United Deploying Their 787-9s Out Of Houston Later This Year

Now that Boeing is starting to deliver the stretch version of the 787, it’s interesting to see where airlines are deploying the 787-9. From what I can tell, United has only received a handful, but according to airlineroute.net, they have plans to launch them on 6 routes through March of next year:

UNITED during the week of 09MAY15′s schedule update outlined planned new Boeing 787-9 routes, in particular out of Houston, gradually replacing 767/777 operations starting Fall 2015.
eff 18AUG15 Houston – Rio de Janeiro 787-9 replaces CO 777-200ER
eff 24SEP15 Houston – Frankfurt 787-9 replaces 787-8 and other aircraft types
eff 25OCT15 Houston – Buenos Aires 787-9 replaces UA 767-300ER
eff 17DEC15 Houston – Amsterdam 787-9 replaces UA 777-200ER
eff 05JAN16 Houston – Santiago de Chile 787-9 replaces UA 767-300ER
eff 03MAR16 Houston – Tokyo Narita 787-9 replaces CO 777-200ER

It’s also interesting to see how this changes available seats on some routes.  United’s website shows the following configuration for the 787-9:

• 48 BusinessFirst seats
• 88 Economy Plus seats
• 116 coach seats

That’s a total of 252 seats. If you look at Rio, that plane looks to currently be served by a 777-200 with 50 BusinessFirst seats and 217 coach seats. It’s comparable in BusinessFirst, but the total number of seats will be 6% less per flight. 

Meanwhile, a route like Buenos Aires sees an additional 38 seats (18 of which in BusinessFirst). That’s a big increase. I don’t see any specific notes about increase or decrease in frequencies, though most are single frequencies (Frankfurt and Tokyo are multiples).  It doesn’t surprise me to see them adding more seats on the Frankfurt route given their partnership with Lufthansa and the sheer amount of traffic Lufthansa has out of FRA.  Given the choice, I’d always lean towards Lufthansa across the pond over United, especially given how nice the 747-8i is. And, I do like connecting at FRA more than LHR. 

I’m also curious where the old aircraft are going, but that’s research for another day. 

I haven’t flown the 787-9 yet, but I’ve been lucky enough to fly the 787-8 a bunch of times, including the Japan Airlines 787 Inaugural from Boston to Tokyo, Star MegaDO, flying the British Airways version this summer back from Italy, and most recently on the American Airlines inaugural from Dallas to Chicago.

I’ll be looking to catch a ride on the 787-9 soon!

HT:David

The post United Deploying Their 787-9s Out Of Houston Later This Year was published first on Pizza In Motion.

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