UA919 LHR-IAD 10th Feb 2006 (Business)
Posted: 13 Feb 2006, 23:58I walked past the VS check-in, which didn't seem mega busy, though there were several large groups of kids being checked in. No lines for W or J, I noticed. Anyway, not on VS today, so off to the other end of Departures, to Zone G, where I found that the UA check-in has undergone a bit of an overhaul, and now has about 6 diy check-in machines, where you swipe your FF card, and your passport, and you get your boarding pass.
Interestingly, with this change, UA have also switched to using pre-check-in screeners, like VS do - except with one major difference. If you're on an e-ticket, they don't need to see your printout/confirmation, which is slightly better. However, they do ask the security questions, and check you have appropriate documentation, and sticker your passport.
So, did the diy check-in, which seems to be a BAA branded 'outer shell', which then calls the appropriate airline's diy check-in platform - i.e. once you touch 'United' on the screen, it looks and feels like a regular United Easy Check-in, apart from the passport scanner. Easy enough, and my seating allocations hadn't been fiddled with (16A up in the bubble on the 747 to IAD, and 2A in F on the IAD-DFW) Off to the bag drop, and a slight wait there.
Overall, I was left with the impression that the old-style check-in at the Business/Star Gold counter was faster!
Headed upstairs to use 'Fast Track', which turned out to be a definite misnomer today. The line was the whole length of the concourse. The regular security line was even longer, apparently tailing down into the arrivals mezzanine (where Revivals is!). Not sure why things were so bad. There was an annuoncement saying it was due to 'Heightened security concerns'. There were rumours that it was due to half-term, with so many kids (and their cutesy, waste of space Barbie roll-abords) about. Other rumours were that it was due to the recently introduced laptop farce, yet another was that the screeners had some sort of run-in with BAA management and were on a go slow or sick-out, and finally a rumour that they were scared of being taken over by the Spanish. Who knows what the real reason is?
If it was 'Heightened security', all I can say is that our Governments must be worried that we're not scared enough at the moment. Obviously keeping us scared is a priority, so that we're nice, docile and pliable. Sorry, just having a Michael Moore moment.
Anyway, the line moved, slowly but surely. Every so often, airline employees would appear (often plain clothed - just wearing their security photo id tags - either station management, or staff called in on a day off) to help with the chaos, hoiking passengers out of the line and pushing them to the front as their flights started boarding. I noticed at least one Dixons and another Duty Free store employee come out to see what was going on, and shaking their heads. I'm sure it must have massively eaten into the takings in the shops, restaurants and bars that morning. There were also a lot of attempts to cut into the line as well, like casually walk out of an airside shop and slip into the line.
Anyway, finally got through security at 11.15. It didn't seem that bad when I finally got there. So, can't be sure what all the delay was about.
Decided to head for the London Lounge for a few minutes, as that's probably my favourite Star lounge in T3 at the moment. The UA RCC is quite dismal these days, early 1990s American 'Conservative' decor, and desperately in need of a freshening up/refurb. The Scandinavian feel of the London Lounge is just my cup of tea. Though, asking around, apparently, now that UA are out of bankruptcy, all RCC's are to be refurbished or at least freshened up.
Quick break in the London Lounge, and then it was time to board, over at gate 13, which is a fair old trek, but you get a good view of your plane on your way there, which turned out to be 747-400 N187UA, one of the 744s which spent a while in exile in the desert post UAL filing Ch11.
Priority Boarding with UAL kind of works at Heathrow, in that they use two doors into the gate room, one for the masses, and one for the various Premium customers. However, in their infinite wisdom, BAA seem to be refurbishing the T3 gate rooms and taking one of the jet-ways away, so despite getting into the gate room fairly quickly, there was then a VS-like tailback up the jetway, because we were loading only through the L2 door.
Is it just me, or has everyone else noticed the 'airplane' smell which wafts up the jetway, and how it smells a little different from airline to airline?
As I was heading down the jetway, the dispatcher/departure co-ordinator was liaising with the Purser about getting some people reseated together in Business Class. It involved bumping some lucky person into F, but alas not me...
Onboard, and upstairs into the bubble, where I was greeted by the two crew working the upper deck - both Dutch, and along with the rest of the cabin crew, based in London. Getting an entirely European crew is normal for about 50% of United flights out of LHR.
Pre-departure drinks were passed around, champagne, orange juice or water, in plastics - primarily for safety, in case they forget to pick them up before takeoff. I just took a water. The last few minutes of boarding were rather chaotic, probably caused by chasing people to the gate after the security line problem, but eventually, our dispatcher came upstairs armed with a sheaf of paperwork, said to the flight crew 'right, you're going', and almost dead on 12.00, the door was closed and we were pushing back.
