Review: United Airlines Economy A320-200 Los Angeles to San Francisco
Review: United Airlines First Class 757-300W San Francisco to Seattle
Trip Photos: Washington Photos
Review: United Airlines Economy Plus A320-200 Seattle to San Francisco
Review: United Domestic Club Lounge SFO
Review: United Airlines Economy Plus A320-200 San Francisco to Los Angeles
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Los Angeles to San Francisco
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: San Francisco to Seattle
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Seattle to San Francisco
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: San Francisco to Los Angeles
Hello Everyone, welcome back to the next round of trips for this summer, which starts with this trip to Seattle and back. Then there’s my annual India trip and back which will be another series of post, but this trip is to provide a complete review of all of United’s domestic economy (and one first class) product to measure consistency/ inconsistency of the overall experience. It all starts here in Los Angeles with an A320 flight to SF. The last time I was in this terminal was when I flew to London on United’s 777 product. A lot has changed since then. The counters look a lot slicker now, there are more self-serve kiosks, etc. But security checkpoint is the exact same as I remember it. Evenings are a busy time at LAX, especially at Tom Bradley International Terminal, and that is still the case for United. The security line was VERY LONG. Thankfully we
Evenings are a busy time at LAX, especially at Tom Bradley International Terminal, and that is still the case for United. The security line was VERY LONG. Thankfully we have TSA Precheck, so we used that line, but even that line was longer than what I expected it to be. I guess TSA has given more approvals or maybe it’s just LAX and this is always how it should be. Soon we were through and arrived at a giant window. After security, you come to this long hallway that connects all the domestic terminals at LAX. The Airside view of from the window next to the hall is just perfect:
And I had arrived late too, so I didn’t have infinite time to do whatever I wanted, but I took some photos and got some food and went to my gate, which was the closest gate to the security exit thankfully.
Below is another picture of my plane and some background activity at terminal 6.
Boarding time!!
United Airlines
LAX-SFO Airbus A320-200
This Aircraft was retrofitted with United’s new domestic first class and new (worse in my opinion) economy class. I did a full review of the seat in this flight to Denver so I won’t go into too much detail, other than to highlight that the seat is too narrow in my opinion and the leather that your back rests on is too hard. The seat itself where your rear end rests is perfectly comfortable for me, but not where your back goes. Also, there are no individual TV screens on this A320-200, but that’s alright since I never use them anyways, except to view the airshow. Also, this was a short flight of just over an hour, so there’s not big deal here.
I was hungry from the time I left home to getting to the airport, so I picked this up from inside the terminal. It was some croissant sandwich with spinach inside, and it was good, maybe even the highlight of the flight :).
Our pushback and startup were quick, and we were on our way! We had a long taxi since United is on the South side of LAX and we departed from runwau 24L which is on the north side of the airport, but we passed by a lot of traffic on the way there.
Below we see some lovely planes including a Swiss 777-300ER Heritage livery, Air France 777-300ER, ANA 777-300ER, and a Lufthansa 747-8 retro livery.
Unfortunately, after this, we parked on the taxiway and just sat there for another 20 minutes because apparently, the SFO winds were going to be super strong during the time we would land, so we were just waiting. I did enjoy the view of this blue whale though (Korean Air A380-800).
After the wait, we started our engines back up and taxied to runway 24L which would be our takeoff runway.
We took off right into the clouds and my god were the views gorgeous after climbing above. Simply amazing!
So about 30 minutes later, the crew came around with drinks and United’s “zesty ranch mix” which is perfectly alright for United.
By the time the crew finished cleaning up everything, we were ready to begin our descent into San Francisco.
At that point, the sun was slowly beginning to set as got lower and lower in the sky.
After a slightly windy approach, we had a smooth touchdown at SFO and had a 5-minute taxi to our gate.
Caught some traffic on the way there too.
Overall, for the quick and short flight that this was, I still enjoyed it. The views, the decent service, it all made the flight worthwhile. I still think this seat needs a lot of work. The back leather is too thin and hard while the seat’s leather is marginally more plush. I think otherwise the economy class product is not bad and I wouldn’t hesitate to fly it again. Although this time I will be flying in domestic first class on United next flight. So do be sure to check out that one!