Tuesday, September 15, 2015

ROUTE UPDATE: United to fly 787-9's, not 787-8's, between Houston Bush Intercontinental (IAH) and Buenos Aires Ezeiza (EZE) effective 25Oct15


As reported in a posting dated 21May15, United will replace its existing daily non-stop 767-300 service between Houston Bush Intercontinental (IAH) and Buenos Aires Ezeiza (EZE) with 787's, effective 25Oct15.  United will be the fifth airline operating the 787 to Buenos Aires Ezeiza (EZE), joining LAN, Avianca, AeroMexico, and American Airlines.  

However, the editor of this blog has since learned that United will fly the longer-fuselage and higher-capacity 787-9 on the route, being only the second carrier to operate the newer variant to EZE, the other being LAN, which upgraded its existing 787-8 service from Santiago (SCL) to the 787-9 on 01Apr15.  United is also the first and so far only US carrier to have taken delivery of the 787-9. 

United's 787-9's have a fuselage length of 186 ft. (56.7 m) and are configured with 48 Business First, 88 Economy Plus and 116 Economy seats for a total capacity of 252 passengers compared to United's 787-8's which measure 206 ft. (62.8 m) long and have 36 Business First, 70 Economy Plus, and 113 Economy seats totaling 219 available seats.  

Nearly all of the additional seats on the 787-9 are premium seats suggesting that the airline is primarily targeting higher-fare passengers for the increased traffic that it anticipates.  

Sources:

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/travel/timetable/results.aspx?Origin=IAH&Destination=EZE&Date=10/25/2015&Time=&NonStop=&NumFlight=&FLN=
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/aircraft/787/800/default.aspx
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/aircraft/787/900/default.aspx    

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