I guess some of those new 'Recaro' crew rest seats found on the 777 aircraft and elsewhere are failing to recline!  United has just released an announcement regarding what to do if your flight is over eight hours and your restful 'Recaro' seat doesn't recline.

We are authorized to designate a certain number of business class seats (not that they are much better!) for crew rest on flights scheduled over eight hours.  The number of UB seats we can use is based on staffing and the number of broken 'Recaro' seats.  Here are the guidelines at published in Onboard Updates:

This chart assumes three required rest periods during a single flight.  These temporary UB seats, however, will not be curtained off.  Thus, no privacy.  There are other details about this alternate crew rest seat situation and they will be published in our Inflight Handbook revision for May.

The only other information I have is a strange paragraph from Onboard Updates which reads:

United Business seats being removed from inventory associated with Recaro recline problems, as well as manpower and parts, have resulted in a temporary re-work of the recline assembly.  Mechanics working on the assembly will require a reduction in recline from 9'' to 7''.  Reliability is expected to improve.  Retrofits are planned to begin in April and take several weeks for 31 affected aircraft.  United is working with Recaro on permanent design changes involving many seat functions, including restoration of seat recline to 9''.

I read that paragraph twice and still can't quite figure out what happened with the seats!