, eye gel, hand cream and face mist making up the skincare range. The kit goes well beyond the basics, holding its own against several airlines that score highly in our World's Best Airline Awards.

Entertainment

On taking your seat, United's entertainment system invites you to pick from four Experience Modes: Explore entertainment, Rest and relax, Stay focused, or Kids Zone. Each mode changes which content appears first to suit what you want from the flight, a thoughtful touch that shows United has put real consideration into passenger wellbeing. Headphones are available in the seat for boarding, and they provide an acceptable level of noise cancellation. We notice a buzz from the engine coming through the headphones, which is a little distracting when watching a movie.

The content itself is where United truly shines, with one of the deepest libraries on the market. The catalogue runs to more than 450 movies, over 1,000 TV episodes, more than 100 international titles plus upwards of 140 hours of podcasts. United also carries premium content from Apple TV, HBO Max, A24 and Spotify, giving you access to the kind of prestige television most travellers would usually need several paid subscriptions to watch.

TV fans are especially well looked after. HBO Max favourites on our flight included Hacks, House of the Dragon, Dutton Ranch, The Pitt plus The Comeback, while Apple TV brings hits such as Ted Lasso, Severance, Shrinking and Your Friends & Neighbors. A dedicated Peacock channel launched in May with episodes of The Traitors, All Her Fault, The Paper and Poker Face, while travel lovers can settle in with Tucci in Italy or Eva Longoria: Searching for France.

The film selection keeps pace with cinema releases, with recent titles including Michael, Mortal Kombat II, Hoppers, Obsession and Crime 101. Music fans can pick from documentaries such as Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition and McCartney: The Hunt for the Lost Bass, while the Spotify partnership adds curated playlists, audiobooks, plus podcasts including Good Hang with Amy Poehler and The Dave Chang Show.

Beyond the library, the system offers real-time flight tracking, the weather at your destination with ideas for things to do on arrival, alongside a selection of games. United also lets you stream the same library for free to your own laptop, phone, or tablet by connecting to the onboard Wi-Fi, then opening the United app or unitedwifi.com.

United has also invested heavily in accessibility, with content available in 15 languages plus a text-to-speech mode that reads out each item on screen. Passengers can filter for titles with audio descriptions or closed captions, making the system one of the most inclusive in the sky.

Wi-Fi

United is rolling out free Starlink Wi-Fi across its fleet, although the upgrade hadn't yet reached older 787-9s like ours. Instead, Polaris passengers on this aircraft must pay to connect, which falls well short of the many carriers now including Wi-Fi in business class, as most passengers paying premium fares expect.

Passengers also need to be United MileagePlus members to use the Wi-Fi, although joining costs nothing. Once connected, the service performed well, handling social media browsing, emails plus photo uploads with ease, while switching between phone and laptop was simple. Prices were $16.99 for the full flight, $9.99 for two hours or $7 for one hour.

Once Starlink reaches the rest of the widebody fleet, which United expects by summer 2027, Wi-Fi becomes free for MileagePlus members, turning one of this product's weakest points into a strength.

The United app

Before the flight, we put United's app to the test and found it to be one of the best airline apps we've used. It's simple to navigate with a seamless design, while flight updates on the day of arrival arrive quickly and accurately, taking much of the stress out of the journey. It's a real strength for United and something the airline should be proud of.

Terminal 7 at Los Angeles

Arriving into United's Terminal 7 at LAX feels a world away from departing Heathrow's Terminal 2. The terminal looks tired, dirty and untidy, leaving it in desperate need of a transformation. Signage throughout is confusing, while the baggage reclaim area felt like quite an intimidating place to wait for our bags.

That's surprising given the terminal already had a major makeover, with United's redevelopment of Terminals 7 and 8 upgrading baggage and security screening while refreshing the gate areas. Less than a decade on, that investment has worn thin, particularly in the arrivals areas passengers see first. With Los Angeles hosting the 2028 Olympic Games, both United and the airport have a clear deadline to make a better first impression on the millions of visitors heading their way.

What's next for Polaris

United is in the middle of a major cabin upgrade, rolling out a new elevated interior on its latest 787-9 Dreamliners. The new aircraft features eight Polaris Studio suites alongside 56 redesigned Polaris suites, with both cabins offering privacy doors, wireless charging plus Bluetooth. The new cabin doesn't yet fly to Los Angeles, although every San Francisco to London flight now uses the elevated aircraft, with Houston to Heathrow from 6 January 2027.

The existing Polaris seat remains competitive in today's market, outperforming several of the world's best airlines we've flown with. However, the rapid arrival of privacy doors, Bluetooth and wireless charging is raising the benchmark even higher. As United works to become the premium airline it aspires to be, it will be interesting to see how a carrier of its size delivers that transformation across the whole fleet.

Safety

United's safety checks fell short in a few areas. Crew missed a bag left at our seat during the pre-departure checks, while during turbulence they didn't always pass through the cabin once the seatbelt sign came on, leaving some passengers standing or moving around. These were small lapses, although tighter attention to detail would give passengers greater confidence in the airline's safety culture.

Verdict

Even on its older Polaris product, United delivered a very good experience that we'd happily recommend to our readers. The well-designed seat, decent food, plus genuinely warm service make it a strong choice for anyone travelling to the US.