Quite a strange 'long' pushback, all the way out of the alley - it was to let another aircraft in, and a Scandinavian Airlines plan pushback in the alley, and we taxiied out to 27L for departure. Interestingly, I noticed that we did the taxi with the #1 and #4 engines shut off.
Having mentioned this to a friend who recently stopped flying the 747, the 'handbook' actually warns pilots about using higher power settings on the #1 and #4 engines during taxi, as they often overhang the pavement and can ingest debris off the ground, and so the preferred technique is to use power on the inboard engines. We started the #1 and #4 engines as we approached the holding area and got our place in the sequence for departure. I guess it's not a bad idea. It saves fuel, engine hours, and the risk of ingesting debris into the engine, and ruining your day. Though I suppose it would ruin everyone's day if you're sat in a departure sequence and can't get your remaining engines to start... slightly embarassing!
During taxi, one of our crew came around and asked if we'd had a chance to look at the menu yet, and took lunch orders.
As we were sat in the holding area, having completed all our checks, the Captain came on and introduced himself, and spoke to us about the predicted conditions in the crossing (smooth), and invited people to 'join in' by listening to the air-ground communication on Channel 9.
So, after a KLM and Scandinavian 737, and a BA 777, we were off at about 12.20 into a clear and bright sky, punctuated by just a few clouds, following the Compton departure which takes us out to the West, over Bristol and South Wales.
In the interests of competition, I noted that the VS21 (VS' Washington flight) was a good few aircraft behind us, and we actually beat it by a fair margin into IAD.
A sharp right turn overhead Pembrokeshire took us toward Dublin, and North-Westbound to join our Transatlantic track, all of which were quite northerly today because of strong jetstream headwinds further south. This northerly routing meant we would be spending much of the flight in calm and smooth air, with little or no wind.
Post-departure bar service of drinks and warmed nuts began (it's done from a cart though), and the IFE started. I must say, apart from Channel 9 and the skymap, I didn't touch the IFE at all on this trip. It was mostly films which were either old and crap, or just didn't interest me, and well, of course you're going to feel spoiled after V-Port!
I chose a very nice California Chardonnay - Wente Vineyards Livermore Valley 2003 Chardonnay - which was very refreshing. It proved to be a popular selection.
Lunch was then served, here's the menu, with my comments inline:
To Begin
Smoked halibut and goat cheese with sun-blushed tomato - which turned out to be salmon today. Whoops.
Fresh seasonal greens - which I had with asian vinaigrette dressing (the alternative was Caesar).
Main Course
Filet mignon with roasted garlic demi-glace, cheddar cheese mashed potato and mixed vegetables
Roasted breast of chicken with sweet chili glaze, green beans with tomato and mixed pepper risotto
Harmonica Provencal pasta with Parmesan cheese, creamy mushroom, tomato and creme fraiche pesto sauce
- I chose the pasta, which was like a sort of spinach canneloni-ish creation, like a pasta bake, made of very very thin layers of pasta with the tomato and creme fraiche sauce added on the top, with a side of grated parmesan. Was actually pretty good - quite enjoyable.
Both meat main courses actually looked pretty good. The beef was South American and looked of a good quality, and the chicken course looked quite generous.
Dessert
International cheese selection: stilton and roubiliac cheese (more goat cheese!)
Haagen-Dazs ice cream - my choice, simple, served plain, scoop of chocolate chip and scoop of vanilla.
Dinner service was finished about 1h30 after takeoff.
I think, given some of the comments here about food on VS, maybe the VS appetisers and desserts, with the UA main courses would go down pretty well? The salad was a bit plain, but was, as advertised, a fresh green salad, with good quality, fresh leaves. The bread was also nicely done, gently warmed, not reheated until it was rock hard. However, they seem to have bought in a job lot of goat cheese, it seems.
The best bit of all: metal cutlery is back on UA, apart from the knife, which was a silver plastic 'lookalike'.
As we approched the start of the non-radar section of the Atlantic crossing, our crew asked ATC about trying to get a higher flight level. We'd planned for FL360, but it was unavailable because of other aircraft, and had ended up at FL340. Our crew asked if FL350 would be available, it all depended on how far ahead the aircraft in front was, and how fast he was going (it looked like not enough, he was an Airbus at M0.82 and being a 744 we were M0.85). We offered to slowdown to M0.83, but in the end, it wasn't necessary. The controllers did their sums, worked out that we wouldn't catch up the Airbus, and climbed to FL350 for the crossing. We were handed over to Shanwick Radio, checked in, confirmed that CPDLC (Data Link communication) was working, got the HF frequencies for the crossing, and that was it, Channel 9 fell quiet until we made landfall in Canada.
I snoozed for a while, and while not a Suite, the UA Business seat is actually still quite comfortable and very adjustable, as a reclining seat, and probably more comfortable than the suite in that respect.
