Why United Has Hundreds Of Useless Business Class Seats In Storage

United Airlines is finding itself in an interesting situation. While premium airline demand is all the rage these days, the Chicago-based carrier has reportedly had hundreds of business class seats in storage for years, but no longer has a use for them. What exactly is going on here?

United’s spare Boeing 737 MAX 10 flat bed seats

United currently has 167 Boeing 737 MAX 10 aircraft on order. This is the largest variant of the 737 MAX, and the plane has faced massive certification delays. While the initial plan was for the plane to enter service in 2020, United now expects to take delivery of its first 737 MAX 10 in 2027, so that’s around seven years behind schedule.

When United first ordered the 737 MAX 10, the plan was for a subfleet of these aircraft to be used as the new primary aircraft for premium, transcontinental flights. The plane has amazing per-seat economics, but doesn’t have the range of something like the Airbus A321XLR, so this is the perfect plane for operating a premium configuration on transcontinental routes.

However, with massive certification delays on these planes, United stopped waiting around, and went with what was a sure bet. The airline started taking delivery of Airbus A321neos. While most of these are in a standard configuration, United plans to equip a subfleet of these planes in a three cabin layout, with flat bed business class, premium economy, and economy, and they’ll be known as “Coastliners.” These are separate from the A321XLRs that will be used for long haul flights.

These Coastliner A321neos are taking over the routes that the 737 MAX 10 was supposed to serve, so what’s the plan now? The 737 MAX 10 still has great economics, so will be an ideal plane for high demand domestic routes.

But that gets us to an issue United has, as reported by CNBC’s Leslie Josephs. United reportedly has hundreds of flat bed business class seats in storage, which were intended for the 737 MAX 10. Seats are typically ordered separately from aircraft, and the airline sourced those based on the initial 737 MAX 10 entry into service timeline, which obviously was way off.

As United CEO Scott Kirby reportedly explained, “we got a bunch of lie-flat seats that we don’t know what to do with,” and “they don’t fit on other airplanes.” The airline reportedly hasn’t reached a final decision as to what to actually do with these seats.

What could United do with these spare business class seats?

Flat bed business class seats are shockingly expensive to manufacture, so I imagine United has eight figures worth of these seats ready to go. Realistically, what could United actually do with these seats, since they’re not going on the A321neo? As I see it, there are only two ways this could play out — either United uses the seats, or it doesn’t.

If United isn’t going to use the seats, can it at least sell them to another airline, sell them back to the manufacturer, get some sort of a claim against Boeing, or something along those lines? I dunno. I imagine the airline would rather not just dump them in the trash and get nothing for them.

But I think the bigger question is if there’s a creative way that United could use these seats to achieve a competitive advantage. United has in general done a great job getting creative with its products and services, and it’s something the airline prides itself in.

Could United find value in having premium configured 737 MAX 10s for anything other than premium transcontinental flights, since it has the seats anyway? Some of these ideas are really farfetched, though a few concepts come to mind:

• Could United start regularly operating 737 MAX 10s with flat beds in some domestic markets that haven’t historically been premium transconinental ones, especially where there’s a lot of competition? We’re talking flights like Chicago to Los Angeles and San Francisco (where the airline is competing against American), maybe flights between Atlanta and San Francisco (just to mess with Delta), etc.
• Could United use 737 MAX 10s to operate some short haul international flights where the range of the A321XLR isn’t needed, but where there could still be value to having flat beds, like some routes from Houston to Latin America?
• Could United use these seats to create some all-business class 737 MAX 10s, and then use them for charters, for certain routes where premium cabin demand is through the roof, etc.? It seems unlikely, but I’m just throwing otu all the possible scenarios…

As I see it, the biggest issue is that there’s value in scaling a fleet, so if United did want more narrow body planes with flat beds, it would be smart to just expand the A321neo Coastliner fleet, and use that as needed. Essentially having a subfleet of three kinds of narrow body planes with flat beds isn’t terribly efficient.

Then again, I have to imagine that United executives hate the thought of just “wasting” a bunch of premium seats that they could in theory do something with…

Bottom line

United Airlines has a unique problem, as it has hundreds of flat bed business class seats in storage, which were intended for the Boeing 737 MAX 10. The plan was initially for this plane to be used for premium transcontinental flights, but with certification of the plane delayed by around seven years, United pivoted.

The airline now plans to use Airbus A321neos for its premium transcontinental flights, as they’ll have a special “Coastliner” configuration. It seems like United plans to just use these 737 MAX 10s in high capacity domestic markets with a standard layout, but that doesn’t change that the airline has a lot of seats in storage that it’s trying to figure out what to do with. Could United get creative somehow? We’ll see…

How do you see this playing out for United?