I commend United Airlines for all of its innovation as of late, particularly when it comes to the passenger experience. Along those lines, the airline recently took delivery of its first Airbus A321XLR, which is the new long range, narrow body jet that’s becoming increasingly popular with airlines.
This plane has all-new cabins, including a new business class (which isn’t as good as on wide body planes, but also, that’s to be expected). We’re now learning about another new product that may be introduced on these planes, but I’m not sure it’s as positive of a development as the airline is making it out to be.
How does the airline plan to accomplish that? Well, the plan is essentially to block two seats in economy, by introducing an intra-Europe business class style hard product. The idea is that given the 3-3 configuration, one row of six seats would have two center seats blocked, and as long as there’s a physical divider in there so the seats can’t be used, that would technically get the capacity down to 150 seats.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
