New middle seat design: United offering passengers more space
United Airlines is giving passengers more space by replacing the middle seat with a shared table. The new fleet is expected to fly domestically by fall.
An earlier version of this video featured the wrong airline.
A major U.S. airline is making sure NFL fans don’t miss out on their favorite football games while in-flight.
United Airlines announced Sept. 17 that its passengers “won’t miss a play this football season” under a new agreement with satellite television provider DISH, allowing travelers to “catch live professional and college football games right on their Starlink-enabled seatback screen.”
“This new entertainment offering builds on the airline’s long history of supporting professional football, sponsoring nine professional football teams in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, Washington D.C., Denver, Kansas City, Cleveland and Nashville and operating more than 200 team charter flights for 11 teams this season,” United said in a news release.
United said it has already installed the service on more than 200 airplanes, accounting for about 700 flights per day, adding it will be available on domestic flights through Super Bowl LXI in February, when “United expects to have Starlink on nearly 700 airplanes by then.”
Describing Starlink as “the fastest, most reliable Wi-Fi in the sky,” United said the service is active on more than “560 United mainline and United Express aircraft and the airline has already flown more than 31 million passengers on Starlink-powered aircraft across more than 464,000 flights, powering 14.2 million devices.”
Passengers can watch more than NFL games
It’s not just NFL games. United through Starlink will also offer passengers live broadcasts from ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, FS1, ESPN, ESPN2, NFL Network and TNF on Prime Video.
In a statement, United Airline’s EVP and Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Nocella said with the rollout out of the new service, “football fans don’t have to schedule their flights around game day.”
“Starlink opens a whole new world of features and benefits for our customers, regardless of where they sit on the plane,” Nocella said. “They can watch their favorite team on seatback and also make changes to their fantasy roster, text or live chat with friends, or even stream different games on their phone, laptop or tablet, just like they would do at home.”
United’s new service comes shortly after it partnered with ESPN to “host a first-of-its kind live Fantasy Football Draft from 30,000 feet where ESPN analyst Tyler Fulghum made his picks live from the sky during the two-hour broadcast.”
Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.