Review: United Airlines 787–9 Business Class Newark To Cape Town

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This is a review of my March 2020 trip from Newark to Cape Town onboard a Unit­ed 787–9 in busi­ness class. The trip seems so far in the past, but is a reminder of how much the world has changed since spring. That said, this will not be a con­ven­tion­al Live and Let’s Fly review thanks to my seat­mate onboard.

United Airlines Cape Town Business Class Review

After fin­ish­ing my con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton, DC,  I head­ed to Wash­ing­ton Nation­al Air­port for the quick up to Newark Lib­er­ty Inter­na­tion­al. My flight was delayed by about an hour, but I had left a three-hour buffer so I was not worried.

We land­ed in Ter­mi­nal A in Newark, which required a shut­tle ride to Ter­mi­nal C, where my con­nec­tion would depart from.

I had a late lunch in the Polaris Lounge where I ran into a very spe­cial flyer…the sub­ject of a sep­a­rate post tomorrow.

My 787–9 to Cape Town out the window

I’m still impressed by what Unit­ed has man­aged to accom­plish with its Polaris Lounges. I hope that when they re-open, cater­ing will not be sig­nif­i­cant­ly scaled back. Sad­ly, my guess is that we will not see them re-opened until next summer.

I’ve reviewed the Unit­ed 787–9 in busi­ness class more than any oth­er prod­uct on this blog. As such, I’m not going to talk about the seat, beyond men­tion­ing the 2–2‑2 con­fig­u­ra­tion is being retro­fit­ted into a 1–2‑1 con­fig­u­ra­tion with new Polaris seat­ing, but I have no trou­ble sleep­ing with either seat. The bed­ding from Saks Fifth Avenue helps. For more details on the seat, read this review.

Any­way, let’s talk about my seat­mate. Nev­er in my life have I had such an extend­ed mul­ti-hour con­ver­sa­tion with such a fas­ci­nat­ing char­ac­ter. The guy was head­ed to Cape Town to take part in a Balut tour­na­ment (a dice game of some kind). A now-retired busi­ness­man, he appar­ent­ly trav­els around the world with his bud­dies and plays Balut.

We talked pol­i­tics, we spec­u­lat­ed about the pan­dem­ic (those were the days…), we talked about law, reli­gion, and life in gen­er­al. He told me about everything…his fail­ures, his tri­umph, his affairs….

But I actu­al­ly enjoyed the con­ver­sa­tion. It cer­tain­ly came at the expense of sleep and my abil­i­ty to get ahead on my blog ahead of my arrival in Cape Town, but it was one of the most inter­est­ing seat­mates I have ever flown with.

Wi-Fi onboard was cheap­er for the entire 12-hour flight than it is a for a one hour on many domes­tic flights…it was nice to stay con­nect­ed and the sig­nal remained, even over the South­ern Atlantic.

Menus were wait­ing at each seat:

Din­ner was served about an hour after take­off. Know­ing that I was going to order fish, I enjoyed my warmed mixed nuts with a glass of white wine.

Din­ner began with a stuffed grape leaf appe­tiz­er and a sal­ad with man­darin oranges, grapes, straw­ber­ry, and feta. Both were very good and I enjoyed a pret­zel roll and rose­mary bread with it.

For my main course, I chose seared tur­bot with rice and stir-fried veg­eta­bles. The toma­to caper sauce gave it a nice fla­vor and the dish was lighter than it looked.

I con­clud­ed the meal with some cheese (United’s usu­al bor­ing variety…).

And the con­ver­sa­tion continued…

At some point I man­aged to fall asleep and awoke with about three hours left in the flight. My seat­mate was final­ly sleep­ing (in the non-reclined posi­tion). He knocked out a half dozen drinks in short order, but did not show any signs of being tipsy.

United’s typ­i­cal pre-arrival meal on a transat­lantic flight is break­fast, but the flight arrived into Cape Town in the late after­noon. Con­se­quent­ly, a choice between break­fast or lunch was offered.

Per the urg­ing of a par­tic­u­lar­ly friend­ly flight atten­dant, I start­ed with spinach and kale eggs whites (with pota­toes and sausage) then moved to four cheese ravioli.

Both were tasty, though the high­light of the meal was a strong cup of cof­fee and warm cin­na­mon roll then fly­ing over Table Mountain.

Even though this was March 2020, the arrival in Cape Town real­ly dates this report…check out the pair of British Air­ways Boe­ing 747s. May they rest in peace…

Final­ly, a pair of very friend­ly flight atten­dants served my side of the cab­in. One struck up a conversation…and con­fessed to being a read­er of Live and Let’s Fly. It’s always nice to meet readers!

CONCLUSION

Good flight. Inter­est­ing seat­mate. Tasty food…but this flight was much more about the des­ti­na­tion than the flight itself. I was great­ly look­ing for­ward to my return to South Africa. United’s non­stop ser­vice (ver­sus con­nect­ing in Europe) made the jour­ney incred­i­bly eas­i­er. Just this week Unit­ed announced that Cape Town ser­vice would be sus­pend­ed this year due to the pan­dem­ic (new ser­vice to Johan­nes­burg is still planned for March 2021). Hope­ful­ly this route will return next winter.