United to Block Middle Seats on New Transatlantic Narrowbodies

United Airlines is bringing “Eurobusiness” to some of its flights.

After a post went viral on Reddit showing United blocking off middle seats on its new Airbus A321XLR, the airline confirmed this week that it will debut the setup on its extra-long-range narrowbodies, which are scheduled to enter service later this year.

The setup—a European-style economy layout with the middle seat blocked and filled with a tray table divider—will replace United’s aging Boeing 757s on transatlantic routes, such as service from Newark (EWR) to Lisbon (LIS), Nice (NCE), and Dublin (DUB), and destinations in Northern Italy. United has not yet revealed an official brand name for these seats, or exactly how they will be marketed to passengers.

The layout gives passengers in a three-across row more elbow room without forcing United to add a fifth flight attendant to the cabin, which is required by federal regulations if certified passenger seats exceed a certain threshold. Notably, United will not be bringing this configuration to its upcoming domestic Airbus A321neo “Coastliner” subfleet, which is reserved exclusively for premium transcontinental routes.

While this layout is fairly common with European legacy carriers like Lufthansa, Air France, and British Airways, those airlines typically use it for shorter-haul regional flights. Instead of configuring a dedicated premium cabin, they use a standard economy cabin and dynamically move a curtain back and forth depending on how many business class seats they sell.

The major differentiator here is the flight duration: European carriers rely on the layout for quick regional hops, while United will be deploying it for transoceanic flights lasting seven or more hours.