Since we’re pretty much bolted to United at the hip for our air travel, living in one of their busiest hub cities, we always take an interest whenever they do a little something to make travel easier. United just announced $550 million in continued upgrades to their fleet of planes. Now, part of that is bringing some of their existing Continental aircraft up to speed with the United aircraft (i.e. adding flat bed seats in Business/First to 767s and adding Economy Plus seating). But, what was at least some good news was that United will be adding Wi-Fi to over 200 aircraft, increasing overhead space by over 50% in it’s A319/320 aircraft and the big news, adding Wi-Fi streaming of entertainment content in its fleet (albeit small) of 747s. Now, knowing United, these improvements will not come fast. They have a reputation for dribbling out improvements and, should air travel take a dip, they’ll shelve spending on those upgrades faster than a plane falling out of the sky. But, at least there are plans and we hope that they’ll stick to and maybe even accelerate the schedule. Also, Boeing started building United’s first 787 last week, the first of 50 to come.
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Last modified: December 30, 2013