Needed to burn some miles so booked a return trip to Kennedy to visit relatives for the Christmas holiday. The short story follows:
As most know several years back United took its 762 fleet off the transcon run, leaving AA as the only carrier still offering twin-aisle service across the continent. UA replaced its aircraft with newly configued Boeing 752's, ripping out seats and adding a new international business class cabin along with United's 'First Suite', one of those pods that wraps the passenger up in a cocoon.
More on that in a moment.
The UA 'Premium Service' crews were uniformly friendly and professional. The aircraft (both B752) were quite clean. The seating in business, a comfortably wide recliner with plenty of positions, leg rest, perfectly sized duvet, excellent pillows (note I said 'pillows' -- had two of them on my seat) and reading light was probably the best I've encountered on a transcon. Food was fine, nothing special. Service attentive, about on par with other premium cabins.
Coming back from JFK I was offered an upgrade to 'F' for about $350. Having wanted to try the UA Suite I took the plunge. In 'F' on the inbound I had my own suite which should have been a plus. But the front of the 757 is not exactly a huge cavern on par with the 777 or 747. It's just too small for the intended design of the Suite pods. That's the beginning of the problem. In the seat I actually felt cramped (when you're 6'4' tall you're cramped almost no matter where you go) and soon after takeoff was longing for my outbound seat in business class. Perhaps it was my feeling that the cabin should be seating no more than eight of these bulky-looking suite pods rather than the dozen crammed in here. On the positive side of the ledger: the suite reclines to a nearly flat position and the large pillow (much larger than VS) provided is quite comfortable, as is the duvet. There was little difference in foodservice.
Overall space: Despite being in a single cabin aircraft, which in itself turns off many potential customers accustomed to having twin-aisle spaciousness, I never felt cramped (except after sitting down in 'F'). Even the restroom felt larger than a typical 752.
Entertainment: In both premium cabins UA offers a handheld screen which contains dozens of movies, TV shows and music options. In comparison with the similar device available up front on AA this portable entertainment system seemed a little easier to operate and there appeared to be more options.
Bottom line: the UA Premium Service routes West-East are a good opportunity to enjoy plenty of legroom and comfortable seating, reasonable food, clean airplanes and pleasant crew. Would I fly it again? Absolutely, but save your money and content yourself being in 'J' versus 'F'; in my opinion American's 'F', with its huge, open leather seat is far more comfortable. In fact if VS had AA's first class seats and somehow made them adjustable to fully flat VS would be on the cutting edge of in-flight comfort.
Chuck-