I then felt an urge to go and sit at a non-existent bar. My solution - annexe the upper deck galley/the area at the top of the stairs until I get asked to sit down. This is where having a non-US crew on United kicks in. They don't have the same level of 'scared paranoia' that the US crews have.
So, I hung out in the galley, chatting with one of the flight attendants, who was offering around her 'stroopwafeln' - a caramel waffle biscuit, great for with coffee - even warming them up in the galley oven! She didn't have to do this, but it reminds me of how nice and genuine some people really are.
We got discussing the differences between various airlines, which kind of spun out of discussing my upcoming RTW trip, and flying with SQ. This flight attendant really thought SQ were great, a shining example for other airlines, and wished that UA was more like SQ in it's service, though with bean-counting Americans at the helm, it probably wasn't likely for a long time. We spoke about the various Chief Execs that UA has had in the time she has worked there (over 10 years!), and like a lot of UA staff, she spoke fondly of Gerry Greenwald, who seems to have been the last 'great' Chief Exec at UA, who managed to motivate the company and respect the employees. Tilton has done a great job leading the rescue of something which was very broken, but he's had to be ruthless to get there, and he's rumoured to be getting a big payoff for managing it, which has raised some people's hackles.
After a while, the Purser came up because it sounded like people were having too much of a good time, to break up the party with paperwork! I noticed she had the cabin defect log, so I told her about the broken latch on my side-bin. She was like, 'Tsk! They told me there was nothing wrong with this aircraft today.' Actually, she said that almost everything works. There's no major or annoying cabin defects at all today. Obviously, a refreshing change, as while they were in Ch11, most times I flew, there were often a number of minor cabin write ups that a plane was dispatched with.
It's actually nice to see UA start to bounce back after 5 years in the doldrums. For example, the First and Business class washrooms have proper amenties again - moisturiser, face wash, and hydrating mist from Chicago-based H2O-plus. For so long, those little holders have been empty.
Our route had taken us a fair way North, to the point that we made landfall way up the Canadian coast, north of Goose Bay. We then proceeded to stay West of the St Lawrence Seaway, and pass to the West of Montreal, before crossing into US airspace near Niagra Falls (obscured by cloud) on track to Syracuse.
Afternoon tea was served, which was a choice of fruit (grapes and strawberries) and cheese (wensleydale and red leicester), or sandwiches (crayfish, sweet chili vegetable, and chicken with basil), with scones and clotted cream. Not that much different from the VS offering, though no cake stand.
We started to run into some headwinds and bumpy air on our descent, and the airspace was quite busy with International traffic heading for IAD, including three United flights (ours, one from FRA, and one from CDG), all within minutes of each other. We also beat the Virgin flight by a good margin!
Before long, we were descending over Harrisburg in Pennsylvania and heading toward Dulles, where they were landing to the south, so a straight in approach over the Potomac to land on Runway 19R at 14.40 local, 15 minutes ahead of schedule. We were the third aircraft in, but we got gate C1, right next to the Immigration and Customs. We may just beat all the crowds coming off the other planes!
Quickly off the plane (with a 'Tot ziens' to our Dutch flight attendants) and down the escalator, there was only a very short line for US Immigration, where I was admitted to the country by one of the most friendly and polite CBP officers I've come across in a long time. Had to wait an age for the bags to come out, to pick mine up and take it through customs, only drop it straight off again. But at least the UA staff were apologetic about it taking a while to get the bags off.
I think there's been a significant improvement in the mid-field arrivals facility since the last time I was there. It seemed slightly better organised, and it looks like there has been some redecoration and modification. Certainly the massive baggage re-screening facility is much improved.
Through the TSA passenger screening - laptop out (where the transparent baggie that Heathrow were issuing came in handy), full shoe carnival, but it seemed to keep moving okay. Strangely, it's okay for kids to keep their shoes on. The whole thing just seems to be a bit haphazard and inconsistent at times.
The flight connection thing done with, up the escalator, and into the concourse to find a closed Red Carpet Club! Hang on, I thought that UA were out of bankruptcy. Ah, they are, and it was closed for renovation. So, off to find the other RCC, down by gate C17, which was packed to bursting, and had a queue outside. It seems that Virgin aren't the only ones with lounge overcrowding right now!
All in all, a good and enjoyable flight with UA. It does what it says on the can, and you know what to expect.
It's probably only a matter of time before they start refurbishing their fleet, which is starting to look a bit tired. The last big changes they had were the current Business class seats and First Suites in 1998/99, and refurbishing the 767-300 fleet around the same time. They have already mentioned that they plan to start a refurbishment of the 747-400 fleet, which right now only has PTVs in First and Business. I'm looking forward to seeing what that will bring.