Omicron-era Trip Report: UA858 PVG-ICN-SFO United Polaris Business Class, Boeing 777-300ER
As mentioned in my last post, with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 exploding overseas, Pudong Airport suddenly required new cleaning and disinfection procedures which seriously delayed flights. We were supposed to have departed at 8:10pm, but in the end we departed at 11:20pm, 3 hours late.
I left the Air China lounge in time for our original boarding time. The staff at the gate were handing out snacks for all of the passengers after announcing the delay. They gave us this big box of muffins and bottle of water.
Well, the big box was a lot of air, because it contained just two small muffins inside.
I had purchased a Premium Plus ticket, and applied for a Plus Points upgrade, thinking it wouldn’t be too hard to upgrade. Who would be flying from China to US just after Christmas? Well, it turned out my upgrade didn’t clear until at the gate, just before departure. I think maybe a lot of Delta passengers rebooked onto United, because Delta cancelled their flights to and from China for a whole week due to those new cleaning and disinfection procedures.
After going to back to the Air China lounge for more food, it was finally time to board UA858, Shanghai Pudong Airport (PVG) to San Francisco (SFO) with a technical stop in Incheon (ICN) for a crew change. This was operated by United’s flagship, the Boeing 777-300ER.
I really do love the Polaris business class cabin.
I didn’t get to choose my seat since I was upgraded at the gate, so unfortunately I was assigned one of the seats closer to the aisle, without a window next to the seat. I asked for a seat change, but was told that it was a full flight.
There were new (to me) amenity kits on board. They’re kind of narrow leather bags. I like how they don’t take up so much space.
Inside were the usual amenities and Sunday Riley toiletries.
This service plan wasn’t exactly correct, since it didn’t reflect our stop in Incheon, South Korea.
On that first leg, there was a beverage service, with a bag of nuts and dried fruit. I ordered tomato juice, which is my go-to when I want something more filling.
Total time to Incheon was just 1 hour 20 minutes, and then we waited on the ground for another 1 hour 20 minutes for the crew change. During this time, a wonderful flight attendant really went above and beyond. He took pictures of all of the meal choices on his phone, and then went one by one to each passenger to ask for their choices for both the first and second meal services. This was so nice, because United still doesn’t provide printed menus due to COVID service alterations. It was so nice to see the options before ordering!
They did something different on this flight, which was that they first served the breakfast, which they usually serve just before landing. I thought this was smart, because we ended up departing Incheon at 2am Shanghai time, so it made sense to have the (every so slightly) simpler meal first. Now, I was surprised to see the meal options for this first meal service. One of the choices was exactly what I had on my PVG-SFO flight in November 2019… in Economy Class! It was this dish of noodles with shredded pork and peppers, accompanied by a steamed bun. The picture the flight attendant showed was identical to this meal!
None of the meals, for either the first or second meals, looked so exciting. I got to the end of the flight attendant’s slide show, and asked to see the selections again to make a decision. I thought it might be funny to order the same meal, but ended up deciding that I would rather try something different.
My breakfast, served around 2:30am Shanghai Time, was this English Breakfast type of breakfast.
It was just ok. The omelette was rather bland, the bacon was that kind that’s not really bacon but composed meat, the sausage is the Chinese version of Western-style sausage which is always too processed with no bite. The beans were hard and potatoes undercooked.
Fruit (orange, pineapple, watermelon) was okay.
The muffin looked really scary, heated up in that plastic bag, but it was actually decent (despite having raisins in it!). Moist, not too sweet.
I was so thankful for my upgrade, because I was so tired, and really appreciated the flat bed. I asked for a mattress pad, and slept for about 5 hours.
I got hungry in the middle of the flight, and was disappointed that there were only these tiny, tiny half sandwiches on sweetish bread, with meat and processed cheese, and Oreo wafers. I’m pretty sure this is exactly what Economy Class got. Pre-COVID on these longer flights, there would be grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, and maybe something like shrimp fried rice.
Prior to landing, we had our second meal. Here, the choices were a kind of sliced pork loin dish, with a side of what looked like gnocchi but could have been potatoes, this chicken dish, a gnocchi dish with tomato sauce. It was kind of hard to decide because none of the choices looked really appealing to me. I knew I didn’t want gnocchi (so easy to be too chewy), and the pork looked so pale (and if the side was gnocchi, again, that didn’t appeal), so I went with the chicken.
It was served with a salad. The salad plate looks big (I’d never seen this type of dish ware in Polaris before), but it was really a mono layer of lettuce, with corn, some kidney beans, shredded carrots, and cherry tomatoes. Served with a little Dixie cup of oil and vinegar (on the right side of the tray).
It was flavorful, with big pieces of ginger and peppers, but that also meant that the portion was very small, because after taking out those pieces, there wasn’t much chicken left. And it was rather greasy.
A bread roll was served warmed up, and dessert was this piece of chocolate cake. The cake was pretty good - not too sweet, once again, and with walnuts on top. But it’s kind of underwhelming for a business class meal.
Overall, I really appreciated the service of the flight attendant who so patiently went from passenger to passenger, showing the meal choices so we could make informed decisions (not just asking “pork, chicken, pasta,” which is what normally happens). But between United’s cut backs in catering, along with the quality of the Shanghai kitchen, the food was sort of a letdown on this flight. Still, I was very thankful to be in business class on this full flight, with no one sitting next to me, and the ability to sleep for so long on the lie-flat bed.
We ended up making up some time along the way, arriving at 7:37pm, 2 hours behind schedule.
