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The United Airlines Fleet – Its Composition Configurations and Operations

United Airlines is among the big three groups of US aviation. It became the giant we all now following a number or M&As the latest of which being with Continental Airlines. Interestingly, while American Airlines and Delta retained in full their brand identity, United adopted some of Continental’s The logo on all aircraft vertical stabilizers is in fact Continental’s. Modern day United Airlines and its fleet are just a massive operation carrying seventy million passengers in 2021, albeit mostly domestically. Such passenger numbers, particularly considering they fly on smaller gauge aircraft means that the airline needs a massive number or planes in its fleet. In all effects one of the largest in the world.

How is Core Principals of the United Fleet

There are three main segments the airline has to serve that dictate how the fleet must be structured:

  • Regional flights
  • Domestic flights
  • International/Long-haul flights

Each of these divisions has extremely specific needs that in some cases slightly overlap. Also, United Airlines has historically been quite a strong Boeing customer. However, its loyalty to the American manufacturer is weltering recently as delays have plagued some new variants United had relied on having in its fleet according to Boeing’s initial delivery estimates. Nonetheless, Boeing still accounts for 785 planes out of the total 970 units. Airbus is left with the remaining 185 units. However that percentage is probably destined to change over the next months and years.

All Airbus planes in United Airlines’ fleet are narrow bodies, while the Boeing supplied planes feature both in the narrow and wide body fleet.

As its other its peers in the United States United Airlines also splits its fleet across the country basing its planes in its main hubs located in:

  • New York Newark Liberty Airport (EWR)
  • Chicago O’Hare (ORD)
  • Houston (IAH)

To a smaller extent there are also planes located at Los Angeles (LAX) and even smaller at Guam (GUM). Los Angeles is just too big a market to be ignored and therefore there must be some planes stationed there. Guam on the other hand is the airline’s Pacific Ocean island hopper hub. From Guam the airline operates flights across the Paicific up as far as Japan.

United Airlines 737 MAX on Takeoff at Milwaukee

The United Airlines Narrow Body Fleet – Powering a Massive Domestic Network

Almost 75% of United Airline’s fleet is made up of narrow body planes. This reflects the split between domestic and international traffic. Approximately 85% of the airline’s passengers travel on domestic routes within the United States. That 10% gap between narrow bodies and domestic passengers is bridged by some wide body airliners being fitted with domestic optimised configurations.

Breaking down the United Airlines narrow body fleet we’ll find it features:

ManufacturerTypeUnits
Airbus Logo AirbusA319-10080
Airbus Logo AirbusA320-20082
Airbus Logo AirbusA321neo16
Boeing Logo Boeing737-70040
Boeing Logo Boeing737-800140
Boeing Logo Boeing737-900146
Boeing Logo Boeing737 MAX 899
Boeing Logo Boeing737 MAX 981
Boeing Logo Boeing757-20039
Boeing Logo Boeing757-30021

Despite being narrow body planes, the Boeing 757s are used by the carrier to operate medium to long haul sectors. All narrow body domestic-configured planes feature a 2-class setup. They all have a real domestic first-class cabin (business class for the rest of the world) in the front of the plane with the rest set up in a 3-3 standard economy setup. Here’s a breakdown of the United Airlines narrow body fleet cabin configuration:

AircraftDomestic FirstInternational BusinessEconomy
A319-10012114
A320-20012138
A321neo20180
737-70012114
737-80016150
737-90020159
737-900ER20159
737 MAX 816150
737 MAX 920159
757-20016160
757-30024210

Out of all of United’s narrow body planes the only ones configured for international long range service are the Boeing 757-200s. These planes feature flatbed seats in Business class instead of the recliners found on the larger, domestic-configured, Boeing 757-300s. All other United Airlines fleet aircraft feature the standard recliners in a 2-2 layout and economy class in the common 3-3 layout.

United Airlines Boeing 787 at Gate in San Francisco

The United Airlines Wide Body Fleet – Connecting to Europe and Asia

The United Airlines wide body fleet will change dramatically in coming years as the airline gradually takes delivery of the 200 Boeing 787s it has on order from the manufacturer. Those planes will replace and expand the current plane lineup. What is noticable, is that United still hasn’t placed orders for the Boeing 777x. That’s for mainly two reasons:

  • United got its Boeing 777-300 fleet quite late compared to other carriers. Therefore, these aircraft are still relatively young and not yet in dire need for replacement.
  • The carrier might be a little weary of Boeing due to the many delays it has experienced with its Boeing 737 MAX 10 order. It might just be holding its cards close to its chest to make a decision as the cerification process moves forward.

Some of these larger planes are also used for domestic services. Some high-demand routes particularly those between New York and the west coast also see these planes flying. United also fitted on a large number of its wide body planes its most premium business class product, which for many is the best among the US big 3 airlines: Polaris. Polaris is present on:

  • All Boeing 787s
  • All Boeing 767s
  • Part of its Boeing 777-200ER
  • All Boeing 777-300ER

Here’s the precise breakdown of the cabin configurations United Airlines has on its wide body planes:

AircraftBusiness ClassPremium EconomyEconomy
777-200 (Polaris)5024202
777-20028336
777-20032330
777-300 (Polaris)6024266
787-8 (Polaris)2821194
787-9 (Polaris)4821188
787-10 (Polaris)4421253
767-300 (Polaris)3024149
767-300 (Polaris)462299
767-400 (Polaris)3424173

United, just as all other US based carriers, has long decided to remove first class from its planes to focus on its much easier to sell Business Class product.

Also, United Airlines is one of the few carriers to have the Boeing 787-10 in its fleet. Not many airlines have chosen this variant of the aircraft preferring the smaller and more versatile 9 and 8 variants.