Review: United Airlines Economy 777-200 Los Angeles to London Heathrow
UK Midlands/Wales Photos
Review: United Airlines Economy 777-200 London Heathrow to Los Angeles
YOUTUBE: United Airlines Economy 777-200 Los Angeles to London Heathrow
YOUTUBE: United Airlines Economy 777-200 London Heathrow to Los Angeles
Hello everyone, this marks the end of the UK trip and a return flight back to Los Angeles. As much as I loved the inbound flight because I love transitioning from day to night to day while flying, I loved this one even more even though it was an all day time flight. The food was much better, there were some lovely scenes of Greenland which I’ll show later, and also the overall flight felt more refreshing, and I have absolutely no clue why. But anyways, onto the review:
This flight was out of Terminal 2 at LHR, or otherwise known as “The Queen’s Terminal.” This is also the terminal where all of the Star Alliance airlines leave from. At the time of this flight, Air India operated out of Terminal 4, but it also moved to terminal 2. Anyways, LHR, no matter which terminal you fly out of, other than maybe terminal 4(just maybe), is always a mess. Terminal 2 was no exception, the security lines took ages to get through for whatever reason.But we headed to the gate and took a few pictures before getting on the plane, nothing too much pre-flight though:
Here are some pictures before heading through Security:
You can also clearly see the crowd in the photo below for check in:
But we headed to the gate and took a few pictures before getting on the plane, nothing too much pre-flight though, although here is a US Airways that now no longer exists:
And now we are back on United for a much better flight that I had with them than on the way to London.
United Airlines
LHR-LAX Boeing 777-200
I went into detail about the seats on the inbound flight, so I will not go into too much detail, but rather to summarize that the seats have a decent width, barely sufficiently suitable for me (5′ 9″ tall person). My legs definitely did fit, but it was not the most ideal for an 11-hour flight. The TV screen is a little smaller than the size of an iPad mini, so definitely a smaller screen out there. But I use the screen to watch the airshow most of the time, so this was not an issue for me by any means. However, others may not enjoy this too much.
At this point, we were taxiing to runway 27L and that would be our departure runway.
Although rainy, our departure and climb out of London was smooth for the most part. Once we cleared the clouds, the views were excellent and clean. Some of my pictures are lacking in color because of the device, and others are colorful, but in reality, it was beautiful the whole way back (it gets better).
Meal Service began about 45 minutes to an hour after departure. The first round consisted of drinks and pretzels as snacks, so while it was certainly good to be eating, yet nothing exciting. Then after all of economy class was served the snack, there was about a 10-minute hiatus, then the lunch carts were rolled around. This is where things start to pick up very quickly, and I liked it. Here is what the main meal looked like:
The salad was ok, but not as rubbery this time. There was actually some moisture there giving the impression that this was somewhat fresh, unlike my inbound flight’s salad which was dry and rubbery. But anyways, the main course was fantastic, and that’s a huge compliment for a US carrier’s food. The veggies were ok. I like vegetables, but these ones didn’t have too much taste, but I’ll attribute that to the altitude. However the chicken, potato wedges, and gravy were excellent. EXCELLET! I’m very critical of airplane food, and for US carrier standard, this was beautiful food. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Great stuff! The brownie was good too and I used some of the leftover gravy to eat the bread with, which tasted good with the bread. Overall, very well done UA, great meal on this one. Wonderfully done.
To add to the great meal, the views outside really started to pick up as we were approaching Greenland.
There was a portion where we were flying over clouds and the view was nice to look at:
And finally, here comes Greenland. My eyes were glued to the window on this one, the views were just too good to not look at. One day, I just want to be on top of those mountains overlooking the vast barren ice and ocean in all directions.
Anyways, nothing too exciting happened after crossing Greenland, but soon enough, we were reaching North America at which point I napped for a few hours, here are some pictures as we approached the continent:
Upon waking up, the pre-arrival meal service was about to begin being served, and I really enjoyed that as well:
The snack consisted of saltless chips, some mustard, chocolate, and a lovely, though not healthy, turkey and gouda sandwich. The sandwich was delicious, and I will say that it contained a lot of cheese, enough to clog my arteries I’m sure, but it tasted great, and it’s not every day you eat a heart clogging sandwich on a plane anyways. As usual on a flight coming from Europe, we passed by Las Vegas:
I believe that the small empty patch between the clouds is Las Vegas’s McCarran International Airport based on the way I know the airport looks, but it’s hard to tell from the clouds being in the way. LA was only about 40 minutes away at this point. Descent began a while after passing Las Vegas. Here below is a picture of Ontario International Airport in the general LA area, but a little more to the east. If flying out of Los Angeles, the possible airports you could fly out of are:
-Los Angeles International (LAX)
-John Wayne (SNA)
-Long Beach (LGB)
-Ontario International (ONT)
-Bob Hope Airport (BUR)
This one was Ontario. It’s a great airport to fly out of if you live near it and you’re flying to cities that aren’t too far such as Phoenix, Seattle, Dallas maybe as well. Fare can be EXTREMELY cheap out of Ontario if the timing is right.
We had a smooth touchdown on-time past 1 pm. An Air France A380 arrived from Paris CDG shortly after we did and a Delta departed on 25R as we taxied off the runway to head to Terminal 7 which is United’s main terminal at LAX.
And last photos of the trip, The first photo is a quick picture of a seat I took from the back of United’s Global First class cabin(which is now being phased out):
Here is my plane parked at one of UA’s international gates, gate 77
And lastly, A United 787 loading up for a lengthy flight to Shanghai Pudong (PVG).
Overall. I was pleasantly pleased by this United leg. It was not just one thing in particular, but rather the combo of good food, great views, and a better crew. Does this change my view on United? Absolutely not, as a matter of fact, this further supports that a good flight on a US carrier is sporadic, unlike Asian carriers where you can consistently expect great service all across the board. But I was happy with United anyways, and if I did need to fly them anywhere for a long haul and there was no other airline offering a direct flight, I would take United. Although I certainly don’t mind more flights since I love flying so much 😉. Stay tuned for the next trip reports guys; it gets much better after this I promise.